Professor Yao Jia, the Editorial Office of Global Law Review

Abstract: The principle of informed consent is considered to be a consensus rule in both medical field and personal information protection field. It is made to achieve and improve individual self-determination, but there are contradictions and conflicts between such self-determination and people’s perceptions of risk and data utilization. The principle of informed consent is converted into authorization in online platform users’ agreements and related judicial practices. In digital social relations, where interactions between strangers are more frequent than those between acquaintances, the individual’s authorization has deviated far from its original meaning. The institutional function of the principle of informed consent would not be realized if we regard the principle as a legal technical rule without taking into consideration the reality basis, institutional characteristics and risk allocation of its application.In fact, under the condition that no other alternative rules can be found, it is necessary to reinterpret and transform the legal system of informed consent and authorizationby supplementing its basis and conditions and reconstructing a trust and credit domain, so as to realize its original institutional goal.