Big Data, Data Privacy And Right To Be Forgotten: A Comparative Approach

In the era big data, individual lives which contain much private information are heavily affected by the data industry. We’ve witnessed a process that life digitalisation makes the data and privacy form an ever closing relationship, creating a new promising field called ‘data privacy’. The big data practices results in a default shift in privacy that fails the traditional privacy protection to give an effective response to technological challenges. It is thus necessary to build a brand new mechanism.Starting from the 21 st century, the point of discussion has shifted from the freedom of expression to the data protection and privacy. It becomes increasingly critical to find a way out to deal with data privacy issues. Right to be Forgotten(RTBF) is proposed to tackle with the data crisis. This newly proposed right is admittedly promising, but also under criticism as a major threat to the free speech in the following ten years.As a standard setter, Europe makes an initial effort to protect the data privacy of citizens and urges other countries to follow suit. It is turned out, however, that they have diverse preference on the European proposal. When the landmark case relating the Right to be forgotten is released, it has drawn great attention from Chinese scholars and most of them on their way to justify the transplantation of this right to the legal system of China. This article attempts to explore the potential mechanism on the protection of data privacy in the era of big data, and place emphasis on the critical review of the right to be forgotten.In the introduction, it offers overview of why right to be forgotten is proposed. A summary of relevant literature is also provided. Chapter two gives a basic description of the right and what shall we know about the subject and object of this right. Chapter 3 analyses the theoretical basic of right to be forgotten. It describes the development of data privacy theories and discusses three main theoretical models. Chapter 4 explains the impact of this right to the journalism. It analyses the underlying conflict between RTBF and data privacy, and provides a balance approach which is the core of right application. In the chapter 5 contains a comparative study of RTBF. It attempts to critically analyses the European version of the right and explore possible approach to inject the right into Chinese legal systems. In the last chapter is the brief conclusion.