Individuals' Information Rights and Interests as Human Rights: Normative Interpretation Based on Constitutional Text

LU Zhenhao

Abstract: The Human Rights Action Plan of China (2021 -2025) introduces and separately lists the term “Individuals’ Information Rights and Interests” and places it in the second section, “Civil and Political Rights.” Although academia has combined Article 1 of the Personal Information Protection Law, which states “this law is enacted in accordance with the Constitution,” to argue for the constitutional basis of the fundamental rights involved in personal information protection, this “basic rights theory” does not adequately emphasize the normative interpretation of Article 33 of the Constitution, which concerns “human rights clause” At the same time, civil law doctrines also cast doubt on this constitutional argument and question the human rights eligibility of “Individuals’ Information Rights and Interests” based on the division between rights and interests. Through reflection and criticism of objective value order theory, a theory of the “human rights value path” characterized by subjectivity, systematicity, historicity, and contemporaneity has emerged and proved the human rights attribute of individuals' information rights and interests. This theoretical framework analyzes the conceptual correlation between Article 33 of the Constitution, which contains the “human rights clause,” and Article 38 of the Constitution, which pertains to “personal dignity,” throughout history. It reveals the diffusion of personal dignity in the fields of “person (Article 37), home (Article 39), correspondence (Article 40), and personal information,” and elucidates the “hierarchical pattern” that emerges. This explanation demonstrates that the path of human rights values points toward individuals’ information rights and interests as human rights in the digital economy era.

Keywords: Constitution · individuals' information rights and interests · personal dignity · human rights