Abstract: The scholarly debate regarding the legal interests protected by the crime of violating citizens’ personal information focuses on three positions: individual legal interests, collective legal interests, and mixed legal interests, with disputes also arising over the nature of personal information. Amidst the contention over the definition of legal interests, the current academic sphere is increasingly showing a shift from an empowerment perspective to a risk perspective. However, this model, constructed on the logic of prior laws, risks conflating social interests with the legal interests of order when directly applied to the context of criminal law. The crime of violating citizens’ personal information should adopt a mixed legal interest perspective, where the right to self-determination of personal information constitutes the primary legal interest, and the security of citizens’ information serves as the secondary legal interest. These two are a highly integrated manifestation of individual and collective legal interests within this crime. The establishment of the connotation of legal interests should be re-examined in light of the extension of personal information and the structure of the right to personal self-determination. While justifying criminalization from the perspective of legal interest principles, the application of the elements of the crime should be used to test the rationality of the former, thereby ensuring the effective realization of the ultimate protective function of criminal law.