Discussion On The Judgment Standards Of Privacy Infringement Under Internet Environment

Due to the development of Internet technology and the evolution of privacy concept,the relationship between privacy and personal information becomes more complicated than ever before.As a result,it is increasingly more difficult to delimit the scope of the object of privacy and its legal protection standards.However,some Chinese researchers hold the opinion that personal information should be protected as part of the object of privacy right,which may lead to many problems in privacy right relief,such as conflict between personal privacy and public interest,shortage of judicial resources,and obstruction of the use of new technologies.Besides,there has not been unified legislative protection of privacy right in China,which means that the connotation and extension of privacy are not clear enough.This results in the unclear judgment standards of privacy infringement and differences in judicial adjudication in the Internet age.Therefore,it is necessary to re-examine the object and legal protection rules of privacy under new media environment.This study mainly adopts case analysis method.214 civil judgment documents of Internet privacy infringement cases on the website of “PKULAW” are selected,organized and analyzed.Analysis dimensions include the identity of plaintiff and defendant,plaintiff's claims,defendant's defenses,private matters and whether they are recognized as the object of privacy,infringement behaviors,doctrine of liability fixation,distribution of evidential burden,legal basis of judgment and specific judgment opinions of the court,etc.Based on the analysis work,this study tries to summarize the content and form of privacy objects and discuss the core elements of the judgment of privacy infringement,which mainly include the determination of specific infringement behaviors of different subjects and the typical application of disclaimer subjects in the new media environment.The scope of privacy and personal information do not coincide but intersect.Future legislation should make a strict distinction between them.Personal information related to human dignity should be included in the scope of legal privacy.Individual personal information that has nothing to do with human dignity should not be classified into privacy.However,the collection of personal information composed of identity identification information and descriptive information should be recognized as “integrative privacy information” and protected by privacy laws.Information related to private life should be identified as privacy.If an individual's private life is closely related to his criminal behaviors,such private information should not be protected by law.When it comes to one's private life related to the general illegal behaviors of the privacy subject,to identify whether the disclosure of such information infringes privacy right,the damage consequences caused by the anomie behavior of the private subject,the proof strength of the injured party or the weakling party evidencing the illegal behavior of the subject,the overall tolerance degrees of the public directing the illegal behavior and whether the disclosure of the private information is necessary for the vulnerable party to safeguard rights should all be taken into consideration.If the individual's private life is only related to his moral fault activities,such private information should be classified into the category of privacy.The principle of fault liability should be applied to the accountability of privacy infringement of general network users and other subjects.To identify whether the activities that obtain and preserve others' privacy information but do not spread them to the non-specific third party infringes privacy,judges should draw lessons from the standard of reasonable person and consider the identity of the privacy subjects and the infringers,the state of the infringement,the nature of privacy information,etc.There is basically no privacy between husband and wife,but the privacy should only be known by these two people.In the privacy infringement cases caused by the publication of judicial documents,the determination of direct infringement should be based on whether the technical treatment of judicial documents is adopted.Principle of fault liability is generally applicable to the privacy infringement of Internet service providers,but the fault-presuming principle should be applied to the infringement of Internet products service providers.The judgment standard of “knowingly” should be applied to the negligent infringement of network service providers.Under the new media environment,“information has been disclosed” and “opening information in the public interest” are special exemptions.“Information has been disclosed” should not be applied as an exemption if the privacy that has been diffused improperly is merely known by a fraction people in one's daily life.To identify whether the disclosure of privacy related to the subjects of the social events infringes privacy right when journalists report public events,judges should strictly distinguish whether the privacy information involved in the case is related to social and public interest,and consider whether the subject's private information involved in the report is necessary and the proportion of disclosure content in the whole report.The disclosure of private information of specific individuals in response to public health emergencies can be exempted from infringement liability,but information disclosure should be kept in a certain extent.