Exploring the Personal Information Protection from the Perspective of Prosecutorial Public Interest Litigation

The Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Personal Information clarifies the system of public interest litigation for the protection of personal information. Procuratorial authorities in the handling of public interest litigation cases related to personal information protection, face difficulties in pre-litigation handling problems, as well as issues related to the legal basis for prosecution, the definition of the connotation of “social public interest” in prosecution standards, and the order of prosecution subjects. The subjective reasons for the above-mentioned difficulties are twofold: firstly, failure to adjust concepts in a timely manner and insufficient utilization of external forces, and secondly, the need to improve one’s own abilities and insufficient initiative in fulfilling duties. The objective reasons mainly include careless legislation and the particularity of public interest litigation. To solve the above difficulties, procuratorial authorities should pay attention to the power of public security organs, courts, and other administrative organs to obtain evidence. The procuratorial authorities cannot file administrative public interest litigation in accordance with the Personal Information Protection Law, but can only file civil public interest litigation and file administrative public interest litigation in accordance with Article 25 (4) of the Administrative Litigation Law. The procuratorial authorities should not be the subject of post litigation for consumer organizations or other organizations. If the procuratorial authorities can file both civil public interest litigation and administrative public interest litigation, then it generally chooses administrative public interest litigation first. For property damage compensation, it is recommended to explore the application of legal compensation standards. The amount of compensation for moral damages should take into account the nature of the infringer’s fault and its degree, the motivation, means or ways of the infringing behavior, and the privacy of personal information.