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

A consortium of nine researchers from computer science, law, and ethics has published a foundational paper titled 'Personal Data as a Human Right: A New Social Contract Based on Data Sovereignty, Human Dignity and Data Personalism' on arXiv. The paper diagnoses the current crisis of digital governance, where a few private actors shape the social contract through surveillance-based business models, converting personal traces into profiles and predictions at scale. The authors argue this 'DatAIsm' paradigm reduces persons to datapoints and weakens consent, autonomy, and civic trust. They propose a radical alternative called 'HumAIsm,' which recenters the human subject and treats personal data not as a tradable commodity but as a protected human right.

The proposed governance architecture is operationalized through six dimensions: technological oversight via Dignity-by-Design, limits to automation, contextual valuation and redistribution, multi-actor governance, support for the digital commons, and legal-regulatory guarantees. This framework is designed to be actionable, with auditable tools like principles, non-negotiable limits, and DbD checklists for developers and policymakers. The paper, submitted in February 2026, aims to foster interdisciplinary debate and guide future research by shifting the ethical foundation of AI and data economics from extraction to dignity, posing significant implications for how tech companies, especially AI platforms, collect and use personal data.