Research On The Tort Liability Of Right To Personal Information

Personal information means the materials associated with a particular person,which can be identified and distinguished from others. Basically, it refers to names,phone numbers, home address, spending power and hobbies. In the age of Internet,the fast information transmission brings convenience to daily life, but it also bringschallenges to the security of personal information. Because the personal informationrepresents individual characteristics and is very close to individual, the personalityindicated by the personal information often plays a key role in communication inunacquainted society. Therefore, improperly collecting, using and processing other’spersonal information will make the freedom of one person limited, the property andinterests detracted and even personal security threatened. So these behaviors shouldbe limited by law.Given the potential risk in Internet, the uncertainty of personal informationwould be increased, leading to more infringement act. For example, illegallycollecting, trafficking, and providing personal information to others; forciblycollecting personal information of the user through applications of mobile phone. Theroot cause is that the protection of personal information is replaced by the protectionof privacy and reputation in our national law. The law works only after emergingactual damages. However, the obligation of the persons who collect, use and processpersonal information is not stipulated. So in the transmission of personal information,the infringement act can not be prevented and relieved. Moreover, the personalinformation may be used for more serious infringement act and crime. This will makethe personal dignity, freedom and independence always in danger. However,corresponding punishment is lacked and the risk of the infringement act is very low,which also makes the infringement act hardly forbidden.At present, personal information still is not a defined right in our country.Relevant legal provisions are distributed dispersedly in laws and regulations of eachdepartment and do not forms a unified legal instrument. This results in the drawback of protecting personal information. In this paper, we propose that the right of personalinformation should be protected by law as a defined personal right. The legal issuesabout the liability for tort of personal information are investigated and discussedsystematically. About the relief of personal information, some scholars have proposedto use the quasi real right to protect, but the theory and practice in China are still inprocessing. Tort Liability Act has been passed in our country, the theory and judicialpractice have been accumulated to a certain degree. Therefore the most feasible wayto solve the problem is to put the protection of personal information into the TortLaw.Firstly, the protected object of the right of personal information is definedthrough analyzing the concept of the personal information and the features of theright of personal information. After that, we objectively present the shortage ofcurrent law on the protection of personal information in terms of the research on thetypes of infringement subjects, the judging standards of the tortious liability and thepresent situation of protecting personal information based on the current law. Finallywe provide some ideas and suggestions for the perfection of the tort liability onpersonal information.