Today’s headline says that address book information is not personal privacy. What is the boundary of privacy in the era of APP？
Yangcheng Evening News reporter Dong Liu
Read, upload and save the mobile phone address book without authorization, and the pushed content contains a large number of advertisements and "headline party" articles, but I want to cancel it but find it "impossible" — — User Mr. Liu thinks that the "Today’s Headlines" APP has violated his right to privacy and personal network data ownership, and sued the court, claiming compensation from 1 yuan respectively. On the 20th, the Haidian District Court of Beijing held hearings on these two cases respectively, but no verdict was pronounced in court.
From January to December this year, four departments, including the Central Network Information Office, organized a nationwide special treatment for the illegal collection and use of personal information by APP. On this "cusp", the privacy case that was tried yesterday morning was particularly concerned. Before the court hearing, the court also said that the case involved the coordination between the development of the Internet industry and the protection of personal privacy, and involved hot issues such as intelligent algorithms, personal information protection and the development of smart APP industry, which was of great significance for how to achieve the balance of interests between the development of the Internet industry and the protection of personal information under the background of following the principles of technology neutrality, necessity and rationality.
User: "Today’s Headlines" APP obtains the address book without authorization.
The plaintiff, Mr. Liu, is 31 years old. He sued that the defendant Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Ltd. operated the "Today’s Headlines" APP, and uploaded and saved his address book without explicitly collecting the user’s personal information in the User Agreement and Privacy Terms. After he changed his mobile phone to install the APP and explicitly refused to authorize reading the address book, the APP still recommended the contacts in the previous address book to him, which seriously violated his privacy and violated the "reasonable and necessary" principle of information collection.
Mr. Liu believes that the intelligent algorithm claimed by "Today’s Headline" not only does not fully provide information convenience, but also exposes his personal information and privacy on the Internet, which leads to illegal acquisition, out-of-range and improper use of his address book information. He asked the court to order "Today’s Headline" to immediately stop the infringement, make an apology and pay mental compensation to 1 yuan, and the litigation expenses shall be borne by the defendant.
Mr. Liu said that the contents of the address book belong to personal privacy and should be protected by law. Cases of frauds and even violent crimes committed by criminals using the contents of the address book have become hot issues in society for many times, which shows that the contents of the address book are very important for personal interests. Unauthorized access to other people’s address books constitutes an infringement on the privacy of natural persons.
Today’s headline: the "address book" in the case does not belong to the plaintiff’s private information.
In the court, the agent of the "Today’s Headlines" APP operator said that he "disagreed with all the claims of the plaintiff Mr. Liu".
The defendant believes that, first of all, Mr. Liu did not submit sufficient evidence to prove that the "Today’s Headline" account involved in the case was actually used by him, nor did he prove that the user who appeared in the recommender list of the account adding friend page involved in the case was his address book contact and belonged to his personal privacy information. Therefore, Mr. Liu is not a qualified subject in this case and has no right to file a lawsuit in this case.
Secondly, the address book information does not belong to the plaintiff’s personal privacy information. "Today’s Headline" believes that private information in the legal sense refers to personal information and personal life materials owned by natural persons that have nothing to do with their social life, and its core attribute should be hidden by natural persons or not known to outsiders. The telephone number plays an important role in information exchange in daily civil communication. The telephone number should not be kept secret, but should be announced to others, and it does not belong to information hidden by natural persons or unknown to outsiders. Private information should be identifiable, that is, the information involved itself or combined with other information can identify the subject of information. The "address book" involved in this case is different from the traditional privacy information. Although the address book contains personal name, telephone number and other information, this information is not the plaintiff’s own information, but the information of his social network members, so this information does not belong to the plaintiff’s "private information".
Thirdly, the defendant read, uploaded and stored the plaintiff’s address book information in the process of providing services, and had informed the plaintiff in advance and obtained the express authorization of the plaintiff, so it did not infringe the plaintiff’s privacy right.