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Author	Assoc Prof Shih-An Wang
Organisation/Institution	Graduate School of Law, Kobe University
Country	JAPAN
Panel	Information Technology Law
Title	Legal Transplant as Active Recalibration in Technology Law: Local Adaptations of the Reasonable Expectations of Privacy in East Asia
Abstract	In a digital era, unprecedented technological advancements have created numerous opportunities for generating innovative legal thinking. To tackle new technological challenges, countries have rigorously updated their legal frameworks, including by transplanting existing strategies from other countries. Owing to the cross-national nature of technological developments, one may expect a convergence of legal ideas across different jurisdictions. However, this expectation overlooks the fact that local factors often play a significant role in shaping the divergent landscapes of legal applications. This paper examines how three East Asian countries have interpreted, modified, and renovated transplanted concepts regarding technology: Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. These countries enjoy the rule of law and democracy, although they face similar challenges regarding privacy protections in a digital era. In response, their courts have similarly borrowed the concept of “reasonable expectation of privacy,” a concept initially developed in the United States, to craft the limits of police powers in conducting seizures and searches, particularly with the aid of surveillance technologies. Through a close reading of their case law, this paper demonstrates that these countries have internalised and reinterpreted the American concept in different ways. Taiwanese courts have explicitly adopted it in ways similar to its American origin. In contrast, South Korean courts have modified it in ways that emphasise procedural fairness, rather than substantive limits on power. In comparison to them, Japanese courts created a new legal ground for privacy rights by reference to the concept, a strategic response to Japan’s lack of relevant constitutional clauses. These findings reveal that privacy protections are primarily shaped by domestic legal culture and institutional conditions, rather than transnational norms. In other words, the global diffusion of technology law is not a passive reception, but rather an active recalibration by national jurisprudence in response to local democratic and technological challenges.
Biography	Shih-An Wang is a Project Associate Professor (non-tenure-track) at the Graduate School of Law, Kobe University, Japan. Her research fields are comparative constitutional law, law and democracy, and national security law. Prior to working at Kobe University, she received her Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.S.D.) from the University of Chicago Law School, USA, in 2024. Her dissertation employs interdisciplinary methods to examine the institutional interplay between domestic judiciaries and national security law in three countries under geopolitical distress: South Korea, Taiwan, and Lithuania. Building on her dissertation, she is now working on emergency governance, national security, and the use of militant democracy in East Asia. Also, her most recent publication examines the governance of privacy and facial recognition technology in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, employing an institutional approach that she has developed from her dissertation. Prior to her J.S.D. studies, Shih-An Wang received a LL.M. from the University of Chicago Law School, a LL.M. and LL.B. from National Taiwan University, Taiwan (R.O.C.). She had practiced in Baker McKenzie (Taipei Office) for nearly two years. At Kobe University, Shih-An Wang teaches Comparative Constitutional Law and Global and Comparative Law.