Staff Profiles
Mr Yi-Hung Weng
Contact Mr Yi-Hung Weng (email at yi-hung.weng@durham.ac.uk)
Biography
Yi-Hung Weng is a PhD candidate at Durham Law School. He obtained his LLB Degree in 2001 from the Law Department, Tunghai University, Taiwan, and an MA Degree (European Studies) in 2006 from the Institute of European Studies, Nanhua University, Taiwan, after his substitute military service in the Taiwan High Court Taichung Branch Court as an interpreter (2003-2005). His thesis for the MA Degree was entitled The Study of Personal Data Protection in Europe – An Examination of Taiwan’s Conduct from a European Perspective.
Yi-Hung Weng began his PhD study at Durham University in the spring of 2009 after working for 3 years as a research assistant in Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. During this period, he co-authored two articles which primarily focused on the interaction between governmental identification databases and personal data protection.
Yi-Hung is an Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS) award holder (2009-2012). Under the supervision of Professor Deryck Beyleveld (First supervisor) and Professor Ian Leigh (Second supervisor), he is now researching the relationships between the development of biotechnologies, international human rights law and data protection, particularly EU Data Protection Laws (Directive 95/46/EC and Directive 2002/58/EC), the European Court of Human Rights privacy cases (particularly cases on Article 8 of the ECHR), the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and the UK Identity Card Act 2006.
Current Research
His thesis investigates international human rights implications of emerging biometrics technologies in conjunction with radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology with emphasis on data protection issues. Briefly, it will try to assess how to strike a balance between the risks and the benefits of the developing technologies within a data protection law regime. Striking a balance presents a problem because of the lack of an applicable theoretical framework and clear guidelines and principles for legal regulations to deal with such modern technologies (for instance, see paragraph 85 of the Opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor, 2008/C 101/01 and paragraph 17-18, EU Commission Recommendation C (2009) 3200 final ).
The first task is to find an adequate theoretical framework. He intends to approach this using the moral theory of Alan Gewirth, i.e. the Principle of Generic Consistency (the PGC).
His thesis will then relate the PGC to the EC and to Taiwan in order to present his analyses and arguments on the striking a balance question described above. This will begin by outlining the PGC and its justification and then showing how it can be used to adjudicate relevant potential conflicts. He will then apply the PGC to the EC, evaluate regulation of biometric data at the EC level in relation to the PGC, compare the Taiwanese situation to the EC and produce a PGC-complaint regulatory framework and rules for Taiwan.
Research Groups
Human Rights Centre
Durham European Law Institute
Research Interests
- International Human Rights Law
- Privacy and Data Protection Law
- The Regulation and Ethics of Biotechnology
Publications
Essays in edited volumes
- Liao, Fort Fu-Te. & Weng, Yi-Hung. (2008). Dilemma or Co-existence: Collecting Individual Information and Protection of Information Privacy. In New Issues on Public Law in the 21st Century. Taipei: New Sharing Publishing. 2: 255-317.
Journal papers: academic
- Liao, Fort Fu-Te. & Weng, Yi-Hung. (2009). Drawing up the bottom line on collecting and retaining the personal biometrics data managed by states?– Comments on S. and Marper v. UK. Taiwan Law Journal (141): 49-64.
- Liao, Fort Fu-Te. & Weng, Yi-Hung. (2009). Stop! Big Brother: Comments on S. and Marper v. UK. Taiwan Law Journal (122): 23-26.