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PERSONAL INFORMATION (part1)

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PERSONAL INFORMATION PROTECTION
                 AND INFORMATION SOCIETY


1. HISTORICAL POSITION
                 OF PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

In the pre-modern community society, there is basically no privacy, but there is still personal information that only the each member can understand. However, even if that personal information leaks out to the outside, it will only communicate within a limited range of the community, and in the community it is in a "mutual relationship" and mutual regulation strongly works, and it hardly happens that personal dignity is disdained by being open publicly. Therefore, there was no practical foundation on which privacy rights become a problem.
In a modern industrial society, while a philosophically autonomous individual = subject is established, a society has emerged as an object opposed to the subject, and when individuals work in the society the society is faced as an outside world that can not trust.
In the industrial society, thereby the collapse of the community and the individuals born public service is required to bring richer and sophisticated social life, and in order to implement the public service, personal information is collected, accumulated and used by each of various governance organizations etc.. Personal information collected and accumulated by the governing body includes personal information such as name, address, date of birth, family registration and resident registration showing relationship or source, record concerning driver's license and criminal record at police, record of tax payment, records related to various social security systems such as health insurance and pensions. In addition, other personal information collected by various other organizations includes contract information of communication terminals and communication records by telecommunications companies, career and income records by attribution organization of various companies or organizations, medical history and health information by hospitals etc.. However, the governance institutions etc. only hold independently and individually collected and accumulated personal information, information management is also easy, and the possibility of information leakage is low, so that there was little fear of being used personal information for other purposes and being diverted or infringement of individual's moral rights by integrating multiple pieces of personal information. Therefore, there was no strong awareness of necessity of protection of this type of personal information.
On the other hand, in industrial society, information can also be widely distributed to society in the form of goods (publications) in response to massive distribution of goods, as a result the sensibility of "each other" can no longer hold good, the possibility arises that personal information can be distributed in a wide area where the curiosity of other people's shameful is unhesitatingly straightforwardly displayed, and it can be arisen a state that personal information related to privacy may be circulated in the form of "yellow journal". Then in order to protect the dignity of the individual the need to protect privacy has arisen. Therefore, the idea of privacy right was brought up and appeared the view that the privacy right is a natural right as the fundamental right which human beings have inherently, and even when it was not accepted as natural rights it came to permit the rights substantially. Along with that, there was a case that the right of privacy which is newly regarded as natural right interferes with the freedom of expression such as speech and publication which are linked to the right of freedom of individual originally regarded as natural right and interferes also with public interests, so it was necessary to make adjustments by comparing them. However, as long as they are grasped as natural rights, it can not to recognize the mutual relationships, so it is impossible to theoretically adjust, and it is repeated a state that judgment of common sense is made according to the ways of the world at each trial for each case.
In modern times, society develops from the industrial society towards the information society, in which the data storage capacity of the database, the data processing capacity of the computer, and the data communication speed of the Internet are dramatically improved, and the digital information space has been formed. As a result, there is the possibility that individuals' personality will be made naked and not only privacy is infringed but also the danger of personality control going to be extremely high by means that even personal information that does not belong to non-invasive privacy information it is leaked to the outside and used for other purposes, and multiple pieces of the personal information are integrated, and anchored to privacy information. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to properly protect personal information in modern times. Then, ideas for allowing control over personal information based on individual personal rights are widespread as personal information is attributed to the person's personality.
On the other hand, in order to prevent terrorism and violent crime and to raise the arrest rate of the criminal, as it is no longer necessary to admit the actually installing a security camera, there is a case that protection of personal information (secrecy) and social security may be in a antinomy relationship, so it is becoming to be inevitable to allow to collect, use and disclose personal information necessary for securing safety. Therefore, it is necessary to consider what the personal information protection ought to be, based on that once again recognizing what the personal information is.
2. SOCIAL SUBJECT RIGHTS, PERSONAL RIGHTS,
                   PERSONAL INFORMATION PROTECTION

Individuals exist, live and act by forming relations with society, and society is established by activities of these various individuals. Personal information is information acquired and retained by individuals in connection with society, and is the relationship itself between individuals and society. Therefore, it is natural to present necessary personal information to society and make it public as the need arises in order for individuals to tie in with society and send social life comfortably and efficiently. Having individuals presenting and releasing information acquired and held in relations with society and receiving society's appreciation has significance for existence of individuals, and in that sense human beings are social beings.
