Research On The Protection Of Personal Information By Private Law

Since the emergence of human society, personal information which can be used to identify certain people has been collected in different levels for social management or interaction. But protection for personal information hadn’t been valued enough by law before the information age, due to technical constraints. Collection, storage and use of personal information have become very convenient now in the information age. Meanwhile, under the conditions of market economy, the commercial value contained in personal information is gradually being excavated. Driven by interests, the abuse of personal information is getting worse off, which has seriously affected people’s peaceful life, even resulted in property or personal damages. And the protection for right of personal information has thus become a new task in information age.At present, many countries around the world represented by the USA and EU have developed comprehensive mechanisms for protection for the right of personal information. In China, related laws are mostly scattered in different sectors at different levels of laws and regulations. There is a lack of a special code of protection for the right of personal information and a comprehensive protection mechanism. And theoretical study on rights of personal information isn’t mature yet, as neither the title, nature, nor the selection of protection mode is conclusive.Though protection for the right of personal information is related to civil, criminal and administrative departments of law, the right of personal information is, essentially a kind of private right, which reflects personal interests. Thus, first of all we need to improve the private protection for the right of personal information. This paper is divided into five parts to discuss the private protection for the right of personal information from the perspective of private law. Part one is the introduction to lead the topic of the paper and elaboration of approaches and methods of the study. Part two contains the basic problems as the definition of the right of personal information, including the concept and types of personal information and the right of personal information, as well as their difference from privacy. Part three is the analysis of the nature of the right of personal information. Essentially, the right of personal information is a kind of personality right. However, in the market economy and information age, it reflects some characteristics of property rights as well. Part four is about the comparative study on protection modes of the right of personal information between common law system and continental law system. Based on that, we comparatively analyzed the differences, advantages and disadvantages of the two modes and put forward the ideal choice of our country. Part five is about the system design of the right of personal information. We made some suggestions on how to improve the private protection system for the right of personal information in China, from aspects as legislative orientation, basic connotation and system construction.