On Privacy Protection For Covid-19 Close Contact:A Sino-US Comparative Study

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19,China has adopted the effective epidemic prevention policy and method and has survived the outbreak in the past few months.In the following period,the overall result of the prevention is satisfactory,even though a few cases have been reported.However,the privacy of the Covid-19 close contact has been unlawfully disclosed,some of which even causes serious consequences and severe damages to the close contacts and their family.Even so,at present,there is no well-established mechanism to protect the privacy of the close contacts,and the court has not yet announced or tried the privacy infringement disputes.The close contacts in similar cases do not know how to seek relief.At the same time,the United States of America has also been ravaged by Covid-19,but the difference is that the American people are more radical in maintaining their privacy.In a short time,relevant cases have been published on the mainstream legal database.The reason behind this is that the development of privacy in the United States is earlier and covers many aspects.Privacy protection mechanisms and judicial relief can provide solid legal support for different cases regarding privacy disputes.In particular,the theory of reasonable expectations to privacy originated from the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution(Prohibition of illegal search and seizure)has played an important role in guiding the trial in criminal,administrative,and civil privacy-related litigation.In addition,many legislation and common law in the United States have made corresponding protection and restrictions on the right to privacy.Although there are a lot of privacy-related cases in China in the past decades,due to the lack of specific,detailed,and clear laws and regulations,and the late start of theoretical research on the issue of privacy,the relevant cases often do not have very detailed reasoning in the trial.Most of the cases are the conclusions drawn by the judges after the inner evaluation of evidence,and the judges’discretion is very high,providing little guidance.To a certain extent,the Civil Code alleviates the above problems:Chapter VI privacy and personal information protection of the fourth part of the personality rights makes an overview of the citizens’privacy,private information,and personal information,which fills the loopholes in the protection of privacy in legislation.However,it is still up to the Supreme Court to make a detailed interpretation of the relevant laws and regulations.However,it takes a long time for the above-mentioned legislation,cases,and judicial interpretation to be issued.In this process,how to protect the privacy of a large number of close contacts of Covid-19 is still a lingering problem.In order to find the legal basis for the relief and the analysis of specific practice for the Covid-19 close contacts after the illegal disclosure of privacy rights,this paper adopts a comparative research method,combining Covid-19 and public health emergencies,and analyzes key laws,regulations,and cases in China regarding privacy rights.Then,it analyzes the connotation of American privacy and relevant laws and regulations as well as judicial precedents.Specifically,this paper studies the constitutional basis of the right to privacy in the United States mainly analyzes the legal norms related to the right to privacy established by the Fourth Amendment,the Fifth Amendment,and the Fourteenth Amendment;then,the paper will sort out the relevant laws and regulations at the federal level of the United States;then,this paper analyzes the protection of the right to privacy in the common law of the United States.Limitations on privacy are discussed in the following two aspects:the general restrictions and the right of the public to know privacy.A detailed analysis of the lawsuits brought by US citizens to privacy damages is also presented.Finally,combined with the Covid-19 facts,this paper makes suggestions on possible legislative documents in the future and makes legal analysis according to the incidents of infringement of privacy of Covid-19 patients in China,so as to provide some suggestions for potential litigation.The Covid-19 close contacts may file the lawsuit using the reasoning provided by this paper.Based on the latest legal documents,rooted in the rich legal concept of privacy,this paper carefully refers to the mature legal experience of the foreign jurisdiction,combining with the major current events,demonstrating and analyzing the practical pain points,and puts forward reasonable suggestions,which has certain innovation and practicability.