Abstract: Under the existing data crime system, the protection of data criminal law is facing the differences between formal and substantive protection. Formal protection is realized through the computer crime charge system, while substantive protection is realized through the protection of the legal interestscorresponding to the data content. The differences between formal and substantive protection lead to the different application of data crime charges in judicial practice. The reason for this disagreement is that the
existing criminal law povisions can not directly reflect the legal interests corresponding to data, and the path of judicial identification of the legal interests of data crime is unclear. The existing solutions include the priority of substantive protection, the priority of formal protection, and the combination of the two, but each has defects and cannot resolve the differences thoroughly. To resolve the differences between formal protection and substantive protection, legislation and judicial interaction is needed. In terms of legislation, it is necessary to reform the substantive protection provisions, cancel the separate formal protection of data, and set up special data security protection provisions. Judicially, the relationship between different laws should be properly handled.

Key words: data security, criminal law protection, formal protection, substantive protection, legal
interest identification