With the popularisation of the Internet and the progress of science and technology, China has enteredthe era of big data. The modern network has been developed in various fields, which brings convenience to peopleand also makes the problem of violating network privacy more serious. People’s privacy is originally a personalsecret, but in the network, the information is very easy to obtain and fast dissemination, which in turn poses athreat to the security of people’s privacy. Many criminals will steal people’s privacy through various means andthen commit criminal activities, which to a large extent affects the stability of the social order, but also seriouslyviolates people’s personal privacy rights. Compared with traditional privacy crimes, the way of network privacycrimes will be more secretive, and the damage caused to the spirit and heart of citizens will be more drastic,and may also cause serious property losses. As a new type of personality right, citizens’ online privacy rightscannot be copied and applied to the traditional privacy protection mode, nor can they be subjected to civil andadministrative liabilities only, but should be avoided through the criminal law as the last line of defence to avoidthe bad consequences. Therefore, this has pointed out new problems and brought new challenges to how criminallaw protects online privacy. At present, China’s criminal law still has deficiencies in the protection of onlineprivacy, and even if there are relevant legal provisions in the criminal law and amendments to the criminal law toprotect online privacy, they should be continuously improved in terms of legislative protection, judicial remedies,punitive measures, and legal awareness to promote the development of the times and enable online privacy to beprotected in a more comprehensive manner.