On The Object Of The Crime Relating To Citizens’ Personal Information

The Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (Ⅶ) provides the charges of illegal sale and provision of citizens’ personal information and of illegal access to citizens’ personal information. While the related articles stipulate that the object of these two charges is "the citizens ’personal information", they do not define the term of "citizens’ personal information" which may not only cause disputes in theory, but also foreseeable difficulties in judicial practices on the exact scopes of the term. Different understandings of judges towards the term would result in different sentences in similar cases and lead to injustice. Clear definition of the term is the premise to make punishment fits the crime as well as the request of the principle of legality. Obviously, there are theoretical and practical necessities to define the connotation and denotation of "the citizens’ personal information".In author’s opinion, we shall adopt the identity recognition when it comes to the definition of crime object. In other words, the nature of citizens’ personal information should be summarized first and then some typical forms should be provided. The scope of rights holders should be limited to the living people. In other words, the dead shall be excluded. Meanwhile, when defining the object, the author reckons that besides the experience of extraterritorial legislation, the means of interpretation which include grammatical, historical and teleological interpretation should also be considered. As for its legal nature, the author recommends that we shall reap the benefits of the personality right concept as well as the information right and establish separate protecting mode for it to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of rights holders. When deciding whether the information involved in the case is the proper criminal object, we should do comprehensive surveys. In order to achieve the balance between the protection of human rights and the free flow of information, we had better adhere to the principle of protecting the security and the principle of freedom of information as well as the principle of information sharing. In terms of the judicial ascertainment standard, the neutral viewpoint is much more reasonable which considers the individual wishes and the value of the involved information simultaneously.Only in virtue of the existing achievements in theory can we fill the legal loophole. For the determination of "the citizens’ personal information" in judicial practice, we should regard the identifiable standard as the foundation of classification to determine whether the information involved is the appropriate criminal object and gradually build up the scientific ascertainment system of "the citizens’ personal information".