Personal Data as a Human Right: A New Social Contract Based on Data Sovereignty, Human Dignity and Data Personalism

J.M. Alvarez-Pallete, R. Calderón, T. Corzo, E.C. Garrido-Merchán, et al.

Summary:

In an era of ubiquitous data collection, platform dominance, and AI-mediated governance, the implicit social contract of digital life is increasingly shaped by a small number of private actors rather than by democratic deliberation. This position paper advances a dignity-centric Digital Social Contract grounded in data sovereignty, human dignity, and data personalism: the view that personal data are rights-laden emanations of the person and should be protected, in substance, as a human right, not treated as neutral inputs or tradable commodities. Drawing on social contract theory and interdisciplinary scholarship across law, ethics, economics, computer science, sociology, and political philosophy, we diagnose how datafied infrastructures and surveillance-based business models convert everyday traces into profiles, predictions, and consequential decisions at scale, concentrating informational power and weakening meaningful consent, autonomy, and civic trust. Against this backdrop, we contrast DatAIsm (an extractive paradigm that reduces persons to datapoints and optimizes for prediction and control) with HumAIsm, which recenters the human subject and the irreducibility of dignity to mere calculation. We then articulate an operational governance architecture organized around six interlocking dimensions: (1) technological design and oversight through Dignity-by-Design, (2) limits to automation and meaningful human control, (3) contextual valuation, redistribution, and incentives, (4) political-institutional legitimacy and multi-actor governance, (5) sociocultural cohesion and the digital commons, and (6) legal-regulatory guarantees. The framework is operationalized through auditable organizational tools (principles, non-negotiable limits, and DbD checklists) aimed at aligning innovation with autonomy, equality, and human flourishing. Rather than offering a closed blueprint, we conclude by articulating open questions and tensions intended to foster interdisciplinary debate and guide future research.

Keywords: Digital social contract; personal data as a human right; data sovereignty; human dignity; data personalism; Dignity-by-Design; human disruption.

Registration date: 07-jul-2026