Scientific Development Research

Article 15 of the Open Government Information Regulations provides for an exemption from disclosure of personal privacy. However, in judicial practice, there are inevitably contradictions and conflicts between citizens right to know and privacy. As a constitutional right, the right to know is the legislative purpose and legal foundation of open government information. By comparing the differences in the protection and scope of personal privacy in the US Freedom of Information Act and Chinas Open Government Information Ordinance, the discretionary method of weighing the interests of privacy and the publics right to know is analyzed in practice. For government information disclosure involving privacy, the privacy information should first be judged, and then the public interest in information disclosure should be identified, and where not disclosing government information involving personal privacy will have a major impact on the public interest, the administrative organ may decide to disclose the information in accordance with law or discretion, and finally follow the principle of proportionality to comprehensively measure and make a decision on factors such as the degree of threat to personal privacy, the public interest obtained publicly obtained, and so forth.

Open government information; Right to information; Privacy