At the same time, in order for individuals to be acting subjects (not the subjects to be opposed to objects in the modern era) who are individuals acting independently with society, it is necessary to exist independently having self-specific areas for separate entities. Therefore,it is necessary that social subject rights as the right to exist independently with self-specific areas are accepted for individuals to act independently on society as fundamental rights of individuals. In addition, as a right included in this social subject rights, there is a personal right as an indispensable right to maintain self dignity and to be properly evaluated in society, and in this personal right the right to affect personal information protection is important in the society towards the information society.
The legal grounds of personal rights are not fundamental human rights as a natural right which the so-called human beings have inherently, but as described above the legal grounds are social subject rights which are indispensable rights for individuals to exist independently as acting subjects in relation between the individuals and society. The personal rights within this social subject rights are the rights relating to psychological, mental, informational structure produced on individual interior by the relationship with society and to its production. It can be said that it is close to the definition of the personality by Gordon Allport, that is " a dynamic organization of a spiritual and physical system that determines the behavior and idea characteristic of humans ", and " a person's integral body including personality, temperament, interests, attitudes, values, etc. ". On the other hand, it is better not to take broad definition including life, body, health, freedom, etc., likewise " personal right is a existing right as a direct result of being a individual .... for example such as the right to preserve life, body, or honor, or the right to name his family name " (Masaaki Tomii " Civil Code Primary Volume 1 " 1903 ). In other words, personal rights are the intrinsic right having for society with respect to self-spiritual existence and personal information, etc.. The rights affecting to the human body such as the right to preserve life, body and health etc., and the extrinsic rights that demands society about the social structure such as civil liberty rights and ownership on property and environmental rights to stop the daily living obstacle due to pollution etc. should not be included in the category of personal rights. It is appropriate that each of these rights deal with different theoretical principles as other rights in social subject rights, and extent of the personal rights is not expanded too much so as the essence of personal rights does not diffuse as desert.
As specific rights constituting the personal rights, in general, there is the right of self control of personal information in addition to the honorary right, the privacy right, the name right, the portrait right, the publicity right, etc., furthermore self-determination rights and the like are cited. In addition, the effect of personal rights is to prevent the infringement of rights, to stop it when infringed, and to compensate for damages caused by infringement. One honor right of personal rights is the right to receive fair evaluation and not to receive an evaluation unfairly disdained in society by preventing its cause of the dissenting of unjustified reputation. Privacy right is, as a means of securing the honor right, to isolate from society personal information related to matters (living, family life, residence, communication) that is undesirable to be known to others as information of invasive private territory, and to keep self dignity by keeping it secret. Name rights and portrait rights are the right to prevent the name and portrait of oneself from being disseminated in such a way as to bring disadvantage to oneself in a place unfamiliar to oneself.
Publicity right is becoming to be recognized based on that in the celebrity persons their characters including their socially established names and portraits are becoming to have the economic value (publicity value) centered on customer attraction as the right to protect by themselves and exclusively use and control the publicity value and as the right expanded from the original personal rights concerning the name rights and portrait rights. Even in Japan, in appeal trial judgment "O'nyanko Club" of famous idol group is permitted an injunction based on publicity right. Furthermore, as society progresses towards the information society, the personality of individuals is realistic not only in the material social world (real world) in which individuals exist but also in the digital information space (virtual world), and the personality of individuals is becoming to be realistic bridging both the real world and the virtual world.
For example, the personality of a person is not only a person image formed by a view of the world and thinking method of oneself in human's brain as a natural person and a human figure formed by human relations in a real society, but it exists as a complex of them including a person image composed of data accumulated in the digital information space, and it does not mean that whether personality received from real or data is truthful or important. This reality developing further, even "characters" appearing in the virtual space (virtual world) configured in the digital information space are also given a "pseudo-personal rights" that extends personal rights, and it is also possible to grant its publicity right. Thus, instead of forcibly and improperly prolonging the copyright protection period in order to protect the "economic value" of the "character" with copyright, aiming at protection by recognizing "pseudo-personal rights" for "Character", it enables more appropriate protection in accordance with substance.
The self-control right of personal information is to prevent personal information of one's own person from being collected or used at a place unknown and being discharged to the outside, and to be able to place his personal information under his / her own control more widely. In modern times, it is necessary to secure such rights in order for individuals to have their own personality attributed to themselves. Self-determination right is the right to decide on their own beliefs regarding their own existence and way of life, even if they oppose what they are called common sense or social wisdom, and it has occurred cases recognizing the right.
