Privacy nell’era digitale: la tutela dei dati personali fra legislazione e salvaguardia della libertà e dignità dell’uomo

In the first chapter, starting from some general definitions of privacy and tracing the history of the term since its modern affirmation, we have directed our attention to the inherent aspect of the protection of personal data, coming to outline the concept of privacy as "self-ownership ", an area belonging to the subject and, as such, like any economic asset (although it is an immaterial property) needs to be safeguarded from external interference. From the question of privacy and its protection, the foundations have been laid for a broader reflection, closely related to the values of human dignity and freedom, fundamental and essential components of every democracy. In the second chapter we focused on the description of the complex social reality in which we live: postmodernity. Our analysis took into consideration three closely related aspects: 1. Technological aspect: it was highlighted how a radical anthropological change occurred in human being following an instrumental dimension that influenced his mindset (brainframe) allowing him to transcend the categories of space and time, virtually extending his being beyond the physicality of the body. 2. Socio-economic aspect: we have shown how the emergence of a new planetary economy has favored the birth of a morphological structure of the society of which the Network embodies the model par excellence. 3. Political aspect: the establishment of forms of power and control that tend to colonize every aspect of life in a subliminal way. In the third chapter, starting from the concept of the infosphere, the economic, political and social value of the big data (Big data) and the dangers that may derive from their mismanagement by third parts or from their voluntary dissemination have been highlighted, as in the case of social networks. In the fourth chapter the general legal principles underlying the right to privacy have been reported. Moving from a broader context, which sees the protection of the private life of the person sanctioned for the first time in 1948 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we have restricted the field of investigation to the right to the protection of personal data, analyzing in the specific the most interesting points of the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In the fifth and last chapter, we focused on what, hopefully, should be the direction to take to protect the person in the digital age and guarantee them the rights of freedom and dignity; it provides, in addition to solid legislation on data protection (a necessary but not sufficient condition), a cultural-educational policy aimed at making the individual acquire conscious digital citizenship.