정보통신기술의 발달과 한국의 프라이버시권 관련 주요 쟁점

Abstract

Monitoring by the government through the handling of personal information may be suppressive to individuals, but from a wider perspective, it may also contribute to guaranteeing the freedom of more people. However, given that indiscreet monitoring is a fundamental threat to democracy and human rights, it may be necessary to develop legal and institutional mechanisms to effectively control monitoring by the government and civil society based on the principles of democracy, separation of powers and the guarantee of basic rights. By doing so, people should be able to participate in and control the process of establishing the plans regarding what forms of personal information should be collected and how the activities of individuals and groups should be tracked and recorded as part of the administrative functions of a government. This legal status of the people would have meaning when incorporated into legislation for the guarantee of basic rights. Data privacy or the right to self-determination of personal information not only focuses on containing the exposure of personal information but also actively forms and leads the flow of personal information. Therefore, it is important that an individual should be able to provide his or her personal information to other people voluntarily when there is a need, to identify the status of his or her personal information held by others and to decide whether to allow it to be retained and used by others or to change it into new information. In this respect, it can be said that the right to self-determination of personal information, along with the right to know that enables ordinary people to freely check the status and flow of information and use it, contributes to the facilitation of communication and ultimately serves to promote the communication capabilities of people and to facilitate the functions of a democratic society. The right to self-determination cannot be an absolute right that can never be restricted under any circumstances or for whatever reason. As such, the right to self-determination can be restricted to some degree when doing so is necessary for the sake of national defense, policing, investigation, court trials, statistics, taxation and welfare, etc., and also when it is in conflict with the basic rights of others, such as the freedom of information and the right to know, etc. In this regard, a harmonious balance between the necessity of handling personal information and the potential for human rights infringement could be found by guaranteeing the right to self-determination to an appropriate degree. In order for the right to self-determination to be effectively guaranteed, there must be a sufficient legislative foundation. With the advent of ICT that becomes more sophisticated each day, the task of protecting personal information faces new challenges. Against this backdrop, it would be necessary to continuously seek measures to supplement legislation in order to cope with the new patterns of personal information infringement. In Korea, opinions have been raised to modernize legislation regarding the protection of personal information in order to protect the rights and interests of data subjects in preparation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, to rationalize regulations regarding personal information in response to ICT innovations and to secure the international applicability of legislation regarding personal information. The higher our expectations for the intelligent information society, the greater the necessity to devise effective measures to protect and control personal information to deal with the expanding use of personal information. In order to dispel the concerns that the application of intelligent information technology may infringe upon the identity and the dignity of humans, it is most important to provide legislative foundations so that data subjects’ autonomous control over the handling of information, or the right to self-determination, could be guaranteed effectively.