Study On The Legal Protection Of Privacy In China

With the basic spirit to protect citizen’s freedom and personality, privacy is theembodiment of the respect and protection of individual rights and itslevel of protection is also one of the important criteria to measure the social stabilityand harmony. It should be taken seriously by the legislature, the judiciary andindividual so that the rights of people can get protection effectively. Based on theserious disputes concerning the right of privacy in reporting entertainment news from2014to early2015, this thesis first intends to make a summary about the privacyright’s status quo and its problems in theory, legislative and judicial practice in China,and make suggestions on how to overcome these problems.The privacy continuously has aroused people’s concern since primitive societyand it is endowed with different connotations at different time, which can embody thetrace of history. The sense of individual rights is improving constantly and privacyright gradually gets into various fields due to the continuous satisfaction of materialneeds in recent years. However, there is no unified theory or concrete concept inlegislation about privacy right, so it is imperative to combine various scholars’ viewsto consider the value of privacy on the object and content of rights should be adopteda more generalized interpretation, so that the individual dignity can be fullyguaranteed.China’s constitution, civil law and criminal law, criminal procedure law andother laws have set up certain articles on privacy right more or less, which plays anirreplaceable role in protecting citizen’s right of privacy. It is inevitably that there isno law to follow in trial because of its late start and low starting point as well as toogeneral articles. Furthermore, the behaviors of invasion of privacy havechanged tremendously over the years, which presents the characteristics of tortdiversification, infringement object expanded, diversification of infringement, worseconsequences of violations and so on. Hence, the contradiction between existing legalprovisions and citizen’s needs of privacy protection is intensified dramatically.Judicial organizations generally adopt strict requirements to identify the infringement of privacy case, and the methods of privacy tort liability are also very limited, whichmake the infringed party’s interests cannot get due compensation. In addition, thereare many other problems in protecting citizen’s privacy right, such as the difficult ofbearing the burden of proof, of expanding the scope of protection, of differentiatingfrom other rights, of constructing the standard trial and so on.The status quo of legislative and judicial poses challenges for privacy protectionin our country at present. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the privacy legislationconstantly under the guidance of the constitution and the basis of civil law. Only inthis way can we make a clear definition of privacy, stipulate the contents of theprivacy infringement responsibility, methods of bearing liability and its exemptions.Moreover, it also needs to add some articles about how to deal with violating theprivacy rights of individuals in special field in order to adapt to the development ofthe times, and take the provisions of administrative and criminal procedural law assupplement for the protection of privacy right, which will provide a morecomprehensive legal basis for the whole society. For judicial authority, it needs tounify the judicial standard, make the norms of proof system, to restrict the discretionof the judge. It is also necessary to pay more attention to strengthen the professionalethics and self-discipline in the special fields by providing technical support,material guarantee and effective guidance. For citizens, it needs to enhance theirawareness of the importance of privacy and maintain sensitivity to the privacy andrespect others’ privacy, and protect their privacy according to law, which can protectcitizen’s privacy right from attack effectively. The author believes that with thedevelopment and improvement of legislative, judicial, self-discipline and citizen’sprivacy concept, privacy right will get better protection.