Social Sciences in

China (Chinese Edition)

No.10, 2014

 

An Approach to Sanctioning Data Crimes in the Age of Big Data

(Abstract)

 

Yu Zhigang and Li Yuanli

 

In the age of big data, data have become the core factor in networks and data scale has moved toward horizontal convergence and vertical deepening, with cloud computing platforms becoming a technological resource for data mining. Technological change has triggered new concerns for criminal law, though the data scale in current criminal law is backward and out of date in terms of vertical and horizontal trends. To solve this problem, judicial interpretation has attempted to use technology keywords to expand the items subject to interpretation, and judicial practice has also started to explore the expansion of data content. Nevertheless, due to the misdirection of the observation point from which interpretations are made, overvaluing the spatial character of data and overlooking their value as things in themselves creates difficulties in the determination of criminal cases. Construction of a system for sanctioning data crimes in the age of big data should distinguish between data and information on the basis of their essential differences, define the content and boundaries of technological resources as the subject of protection, value multi-endpoint data resources and convergent data applications, touch down from data to specific legal interests, and define a model for protection of the non-real right of data. A rigorous system of tough sanctions for data crimes will enable us to build a legal barrier to guarantee national security in the information age.