Research On Civil Law Protection Of Personal Information

With the development of smart devices and storage technology, personal information can be easily accessed and handled. The information users can maximize the utility of personal information with data processing technology. However, as information becomes a new-type productive form, the excavation applications of personal information become a great threat to the personal dignity and freedom. Different from the beginning of twentieth Century,with the application of cloud computing and data processing technology, the contradiction between protection and commercial use of personal information, has gone beyond personal information protection and the functions of the government play the contradiction and become the main contradiction which hinder social development and progress, nowadays, countries are trying to solve this main contradiction through amendments to the Personal Information Protection Law. As the protection and use of personal information involves the interests of both the info-owner and the users, conflicts of interest have arisen when their interests are not consistent. Civil law is a tool of social governance which could organize social order through setting corresponding coordination rules to specific type of conflict of interest relations. Consequently, civil law framework must be built from the perspective of balancing the interests, serve the interests of all parties, promote the orderly flow of personal information, and give enough protection to the personal dignity and freedom of the individual under the premise of not breaking the commercial value of information. As Locke said, the most effective means to eliminate the conflict between freedom and freedom is to delineate their boundaries. Therefore, boundary of protection and use of personal information must be clear and free. In accordance with the statute law countries tradition, the way to clear the boundaries of freedom is to clearly define corresponding civil rights, only in this way, subject of obligation canhave clear expectations for their actions and avoid infringing upon the rights of subject of right. Personal information in many aspects involves records of personal data or even confidential information, the protection of personal information is very important to the realization of personal dignity and freedom of the info-owner. With an endless stream of personal information leakage, trade events, protection of personal information is more and more urgent. Only establishment of the right system, is the most appropriate response to the legitimate demands of the info-owners. In the process of right system construction, we must make it clear that, what position does the right of info-owners have to their personal information belong to in the existing system of rights, whether it conflicts or overlaps with the existing rights? Although many countries use the right of privacy to protect personal information, but in the legal system of our country, the way is not appropriate. Many of the judicial practice still use name right, reputation right to protect personal information, but there are differences between the specific right of personality such as the right of reputation, and the right of personal information, when concurrence of rights is absent, the personality right protection rules is hard to apply. In the law system of our country, general personality right does not have the function of law making, which covering all the dignity and freedom of abstract personality interests, and specific personality right are internal conflicts. Therefore, the German law system of protecting the right of general personality isn’t quite suitable. While personal information is extremely rich in content, but it has the characteristic of recognition, and the info-owners’ need for personal information protection are consistent, these factors makes personal information right can be a specific right of personality with very clear contents. Personal information protection system of civil liability shall include tort liability, breach of contract responsibility and the return of unjust enrichment responsibility, but in the effect of practicing, liability for breach of contract, unjust enrichment return liability is limited, in the judicial practice almost no contract relation and the benefit as the foundation of rightof claim of the case. Because the property value of a single information is very limited and information users collect personal information mostly through the hidden technology. Therefore, the liability for breach of contract and unjust enrichment system is difficult to have the scope of application. Personal information right is an independent concrete personality right, in our country current personality right protection system, Tort Liability Law plays an important and irreplaceable role. Although there is no rule about the personal information right remedy in China’s tort liability law, but in judicial practice, most cases use tort law to protect the right of personal information, the consistency of the legislative concept of the tort liability law makes the application become possible.