The Inadequacy And Improvement Of The Legislation Of Right To Erasure Of China

At the present stage,the high-speed flow of information brings immeasurable economic value to people.However,the personal information is also being processed more and more complicated,such as collection,processing,storage and so on,which make everyone exposed to the network.As an important participant in the era of big data,China always pays close attention to the development of the right to erasure.Article 47 of the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China implemented in November 2021 gives information subjects the right to erasure,thereby strengthening the protection of information subjects and information self-determination.However,at present,the relevant legal regulations about the right to erasure in our country are still not perfect,mainly in aspects such as one-sided and fuzzy scope of the right to erasure,rough exercise rules of the right to erasure,conflict between the right to erasure and the public’s right to know.As for the scope of the subject of the right to erasure,the protection of the current law is unitary,and is the lack of subdivision of the subject of the right of different social identities;The stipulation of the subject of obligation is vague,the definition is not clear,and the connotation of personal information processing is extensive,which leads to the difficulty of the subject of right exercise.As for the rough rules on the exercise of the right to erasure,the situations of exercise of the right listed in Article 47 are a little rough,and the important factors affecting the exercise of the right,such as "the purposes of processing" and "whether it is necessary",are not clearly stipulated.As a result,the subject of obligation of the right to erasure is in a dilemma when reviewing the application for deleting personal information.Regarding the conflict between the right to erasure and the public’s right to know,different judgments in practice reflect the different emphasis of different courts on the right to erasure and the public’s right to know,the conflict between the two does exist,and there is no clear rule to balance the conflict between them in China.In response to the above problems,our country should take the following measures to further perfect the right to erasuer.Regarding the subject of the right to erasure,the right to erasure can be restricted or enhanced for different categories of subjects such as public figures,criminals,minors,etc.As for the subject of obligation,government agencies and general information processing enterprises should be treated differently due to the different purposes of processing.Due to the huge number of users,the source regulation of large search engine service providers and network social media should be strengthened.In addition,the obligation to notify other processors and examine objections should be added to ensure the exercise of rights.In terms of the rules for exercising the right to erasure,firstly,improve the provisions on the clear purpose to help judge whether the purpose of processing is necessary.Secondly,add "without any other legal basis" to the item "information subject withdrawing the consent",and improve the relevant provisions on "withdrawing consent".Regarding the conflict between the right to erasure and the public’s right to know,we should comprehensively consider the social role of the information subject,the type of personal information to be processed,the source of personal information,and the purpose of information processing under the guidance of the principle of proportionality.Add circumstances in which the exercise of the right to erasure is restricted for purposes of national health service,archive,scientific research,etc.