개인정보의 개념에 대한 논의와 법적 과제

“Personal data” is a central concept in privacy regulation. This term defines the scope and boundaries of many privacy statutes and regulations. However, since the concept of 'personal data' is too wide and uncertain, it is inconvenient to apply and enforce the laws. Therefore, in this Essay, after looking at the approach ways to the concept of personal information in the United States and EU, I try to suggest future legal challenges that reflect the characteristics of the legal concept of 'personal information'The reason why personal data is more important as Legal concept is due to the development of information processing technology. Because of the abuse of personal data collected, personal or property damage was caused to the data subject. In addition, personal information is currently business asset indispensable in order to conduct business associated with the Internet and somtimes should be opened to the public in order to ensure the freedom of expression.
In the United States, the law provides multiple explanations of this term. so that increases the regulatory maze and associated compliance costs for regulated entities, and as a consequence of the multiple possibilities flowing from the three classifications of personal data, the same information may or may not be personal data under different statutes and in different processing contexts. In contrast, in the European Union, there is a single definition, and one that defines personal information broadly to encompass all information that is identifiable to a person, so the EU’s definition of personal information risks sweeping too broadly.
The Personal Data Protection Act of Korea adopts the way of EU defining the concept of personal data but since special laws regulating personal credit information, medical information, educational information, etc. are applied to the related cases in the first, it can be said that the third method of the United States is also taken as part of a combination. Therefore it can be appeared combination of defects in the United States and EU law in Korea.
To make privacy law effective for the future, with regard to legislation on personal data, factors to consider are as follows: First specific guidelines should be provided to determine whether or not a certain information is personal information. Secondly it is desirable that the use on proprietary value of personal information is regulated by self-regulation between the parties. Finally lower level of regulation should be applied to the simple personal information that is not a file or database.