Identification Of "Citizens’ Personal Information" Of The Crime Of Infringing On Citizens’ Personal Information

In an information age,big data can not only improve efficiency,but also pose a risk to the society.Therefore,it’s important to strike a balance between the freedom and the safety of information.In order to avoid information leak,the crime of Infringing on Citizens’ Personal Information has been proclaimed by the criminal law,providing that whoever provides or obtains any citizen’s personal information illegally should be investigated for criminal responsibility when the circumstances are serious.However,there has been the debate over the legal interest of the crime of violating personal information of citizens,because no agreement on the identification of citizens’ personal information has been reached in the academic world.Interpretation of Several Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases of Infringing on Citizens’ Personal Information(Judicial Interpretation)provides the concept of the personal information,regarding the attribute and quantity of the information as significant factors when judging the circumstances.Problems related to the identification of personal information of citizens are discussed in this paper by analyzing typical cases based on the Judicial Interpretation:The principles of the identification of personal information of citizens are confirmed firstly.On the one hand,the value of personal information of citizens is analyzed jurisprudentially,based on the background where the big data is applied widely and the contradictory relationship between the freedom and safety of personal information.It can be concluded that the freedom and safety of personal information are required to be taken into consideration simultaneously according to the principle of proportionality.On the other hand,the right to personal information is verified to be the legal interest of the crime by studying the background where the related legal texts were promulgated and the provision of the right to personal information in General Provisions of the Civil Law.The legal interest of the crime is supplemented based on further research on the properties and contents of the right.Secondly,the theorical foundations of the identification of personal information are established.Identifiability and recordability are regarded as two significant features of the personal information by semantic interpretation of the legal noun,which can be considered as the judgment basis of the identification of personal information.Additionally,the relationship of the confusable concepts such as personal information and data along with privacy is studied comparatively.Extra properties and contents of the right to personal information are excavated and additional features of personal information are sorted out,which can be the supplement to the identification of personal information.At last,the basic models of the identification of personal information are constructed.A ladder model is built based on the properties of personal information,in order to decide whether the personal information infringes on legal interest.Additionally,a block model is built based on the contents of personal information as the standard to determine the social harmfulness of the violation of personal information.Specific provisions of personal information in Judicial Interpretation are estimated with the aid of the models subsequently.Several suggestions are proposed to amend the provisions related to health physiological information,and the relationship between track information and accommodation information as well as the relationship between property information and transaction information is clarified.