CCTV:A Study On Balancing Public Interests And The Right Of Privacy

Stepping into information age,people gradually find that they are living surrounded by cameras.Their every-day life is recorded by CCTVs on the streets,parks and communities,or even by the cameras in the offices or classrooms.It is true that constructing public surveillance could deter criminal activities and protecting public interest,but there is more than one dimension in social context.Private affairs and public affairs coexist and overlap in public places,forming a multidimensional and dynamic social environment,which raised privacy concerns for public surveillance.Having been collected the private information,people are confused about their communication bases and forced to change their way of behaviors.The more information is collected,the greater the violation to privacy would be.Moreover,the disclosure and dissemination of private information cut out from the surveillance images aggravate people's anxiety about the protection of public privacy.Facing the conflict of rights,is there a line between public interest and the right of privacy?Will the legislation work in balancing the public interest and the right of privacy?In view of the above questions,this paper is divided into four parts:Introduction describes the social events and judicial cases of the conflict between public interest and the right of privacy,as well as the current study about the theoretical disputes.This part also provides the study object and concerns.Comments are made on the relevant theoretical researches,hoping to find a starting point.The second part mainly introduces the theoretical framework of this paper:the reasonable expectation of privacy doctrine.Discussing the standards of this doctrine,this part will examine whether it work in balancing public interest and the right of privacy.Using normative analysis method,the third part sorts out the domestic legislation on public surveillance and concludes their defects,which provides realistic point for the theory application and the path selections of relevant legislation.The last part mainly discusses the path that the "reasonable expectation of privacy”doctrine apply to China's public surveillance regulation.Through the above analysis,this paper found that in the context of public surveillance,there is a disequilibrium between the public interests and the citizen privacy interests.As a theoretical tool,the reasonable expectation of privacy doctrine is proved to be effective in balancing the public interest and the right of privacy.If reasonably used,this doctrine could guide the legal regulation of public surveillance properly and balance the public interest and the right of privacy.