Thus, honor rights, name rights, portrait rights, privacy rights, publicity rights, character rights, self-information control rights, self-determination rights, and the like can be cited as personal rights, but it is only the result provided as a right additionally listed up one after another keeping up with the occurrence of problems, so it can not deny the inconsistent feeling. However, as discussed above, personal rights, in honor right and any other rights, are having the personal information in a broad sense including individual's sense of values and the like as a core entity, so it is clear that each of those rights is defined as a right corresponding to the type and characteristic of the personal information. In view of the fact that various personal information becomes wider and more strongly defines personal rights towards the information society, it is required to properly protect personal information corresponding to its characteristics.
3. MANNER OF PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
Protection of personal information is protection against personal information in the sense of the information belonging to the person being collected, used and disseminated where it is not aware of himself. Therefore, in order to consider the manner of protection of personal information it is necessary to analyze personal information from the perspective of disclose - concealment. In this case, personal information is divided into next four types.
① Spontaneous disclosure information, ② consent disclosure information, ③ compulsory disclosure information, ④ concealment information.
① of spontaneous disclosure information is personal information that is actively opened towards society without giving specific restrictions by individuals themselves so that distribute them widely, and not only personal information on individuals themselves, but information that created by them and published with own name also can be broadly included in this. Therefore, this spontaneous public information is inherently free to circulate, and basically it is not necessary to be subject to personal information protection, but still ways to protect against unfair, inappropriate, malicious use are necessary. The copyright personal rights etc belong to this typically.
② of consent disclosure information is the personal information that is gathered on the basis of agreement and made publicly available with appropriate moderation according to necessity so as to participate or contribute to the smooth operation of various organizations and institutions of the society to which the individual belongs or to receive the service. In this case it is important how to secure the disclosure and use of personal information necessary for the operation of various organizations of society to be having appropriate moderation according to its necessity.
③ of compulsory disclosure information is personal information that is collected or disclosed or collected / disclosed in order to be indispensable for the establishment and operation of society with regardless of the individual's will as long as the individual is a member of the public organization of society. In this case, it is necessary to clarify what type of personal information is applicable to it and to obtain social consent, also ways to protect against inappropriate use of the disclosed personal information are necessary.
④ of the concealment information is personal information whose collection / disclosure is prohibited or strongly suppressed due to the dignity of individuals, and that is personal information on private areas such as private life and sensitive personal information hidden by individuals oneself referring to such as information on race, ethnicity, political opinion, religion, thought and creed. It is necessary to strongly protect by the privacy right in order to secure the dignity of individuals, excepting in cases where it is based on laws and regulations and collection and use are absolutely essential in order to secure the interests of the individual. It is necessary to protect such personal information so that unfair use / utilization can be surely prevented while effectively using it according to each characteristic.
Concerning ① of Spontaneous disclosure information, it is necessary to legally protect copyright personal rights or the generalized rights provided so as also including personal information of individuals.
Concerning ② of consent disclosure information and ③ of compulsory disclosure information, it is necessary to protect by the Personal Information Protection Act.
Concerning ④ of concealment information, it is necessary to prescribe and protect the privacy right which prohibits the collection and dissemination of personal information and can give severe punishment to the violation, or it is necessary to establish a separate statute.
The main points of measures to be realized in the Personal Information Protection Law that protects personal information of above ②, ③ and including part of ① and ④ are following items effectively executed.
(1) Prevention of unjust information collection (type of collected information is unjust, collecting organization is unjust, collection method / means is unjust).
(2) Prevention of unjust use of information (unintended use, inappropriate use).
(3) Prevention of unjust information processing (inappropriate modification / integration of information).
(4) Prevention of unjust information transfer (inappropriate transfer of information, leakage due to management failure).
On the other hand, under the pretext of this protection conducting or regulating the protection extremely and improperly, there is a possibility of impeding information disclosure which should be performed, so as becoming to be limiting factor for the information disclosure system against public agencies, becoming to be difficult to conduct crisis management and to protect against the elderly and disabled and to provide timely public services by NGO etc. because of difficulties in providing necessary information, and failing to create a communication network by PTA of schools, and being hidden personal names who performed the malicious corruption at the time of publication of punishment for serious and malicious corruption of civil servants. Moreover, it may be hindered the right to know under pressure on news about public fraud by such as politicians and civil servants, and it may be difficult to secure safety by being hampered information gathering and surveillance necessary for security.
In solving such a problem, as a general theory, in judging above described "unjust", it can be solved appropriately by making judgment criteria as to whether or not to infringe social subject rights, that is, the right of individuals to exist autonomously with the intrinsic region that is indispensable to activate to society independently, while weighing and comparing the beneficial gains and losses from the viewpoint of whole society.