Author
Asst Prof Kuan-Wei Chen
Organisation/Institution
Kyoto 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
Kuan-Wei Chen is a Program-Specific Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University (2025-). She is affiliated especially with the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Law and Policy (AI and Law Unit). Originally from Taiwan, she holds a Doctor of Law (Dr. iur.) from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany, where she completed her dissertation, Digitalisierung und Demokratie – Repräsentation, digitale Partizipation und ihre rechtliche Architektur (Springer, 2024), and holds LL.M. and LL.B. degrees from National Taiwan University. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Hitotsubashi University’s Graduate School of Social Data Science (2024-) and has been affiliated with ETH Zurich’s research group on Ethics, Technology, and Society (2025). She was a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Tokyo (2023). Kuan-Wei holds the bar license of Taiwan and served as Confidential Secretary to the President of the Judicial Yuan (Constitutional Court) in Taiwan (2016-2017). Her research focuses on constitutional law, technology governance, and human rights, with a regional emphasis on East Asia and comparative insights from Europe.
