Research On International Legal Issues Of Network Privacy Protection

The protection of network privacy has been a worldwide concern.Events such as the Prism scandal in 2013,the Facebook data leakage incident,and the European Court of Justice’s ruling on July 16,2020 that the Privacy Shield Agreement between Europe and the United States was invalid because the data protection of the United States could not meet the EU standards all highlight the importance of international protection of Internet privacy.The international attention to the protection of Internet privacy is relatively late,and the relevant legislation and practice of countries around the world are still relatively backward,which brings great challenges to the international protection of Internet privacy.This paper focuses on the topic of network privacy protection,comprehensively studies the research results of scholars at home and abroad and the relevant regulations of international organizations,analyzes the international legal issues of network privacy protection,and then puts forward suggestions for legal improvement of network privacy protection.In addition to the preface,this paper is divided into five parts: The first part defines the definition of network privacy,analyzes the nature of network privacy,and summarizes the subject and object of network privacy.The second part analyzes the main international legal provisions of Internet privacy protection,including the relevant provisions of the United Nations system,Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and Development,the European Union.The United Nations system’s network privacy protection has some shortcomings,such as poor framework,high fragmentation and lack of complete institutional arrangements,etc.,which cannot provide specific institutional sources for the international protection of network privacy.APEC provides the CBPR system as a platform for online privacy protection,which is conducive to promoting the establishment of cooperative relations among member countries and weakening the differences in online privacy protection.The provisions of OECD are mainly manifested as soft laws.Although they promote the legislation of network privacy protection in member countries,they fail to significantly weaken the differences of network privacy protection among countries.The EU has passed the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR),which harmonizes the network privacy protection laws in the EU region,and proposed the Binding Company Rules(BCRS)applicable to multinational companies,providing a new scheme for the network privacy protection in cross-border data flows.At present,the EU and APEC provide the most comprehensive framework for online privacy protection.The third part classifies and analyzes the international protection path of network privacy,mainly from the perspective of bilateral protection path and multilateral protection path.Bilateral protection path is mainly based on the CBPR system as a platform to promote the signing of bilateral treaties between member states.Multilateral protection paths are mainly represented by GDPR and BCRS systems.The fourth part analyzes the prominent problems in the practice of international protection of Internet privacy,including the insufficient responsibility of data controllers to protect the Internet privacy,the conflict of jurisdiction of international protection of Internet privacy and the unclear legal norms of international protection of Internet privacy.The fifth part,on the basis of drawing lessons from domestic and foreign legislative experience and academic research,puts forward suggestions to improve the problems existing in the international protection of Internet privacy.