The Protection Of Property Rights In Personal Information

Personal information refers to the information that is related to a certain person and can be thus used for identifying the person in question. It has dual attributes, namely personality right and property right. The right confirmation of personal information should be determined by the value the information embodies: personality rights protection should be given to the information when the information safeguards personality interests of the subject; property rights protection should be given to the information when the information safeguards property interests of the subject. In an era of network and IT, the commercial values of personal information are improved. Personal information is broadly employed in businesses and is often traded, which leads to illegal transactions and abuse of personal information. Therefore, it is essentially meaningful to safeguard the property rights of personal information. Property rights of personal information refer to the rights to dispose personal information with its commercial values serving as objects. The current status of domestic and foreign legal protections for personal information has shown that every nation has legal protection only for the personality rights of personal information, without any legislation support for the property rights of personal information. On the basis of analyzing the aforementioned deficiencies, the author has made discussions in this essay on the issues such as the necessity of safeguarding the property rights of personal information, the theoretical obstacles to be encountered and the construction of property rights protection of personal information, so as to seek new approaches for safeguarding and implementing property rights of personal information in China.Besides the introduction, this essay is divided into five parts.The first part concerns personal information and the rules of verifying its rights. This part starts with the definition of personal information, and then continues with introducing the property and ownership of personal information.The second part consists of the formation and definition of property rights of personal information. This part starts with the introductions to the current development of personal information, the phenomena of personal information commercialization and the problems triggered by these phenomena. This part then goes on with the definition of property rights of personal information. The concept, definition, features, contents and attributes of property right of personal information are mainly introduced.The third part involves the current status of personal information development and legal protection. This part introduces the current status and analysis of legal protection for personal information both at home and abroad.The fourth part lists out the theoretical obstacles towering in the way of property rights of personal information, and four major theoretical obstacles are mainly introduced.The fifth part states how to construct property rights protection of personal information in China. This part begins with the necessity and safeguarding property rights of personal information and the analysis of the significance behind such protection. This part then goes on with the introduction to the realization of property rights of personal information, then continuing with the introduction to the protection for property rights of personal information in civil law in China and proposes the two-sided measures, namely active protection and explicit assistance after any rights infringement occurs. Ultimately, this part ends with the construction and guiding thoughts of legislation for safeguarding property rights of personal information in China.