Legitimacy of Personal Data Mining and Related Regulatory Approaches: China’s Choices

Abstract

Personal data mining is a crucial but controversial topic in the big data era. It is widely accepted in the technical filed as a big data technology. While more and more people begin to question its legitimacy for it causes many social and legal problems. This paper tries to demonstrate the legitimacy of personal data mining from the following reasons: a) personal data has certain public goods attribute and sharing characteristic, which is the internal premise of personal data mining; b) data appreciation theory is the theoretical basis of personal data mining; c) the principle of interests balance is the logical requirement of personal data mining; d) big data sharing economy provides practical soil for personal data mining. Based on the legitimacy analysis and China’s data development practices, personal data mining should be encouraged. Meanwhile, it is particularly important to regulate the approaches of personal data mining in four aspects: a) establishing the purpose of combining personal data mining and protection; b) balancing the interests of all parties in the process of personal data mining; c) improving data classification legislation; d) innovating technical means to achieve privacy protection.