Conflict And Balance Between Workers' Personal Information Protection And Employers' Right To Kno

In recent years,with the rapid improvement of information technology,we have been constantly exposed to the danger of personal information being accessed,used,or even leaked.The protection of employees’ personal information is under the time and space of the workplace and based on the subordinate characteristics of the labor relationship,it is more vulnerable to the information grabbing behavior of the employer.Although China’s laws have provided for certain specific infringements of personal information,it is difficult to reconcile the conflict between the protection of employees’ personal information and the employer’s right to know because it does not take into account the special nature of the labor relationship.As the number of conflicts between employers and employees in this area has gradually increased in recent years,we must pay attention to the guiding role of legal adjustment principles in such conflicts,not only to reasonably apply legal principles in adjudicating infringements after the fact but also to regulate beforehand with the guidance of adjustment principles,to improve the complete process from collection to deletion of personal information of employees by enterprises,to clarify the rights and obligations of both employers and employees and the boundaries of their rights.The first chapter has two parts,aiming to reflect the current situation of the conflict between the protection of employees’ personal information and the employer’s right to know.The first part focuses on the traditional forms of conflict of rights reflected in judicial decisions and the rules of adjudication.The author divides such conflicts in judicial practice into three stages according to the time of occurrence,including the acquisition of personal information not directly related to the job at the recruitment stage;the monitoring by the employer in the form of video and email surveillance at the performance stage;and the leakage of employee’ personal information at the termination stage.Secondly,this part will also explain the new forms of conflicts of rights that have not been well-known to the employees and the public due to the concealment of the methods.These conflicts may infringe on the privacy of employees and may also lead to aggravation of employment discrimination and other problems.We should pay attention to this and implement regulations as soon as possible.The second part of the analysis focuses on the reasons for the conflict between the protection of employees’ personal information and the employer’s right to know.Compared to the protection of personal information of general subjects,employees are more likely to be restricted in the protection of their personal information because they need to waive some of their rights in order to satisfy the employer’s right to be reasonably informed.The two rights are in a trade-off relationship,if there is no regulation,it is very easy to cause conflicts.The second chapter has two parts,aiming to improve the principles of legal regulation of the conflict between the protection of employees’ personal information and the employer’s right to know.The first part first analyzes the problems existing in the judicial application of the principles of personal information processing that have been put forward.The second part then proposes suggestions for the improvement of the legal adjustment principles based on the existing problems.Chapters 3 and 4 focus on the construction of specific conflict regulation mechanisms under the guidance of legal principles,taking into account the characteristics of conflicting rights at different stages of labor relations,so as to serve the purpose of reducing the number of conflicts and regulating them ex-ante,and also to prevent employees from being disadvantaged and being unable to reasonably defend their rights in ex-post remedies.In Chapter 3,the focus is on the employer’s access to various information on employees during the recruitment stage.In order to reasonably regulate the conflict of rights,the author suggests that the employer should establish a complete process for accessing the information on job seekers in practice,making it clear that employees have the obligation to truthfully explain themselves under special circumstances and the right to object to unreasonable treatment by the employer,and that the employer should also assume the obligation to maintain information security and to audit it The fourth chapter focuses on the boundaries of the employer’s right to know through various management methods at the performance stage and aims to maximize the value of “informed consent” and enrich the personal information protection system of employees so that they have the ability to fight against employers and reduce the powerlessness in the face of personal information and privacy being handled.In the termination stage,the conflict is mainly focused on the leakage of employees’ personal information,so in this stage,the employer’s duty of safekeeping needs to be the focus of attention.In addition,if the application of the above principles still cannot avoid the conflict,it involves the judgment of individual cases,at this time,the core of the adjudication is the principle of necessary limits.The author combined the experience of extraterritorial law to propose the adjudication of typical conflict situations,including the acquisition of irrelevant information in the job search stage and the prevalence of video surveillance,cell phone positioning,and computer background monitoring in the performance stage.Although the conflict between the protection of employees’ personal information and the employer’s right to know cannot be eliminated,it can be adjusted by law to reduce the number of conflicts,so as to build a more harmonious labor-management relationship,and at the same time avoid the embarrassing situation that it is difficult for employees to defend their rights afterward.With the gradual attention to such issues at home and abroad,I believe that such conflicts will be more properly and reasonably resolved.