Civil Protection Of Genetic Information Privacy

With the advent of biotechnology era, the genetic has become one of the hottest researchfocus for most countries. The huge commercial profits from genetic engineering drugs, genetherapy and genetic testing，promote the rapid development of gene technology, while causemany bioethics problems at the same time.Gene has the characteristics of replication, heredity and family, once the geneinformation of those who have disease genes or genetic flaws is interpreted and recorded, theymay be selectively discriminated in fields such as employment, insurance and even marriage.This problem not only involves personal privacy, but also run counter to the equal rights ofeveryone。Such fears are not groundless. Gene discrimination happened during the CivilService Exam of Foshan, Guangdong in2009, which is called “the first gene discrimination inChina”. Three examinees were rejected because they were found to carry the gene ofMediterranean anemia in their physical examination. In fact,the USA, European and otherdeveloped countries have enacted laws and regulations to standardize the use of genes, suchas America’s “Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act” and European’s privacy realtedinstructions. It’s a pity that the deserved attention of protecting personal gene informationhasn’t been paid to in our country, and people always think that gene discriminations onlyhappen in European and American countries. With the popularity of gene technologies, suchas genetic testing, gene privacy and discrimination will be more and more frequent. I thinkrelevant laws and regulations should also be established in our country to protect the privacyof personal gene information.There are totally six parts in this paper. The first part is preface, which is mainly about thepaper’s organization, background, method, value and practical significance. The second partis the basic categories of protecting genetic privacy, mainly about the discussions on thepersonal and privacy properties of gene information. In the third part, comparative law is usedto explore the enlightenment of gene information protection outside to our country. International conventions and treaties, relative laws of America an European countries arereferenced. The forth part mainly describes the status of gene information protection under theframe of current civil law in China. The fifth part is the system design of protecting geneinformation in China, making clear the right of gene information privacy and constructing thepublic supervision authority system are the two key points. The sixth part is the conclusion ofthe topic in this paper.It was said by the famous Japanese jurist Hozumi that “Law is the social force, if thesocial changes, the law must change as well”. At the same time of enjoying the benefit fromgene technologies, I hope that by discussing the special characteristics of gene information inthis paper, protection system could be established by both the legal regulations of geneprivacy and public supervision organs to respond to the challenges of biotechnologydevelopment to traditional civil law.