Our society is often referred to as an information society. The rapid growth of information society has changed human's life in quality and quantity, but it also has the reverse function. One of the reverse function is the infringement of the personal...
Our society is often referred to as an information society. The rapid growth of information society has changed human's life in quality and quantity, but it also has the reverse function. One of the reverse function is the infringement of the personal information. Recently, the fact of the spill of the personal information of the million of people is very serious problem.
The possibility of infringement personal information and privacy increases not only at the state level but the corporation and interpersonal basis. It is also true that the liberal democratic system which is based on the human dignity and rights is endangered when personal information can not be protected according to his will.
There since the late 19th century, the need to protect of privacy has been proposed. In the 1960s, the protection of privacy has been accepted as a constitutional rights after the case of 'right ti be alone' by Judge Cooley.
Since then, as affected by the U.S., the rights of privacy has been authorized as a constitutional rights in the Germany, the Japan, and the Korea. At the outset, the concept of privacy was considered as traditional and passive one, but, as possibility of leak-out and its illegal usage increase, it has extended to the 'information privacy', as a broad concept, which means one should decide the usage of his own information.
As a modern and active concept, 'information privacy' is defined as one's rights to control of the information flow related to him, which can also be called as the right to control of personal information, the right to management and control of personal information, or the right to decision to information.
However Korean constitutional has not a clear definition about the 'information privacy', which has incurred the debates about related constitutional grounds in the leading cases and in the circle of academia.
The arguments about constitutional ground of information privacy are various along commentators. Some commentators have argued that the constitutional ground for the information privacy can be founded from Article 10(human dignity and worth). Some argues Article 17(right of privacy), Article 16(freedom of residence and movement), and Article 18(privacy of correspondence) respectively, while others have considered both Article 10 and Article 17 as a constitutional ground.
Though the analysis, I thought that Article 10 and Article 17 should be considered as a related constitutional ground because the Korean constitution is different from that of the Germany and the U.S. It is because Korean constitution prescribes separately general human rights such as human dignity and pursuit of happiness in Article 10 and right of privacy in Article 17.
Because 'Information privacy' implies two features in both subjective and objective, derivative right from 'Information privacy' such as the right to anonymity, the petition for prohibition of information processing, and the petition for perusal, revision, deletion are needed to effectively protect the 'Information privacy'. Thus the article explains the protection of personal information in the light of constitutional law. This study set out to examine the problems of personal information protection/ with the current related laws based on the basic understanding. The research efforts led to the following conclusions;
ChapterⅡ, described the definition and characteristic of the personal information. Thought there are so many personal information, the focus of this article is personal information on internet, e -governance etc.
First, the article explains the definition of the personal information, and then
explains the legal formation of the personal information. Though, A view is that the right of the personal information is recognized as the right of ownership, and that of the privacy, the article explains the protection of the personal information in the light of the individual right of personality as the right of the personal information is the most proper. The reason why the legal theory is that the protection can be by the claim for omission, damage, injunction in the process of the collection and management.
One side introduced the law in order to protect the personal information related to EU, OECD, U.S.A, Germany, France, England, Sweden, Ireland, and Portugal at the international level. Especially, this chapter analyzed the act of "promoting the utilization of information communication network and protecting information" in Korea.
Chapter Ⅲ, The Law of Personal Information Protection by Public Agencies of Korea need to be revised to reflect the international principles or personal information protection and to make data subject's rights practical. Further, it's urgent to make the regulations to restrict data retrieval for computer matching and to establish an organization of personal information protection, which will perform the outside control.
In the private sector, although law and self regulations are applied, the law about the promotion of information protects only the personal information processed by the computer and does not protect the information not processed by computer.
In addition, it has been criticized that the personal information has not been well protected because of the deficiency of regulations to control the gathering, storing the information by the public and the private sector and the low public recognition for the protection of personal information. In the sense, compared with international and other countries' laws, Korean laws for the protection of personal information are not sufficient because Korea has no basic law and no professional agencies. There it is urgent to enact a basic law for the protection of personal information.
Chapter Ⅳ, It's necessary to establish a law prescribing the major contents of a census, to make it compulsory to provide concrete safety measures for personal information protection, and to statistical work under supervision of the organization of personal information protection. As for checking one's backgrounds, a law that directly stipulates for it should be enacted or the National Intelligence Service Act should include a provision that clearly regulates the major contents of it.
In the long term, The law related to personal information protection established both in public and private sector, and the matter of protection of personal information is settled by the law. But the law is not enough to protect the personal information. The reason why the protection of personal information is discussed in the light of constitutional law. It is time to discuss the protection of personal information protection in the light of constitutional law.
Especially The state agencies should be required of the rational and strict legal requirements in their tasks related to information in order to protect the personal information. In addition the emphasis on the protection of the personal information should not hinder the flow of information and business activities. Hence it need to harmonize and balance between the protection of personal information, sharing of information and e-commerce, with the efforts of state and private in order to protect the personal information.