In recent years, with the deep involvement of the Internet in the study, Xi, life and entertainment of minors, the importance of online protection of minors' personal information has become increasingly prominent. Recently, the Regulations on the Protection of Minors Online (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations") have been promulgated, which put forward specific requirements for the online protection of minors' personal information in the form of a special chapter.
At present, what is the overall situation of online protection of minors' personal information?What else should be done to promote the implementation of relevant requirements?
Awareness of the online protection of minors' personal information still needs to be strengthened
The personal information of minors, including the names of minors, ID numbers, biometric information, addresses, whereabouts, etc., is highly sensitive information.
Do you pay attention to your child's information protection when they are online?”
Recently, in the face of reporters' questions, many parents are a little confused about what is the online protection of minors' personal information and how to protect it. A head teacher at a primary school in Beijing told reporters that compared with topics such as Internet addiction and cyberbullying, parents have lower awareness and perception of their children's personal information network security, and "there is less security education involving topics related to personal information network protection."
In this regard, Zhong Baichang, a professor at the School of Educational Information Technology of South China Normal University, said that on the one hand, compared with foreign countries, China's social discussion and legislative practice in the field of minors' personal information have been carried out relatively lateOn the other hand, in order to enjoy convenient and fast network services, users generally accept the transfer of certain rights, and the sensitivity to privacy information disclosure is relatively low.
On the other side of this phenomenon, the reporter paid attention to the fact that in recent years, with the continuous expansion of the breadth and depth of Internet applications, the security risks of minors' personal privacy information have become increasingly serious.
In a survey on the current situation of online security and privacy protection for teenagers, Fang Zengquan, secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Journalism and Communication at Beijing Normal University and director of the Internet Literacy Research Center for Minors, and his team found that the proportion of middle school students with negative privacy experiences reached 13.
In the era of big data, where negative online privacy incidents emerge one after another, minors, as a vulnerable group, are more likely to be threatened by privacy. Fang Zengquan said that compared with adults, minors lack sufficient awareness and ability to protect themselves, and once their personal information is exposed, they are more likely to be physically and mentally harmed.
Accelerate the effective implementation of relevant detailed requirements
From November 1, 2021, the "Personal Information Protection of the People's Republic of China" was officially implemented, marking that China has entered an era of strong supervision of personal information protection. This law clearly states that when personal information processors process the personal information of minors under the age of 14, they shall formulate special rules for handling personal information.
In Fang Zengquan's view, in practice, there is still a lack of policies and norms on specific issues such as "who has the right to publish minors' personal information on the Internet", "who bears the main responsibility for the online protection of minors' personal information", "how minors can claim to change the information if it is inaccurate", and "how to deal with it in the follow-up if there is a leakage of minors' information".
In this context, Fang Zengquan believes that one of the highlights of the "Regulations" is the establishment of a special chapter on the online protection of minors' personal information, which provides detailed provisions on the dynamic verification mechanism of identity information, private information reminders and other contents, and forms a synergy with the law.
Looking at the practice of various countries, Zheng Fei, deputy dean of the Law School of Beijing Jiaotong University, said that there are three main protection methods for the protection of minors' personal information: legislation, industry self-discipline and technical means. He believes that at present, China's legislative protection methods have made significant progress, but it is necessary to further establish a comprehensive personal information protection system for minors, and improve it from the perspectives of legislation, industry self-discipline, and technical protection, so as to provide a healthier and safer online environment for minors.
The promulgation of the Regulations is an important action to guide multiple parties to accelerate the improvement of the personal information protection system for minors. The relevant person in charge of Tencent told reporters that in recent years, Tencent has continuously improved the privacy and security of minors by improving the design of product functions on WeChat, QQ and other products, and strengthened the supervision of guardians over the use of minors online.
Practical standards for the online protection of minors' personal information still need to be explored
After carefully studying the "Regulations", Fang Zengquan believes that to promote the implementation of the relevant requirements for the online protection of minors' personal information, it is necessary to further improve the measures from various parties. He said that at present, the verification of the identity information of minors is still difficult, due to the staggered collection of personal information, the information of the same account may belong to both adults and minors, and it is difficult for enterprises to screen, verify and process these personal information, and it is necessary to further improve technical identification.
Focusing on the important participants in the online protection of minors' personal information, Fang Zengquan also suggested that in addition to guiding internet platforms to include the protection of minors' private information in key construction projects, it is also necessary to focus on guiding and encouraging parents and platforms to jointly protect the security of minors' personal information, further optimize the environment for minors' online use, and build a clean and upright cyberspace.
Zheng Fei pointed out that with the continuous strengthening of the self-discipline awareness and other discipline actions of Internet platforms in recent years, at present, the most difficult to implement in the online protection of minors' personal information is not to require network service providers to implement relevant obligations, but how to formulate practical and feasible operational guidelines in strict accordance with the principles of personal information protection.
He further explained that from the protection of personal information to the "Regulations", the principles of legality, legitimacy, necessity, good faith, disclosure, purpose limitation, minimum authorization, and guardian consent for the processing of minors' personal information have been determined as legal principles, and they are also the primary guidelines for the collection and processing of minors' personal information in practice, "However, how to correctly understand and implement these principles is the biggest problem faced by the current theoretical and practical circles."
In this regard, Zheng Fei suggested: "Consideration can be given to directly imposing penalties for violations of the principles of personal information protection, so as to enhance the practical effectiveness of the principled norms." ”
*丨China Education News.