Research On Protection Of Personal Credit Information Rights And Interests

Personal credit information,as an important measure for assessing the credit status,economic strength,and performance willingness of civil subjects,is generally evaluated objectively by professional credit reporting agencies based on strict standards,rather than by the general public.The existence of a record of breach of trust will seriously hinder individuals from fully utilizing their credit information,thereby affecting their realization of property interests and potentially leading to economic loss compensation.The protection of personal credit information is inseparable from the support of credit rights.Although the implementation of the Civil Code on January 1,2021,emphasizes the personality attributes and directly incorporates credit information into the scope of protection of the right to reputation,placing it in the "right to reputation" chapter,in practice,when judges handle cases of credit information infringement disputes,they often classify them as reputation disputes and frequently reject claims for economic losses and consolation payments based on reasons such as "no decrease in social public evaluation," "no fabrication of facts," and "after investigation." Legally speaking,credit is the trust and evaluation that civil subjects earn in society through honesty,trustworthiness,and economic performance.Although there are different opinions on whether credit rights are personality rights,property rights,or mixed rights in theory and judicial practice in our country,a consensus has been formed to uphold credit rights as civil rights.This article believes that credit rights have both property and personality attributes and should receive corresponding legal protection to promote the benign cycle of social and economic life.Although the protection objects of the right to reputation and credit rights overlap,there are fundamental differences in nature,purpose,and effect between the two.The right to reputation focuses on protecting personal qualities,reputation,and abilities,mainly by preventing others from fabricating facts and infringing on them,and using spiritual damages as a remedy.In contrast,credit rights focus more on individuals’ active use of credit to create wealth,as reflected in economic evaluations.The differences between the two are obvious.To more effectively protect the rights and interests of personal credit information,this article advocates for reference to Article 195 of the Civil Code of China’s Taiwan region to independently separate credit rights from existing personality rights and to cover the protection of economic interests.This approach is beneficial for properly understanding the differences in the nature,substance,evaluation criteria,specific powers,and responsibility attribution of the right to reputation and credit rights,fully recognizing the property attributes of credit rights,and maintaining appropriate core credit evaluation powers.In addition,in the context of advocating freedom of speech,the recognition of the infringement of the right to reputation requires a balance of freedom of speech.The right to reputation person may make a higher degree of concession to some extent,but after the introduction of credit rights,individuals will have an absolute right to "normal credit," which means that other non-specific subjects cannot infringe on personal credit information rights without legal facts and procedures,cannot arbitrarily downgrade the credit of natural persons,and cannot illegally disclose relevant personal credit information.In the judgment of infringement,it is necessary to adopt a causal relationship to determine the attribution of liability for personal credit information infringement.When the credit right is infringed due to false and dishonest records,it may cause losses such as blocked credit and increased loan costs.Such losses should be compensated when there is a causal relationship and a proportional relationship between the evidence and the infringement behavior,but the amount of compensation should not be too high.At the same time,the fault element has multiple functions in determining the infringement,dividing the responsibility proportion,and limiting the scope of liability.Finally,this article suggests that in the future revision of the Civil Code,the concept of credit right should be introduced,so that it no longer relies on the remedy of damage to reputation,and reduces the level of protection and the difficulty of remedy.This article firmly believes that this will effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of civil subjects and promote the reduction of the social credit system.