A Study On Civil Legal Issues Of Children’s Personal Information Protection

Today,the special protection of children’s personal information has become an urgent issue in the era of big data because of personal information abuse and privacy data leakage.Children are in a special period of growing and immature minds,they lack of proper understanding of things what makes their rights and interests more vulnerable to be attacked from online.As a special group,they needs special protection in various fields,it is necessary to carry out a more targeted institutional design for the protection of children’s personal information at the legal level.First of all,the existing legal norms in China define the concept of "children" as minors under the age of fourteen,and do not set special rules for the protection of their personal information,but apply all the rules for the handling of "personal sensitive information" in the personal information of adults,and only add the Parental informed consent to this rule.This is in addition to the additional requirement of obtaining the Parental informed consent.However,when children’s general information and sensitive information are subject to the same level of protection rules,the relatively sensitive information cannot be effectively protected.If we take the current classification of personal information as a reference,and classify children’s personal information into two levels based on the degree of identification of children’s identity and information that can identify children,and on this basis distinguish the duty of care of network operators for different levels of children’s information,we will achieve better protection of children’s personal information.Second,while applying the Parental informed consent to protect children’s personal information,attention should be paid to the issue of conflict between the Parental informed consent and the interests of children.Parents often violate children’s right to participate in information and privacy while making decisions on behalf of children,which to a certain extent creates an imbalance between information protection and children’s interests.Children’s ability levels are constantly evolving,and strict Parental informed consent can lead to rigidity in the consent system.In contrast,the use of dynamic consent,which takes into account individual differences and establishes a level testing mechanism to appropriately increase children’s information self-determination with guardian consent,is more consistent with the principle of maximizing children’s interests.Finally,network operators cannot avoid the duty of care regarding children’s personal information.First,network operators should fulfill the obligation to review the riskiness of self-disclosed information.When handling children’s information,self-disclosed information cannot be set as an "exception with authorized consent" through privacy policies.Prior assessment is required,and the "consent exception" may be applied to low-risk information,but not to high-risk information.Secondly,network operators should also fulfill the obligation of continuous management of children’s accounts,and complete the protection of children’s personal safety in the whole process of information flow by hiding sensitive information displayed in children’s accounts and improving the obligation of timely blocking when children’s information involves dangerous situations.