Personal Data as Goods of Economic Value and the Depersonalization of Natural Persons: the Commoditization of the Individual and its Incompatibility with the Brazilian Constitutional Order

Abstract

This study seeks to understand how the fundamental right to privacy should be interpreted and applied in the virtual environment, in order to mitigate the risks and damages arising from disruptive technologies. A central problem arises whether the collection and commercialization of personal data, in what is conventionally called surveillance capitalism, proves to be compatible with the national order and its constitutional values, notably its main foundation, the dignity of the human person. Should we advocate for the end of personal data trading and the end of this new type of capitalism that depersonalizes individuals? To answer such questions, the deductive method was used for the textual composition of this work, through a literature review, especially on texts that deal with the right to privacy, personality rights and constitutional law, combined with the analysis of constitutional and infraconstitutional legislation on the subject. In the end, it is concluded that this “new” model of capitalism is not only morally reprehensible but is also at odds with the values ​​and foundations of the Brazilian legal system, notably human dignity (art. 1, III, of CF/88), representing dangers to users, their individual freedoms and even to the democratic system.