| Compared to 2011,the number of underage Internet users has increased nearly tenfold in ten years.The issue of underage internet use is a growing public concern.In recent years,there have been a number of cases of minors committing suicide worldwide due to indecent photos or online verbal violence,most of which were committed by minors.Whether or not these excessive comments and indecent photos were posted on the internet by minors themselves does not change the fact that the privacy of minors’ lives has been compromised.Once this personal information is known to the public,minors are simply not able to cope with the mental pressure of the public opinion that swarms around them.Therefore,the state and society should focus on this issue to prevent minors from being harmed by their inappropriate online behaviour.The purpose of this article is to summarise the current legislative and judicial status and problems of minors’ online privacy rights in China,analyse and draw on foreign legislative norms,and consider how to regulate minors’ online privacy rights in China.It is hoped that this paper will provide concrete and actionable suggestions for the construction of the right to privacy of minors on the Internet in China.This paper is divided into four specific parts.In the first part,it explores why it is necessary to provide special protection for minors’ online privacy,and compares the current domestic relevant research literature to conclude the necessity and urgency of providing online privacy protection for this special group of minors.In the second part,through a detailed review of the current legislative and judicial status of the online privacy rights of minors in China,it can be seen that the current problems of the online privacy protection system for minors in China are mainly limited to the subject of tort liability,principles of imputation,exclusion of liability,remedies,and the possibility of establishing the right of minors to be forgotten.In the third part,the legislative background,main contents and implementation effects of the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act are analysed to learn from its experience in the protection of minors’ online privacy.Taking the EU General Data Protection Regulation as an example,it focuses on the development and practice process of the right to be forgotten in the EU.In the fourth part,in order to further protect the online privacy of minors in China,it is suggested that the existing legislation should be refined,the civil remedy procedures and remedies for infringement of the online privacy of minors should be improved,and the exclusion of liability should be reasonably adjusted to better protect the online privacy of minors in China. |
