Clarifying The Criminal Law's Protective Scope Of The Citizens' Personal Information

We have already stepped into the network information age at present,citizens'personal information have been violated frequently in social life,however,the legal protection of citizens' personal information is still not perfect.The legal connotation of personal information of citizens and violations of the severity of the circumstances are not fully clear,and the scope of criminal law to protect citizens' personal information is still vague,resulting in qualitative differences in the judgment of crime and non-crime about the violation of citizens' personal information cases in the judicial practice.Thus it is a very important issue to determine the criminal law's protective scope of the citizens' personal information.This paper intends to clarify the criminal law's protective scope of citizens' personal information scientifically and rationally,the main body of the article is divided into four parts:The first part mainly defines personal information in the legal sense.Citizens'personal information is not only a very broad concept which exists in legal disciplines,to define the legal attributes of personal information under law perspective,is the logical premise of defining the criminal law's protective scope of personal information correctly.There are many theories argument about how to define the legal attributes of personal information,such as the theory of the ownership of the object,the theory of the basic human rights,the theory of privacy object,the theory of the dual objects of personality and property rights and the theory of personality rights etc.The basic view of this article is that it will be more appropriate to adopt the theory of personality rights when we define the legal attributes of personal information.The second part focuses on the establishment of macro-criminal protection of personal information reference range,that is to follow the principles such as the equilibrium principle of tolerance of criminal law and criminal penalties necessity,the coordination principle of protecting the citizens' individual rights and the flow of information,the principle of legal interest protection as a guide,and then grasp the criminal law protection of citizens' personal information at the specific micro level.the equilibrium principle of tolerance of criminal law and criminal penalties necessity requires the criminal law's protective scope of citizens' personal information must be properly controlled,and only bring personal information which worth protecting by the criminal law into them can we limit the punishment scope of violating citizens'personal information crimes reasonably.The coordination principle of protecting the citizens' individual rights and the flow of information requires the criminal law protect the citizens' information security and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of citizens from abuse,at the same time need to promote the normal and reasonable flow of citizens' personal information.The principle of legal interest protection requires to combine the legal interest of violating citizens' personal information crime when determining the criminal law's protective scope of citizens'personal information.The third part,focused on the micro-level understanding of "personal" and"information" in criminal law's protection of citizens' personal information.Firstly,the understanding of "personal" in the criminal law's protection of citizens' personal information,it should be considered:first,the subject should include the deceased,so the personal information of the deceased should be included in the scope of criminal law's protection;second,the infant can not be the subject of personal information,but the infant information may regarded as his mother's personal information to be protected;third,the personal information subject should not be limited to people with People's Republic of China nationality,the information of non-Chinese citizens are also belong to the scope of personal information protection;Fourth,the subject does not include the legal person,but if the information contained in the corporate legal representative or other senior management personnel and the performance of their duties not related to personal information,which should be classified as part of the criminal law's protective scope of citizens' personal information.Secondly,the understanding of "information" in the criminal law's protection of citizens' personal information,there are the theory of generalization,the extreme narrow theory,the restrictive theory,the compromise theory and the intelligible theory etc.The basic standpoint of this paper is advocated the new restrictive theory,that is to abandon the unreasonable points of view in original restrictive theory,and at the same time to clarify how to limit the criminal law to protect citizens' personal information.The fourth part,focus on the distinction between the criminal law's protective scope of citizens' personal information and that of the Constitution,civil law and administrative law.The constitutional protective scope of the citizens' personal information is a macroscopic sense with height abstract;and civil law protection of personal information mainly through the protection of privacy right and other personality rights;In administrative law to protect the citizens' personal information is closely associated with the government departments collect and use citizens' personal information and government information publication.In conclusion,to make sense of the protective scope of the citizens' personal information in different jurisdictions,it can make criminal law's protective scope of citizens' personal information to be more clear.