Exploring The Protection Of Privacy In The Cross-border Flow Of Data In China

Since 2012,when we entered the era of big data,international Internet technology has developed rapidly,and its associated e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce have also entered a period of rapid development,so the cross-border flow of data has become an inevitable international development trend.In recent years,the weak security protection link of cross-border data circulation has led to leakage and misuse of user data,innocent infringement of citizens’ privacy,and serious impact on the credibility of related enterprises.How to ensure the cross-border flow of data and the security protection of data circulation is increasingly concerned by all parties,and data privacy protection has become an important part of the development of the digital economy.The consequences of privacy violations are obvious,and the global data breaches in 2015 and 2018 even led to a series of subsequent extortion and other criminal acts.The issue of privacy protection in cross-border data circulation has long been taken seriously by countries around the world.As early as the 1970 s,when the Internet was still in its infancy,there were already Western countries regulating the system of cross-border data flow,but due to the rapid development of the Internet,the progress of the establishment of the regulatory system is seriously lagging behind,up to now,within the international scope,the protection of privacy in cross-border data flow still has not formed a unified rule,the lack of global uniformity of data privacy protection system.There are two main reasons for this,the first being the nature of the right to privacy.The first is the nature of the right to privacy.The right to privacy has been extended in the new era,and countries around the world have their own different understanding of the right to privacy and cannot reach a unified consensus.The second is the issue of national interests of countries around the world.When legislating on data privacy,all countries hope to act in their own national interests,not only emphasizing the protection of privacy and data security of their citizens,but also hoping to increase the extraterritorial effect of their own laws,leading to international conflicts and jurisdictional disputes on privacy protection legislation.This paper explores how to protect the right to privacy in the cross-border flow of data from China’s perspective in the new era of the 14 th Five-Year Plan development.For various reasons,there are still many problems in the protection of privacy in cross-border data flow in China,mainly including fragmented and unsystematic legislation,weak regulatory system,lack of remedies and industry self-regulation.Therefore,China needs to solve the above problems and improve the rule system of privacy protection in cross-border data flow.From the world experience,the U.S.and the EU have started their research earlier and formed a completely different but relatively sound model,which has become a world model: the EU is accustomed to unified legislation and pays more attention to the protection of individual privacy,while the U.S.focuses on decentralized legislation and industry self-regulation and pays more attention to the free flow of data.As a major Internet country in the international community,China needs to further study and learn from the advanced experience of the EU and the US to effectively protect the right to privacy in cross-border data flow and to enhance China’s right to speak in the international community on the establishment of data privacy rules.Based on our national conditions,we should learn from the advanced experience of Europe and the United States,and on this basis,we should formulate the relevant laws and regulations and build the system in China.With this issue as the guide,this paper is divided into four parts.Chapter 1 introduces an overview of the right to privacy in the cross-border flow of data.The first section focuses on the definition of privacy,starting from the traditional definition of privacy,and analyzes the new development and extension of the definition of privacy in the context of cross-border flow of data.The second section analyzes the specific content of privacy protection in cross-border data flow,and presents the views of this paper among different perspectives.Chapter 2 mainly analyzes the current situation and problems in China for privacy protection in cross-border data flow.This chapter is divided into three sections.The first section introduces the current status of China’s privacy protection rules in cross-border data flow,including the relevant laws and regulations and standards that have been and will be introduced in China so far.The second section analyzes the problems of privacy protection in cross-border data flow in China,including the fragmented legislation,unsystematic rules and the lack of international discourse;the inadequate regulatory system;the inadequate remedy and penalty system;and the low degree of industry self-regulation.The third section is a summary of this chapter.Chapter 3,mainly analyzes the extraterritorial experience of privacy protection in cross-border data flow,and the extraterritorial experience in this chapter is mainly based on the EU and the US.The first section analyzes the latest research results of the EU on this issue,and examines the construction of the relevant legal system and advanced institutional rules of the EU based on the current problems in China,mainly including the extraterritorial effects of the system,regulation,penalties and remedies,as well as the updated “consent” rule and the still controversial data portability provisions.The second section analyzes the development and advanced experience of the U.S.in protecting privacy in cross-border data flow,and examines the content and protection model of the U.S.system,including the construction of the U.S.legal system,the industry self-regulation model,the extraterritorial effects of the system,and the regulatory,penalty and remedy system.In Chapter 4,based on the problems that need to be solved in China as presented in Chapter 2 and the advanced institutional experience of the EU and the US as analyzed in Chapter 3,we propose the improvement of the relevant institutional rules for the protection of privacy in cross-border data flow in China.The main proposals include the construction and improvement of the domestic system after learning from the advanced experience of Europe and the United States,and the further enhancement and improvement of the system’s extraterritorial effectiveness,regulation,punishment and remedy system,so as to enhance the level of domestic protection and build an institutional system suitable for China’s national conditions.At the same time,through active participation in international exchanges and cooperation,fully combine the relevant provisions of Europe and the United States to propose our rules and standards,and enhance China’s right to speak in the formulation of new international rules.In the digital era of the Internet,China needs to fully guarantee the protection of privacy in the cross-border flow of data in order to keep pace with the development of new industries,substantially reduce the incidence and impact of privacy infringement worldwide,and escort the development of China’s new Internet industries,e-commerce and international trade.