On the eve of International Data Protection Day
The world that is coming is not a continuation of the one we know. It is not a linear evolution, but a rupture. It is a break in the continuity between man as he was and man as he is just emerging. The analog world, in which mistakes were human, and decisions carried the weight of conscience and personal responsibility, is in its final phase. The digital world, conceived as a space of freedom, knowledge and emancipation, is already giving way to the smart world of artificial intelligence algorithms and the coming quantum era, a world in which freedom is measured by the number of options offered, and progress by the efficiency of data processing, which states use to create their policies.
Where in this world is the right to privacy? Is it still the foundation of freedom or just an administrative category governed by laws, consents and checkboxes? It increasingly seems that privacy is disappearing not because someone brutally takes it away, but because it melts into comfort, speed and habit.
Algorithms are no longer neutral intermediaries. They do not serve, they regulate, they do not help, they decide. Our behavior, choices, habits, fears and desires will be modeled not through experience, but through statistics, and for this they need personal data. The man of the future will not ask what he wants, but what is offered to him. The border between choice and suggestion will become invisible, and addiction will be presented as comfort. Algorithms will be like passports: at first glance, a document of freedom of movement, but in reality it is only a fiction or illusion of freedom, which defines the limits of human movement, monitors every step, tracks travel through time and space, and at the same time creates a sense of control. Thus, algorithms, under the cloak of protection and regulations, formalize the freedom they offer, but in fact limit it.
In George Orwell's "1984," privacy is destroyed by force. Big Brother is watching always and everywhere. Surveillance is harsh, open, and terrifying. Cameras, microphones, and thought police serve to stifle any deviation and any attempt at inner freedom. In that world, privacy is a luxury that doesn't exist, but at least it's clear who the enemy is. Man knows he's trapped, and that's why he can still rebel.
Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” offers a contrasting, but perhaps more dangerous, picture. There, privacy is not forcibly abolished, it is made unnecessary. People are conditioned not to want solitude, silence, depth, or inner space. Stability is achieved by eliminating unrest, not by repression. Control is not based on fear, but on pleasure, amusement, and constant stimulation. There is no need for anyone to spy on thoughts when thoughts are already pre-formed. In such a world, privacy does not disappear with a scream, it disappears with a smile and the pleasure induced by “soma” therapy, surfing a virtual world.
Our contemporary reality does not fully belong to either of these two models, but it is slipping dangerously towards Huxley’s. The algorithms that today regulate digital lives do not behave like Orwell’s telescreens; they are kind, personalized, and unobtrusive. They do not order, but recommend. They do not forbid, but offer. They do not punish, but reward with attention, dopamine, and a sense of belonging. The line between free choice and algorithmic suggestion is becoming invisible.
In this context, data protection laws take on a paradoxical role. They formally promise privacy protection, but at the same time legitimize a system of constant processing, monitoring, and profiling. Consent becomes a ritual rather than a real choice. Regulation often does not limit the power of algorithms, but institutionalizes them, turning privacy into a managed resource rather than a space for personal freedom.
Algorithms that an invisible hand creates and imposes, and people accept as a value judgment of life, today do not only serve to help, they regulate reality. They shape behavior, influence emotions, direct attention and create information bubbles in which we feel safe, but also limited. The man of the future may not ask whether he is being monitored, because he will not perceive surveillance as a threat, but as a service. In the world we are moving in, privacy will seem like a nuisance, not a right.
Here we come to the crux of the discomfort and challenge in privacy protection: how to defend a right that people increasingly feel is a need? How to protect privacy in a world where it is not taken away by force, but is exchanged for convenience, speed, and a sense of relevance? If Orwell warned of a world in which what we fear destroys us, and Huxley warned of a world in which what we love destroys us, then the task is to prevent both prophecies from fully coming true.
If Orwell was afraid that books would be banned from us, Huxley was afraid that no one would want them anymore, is the conclusion of Neil Postman, who analyzed their dystopian dialogue about the future of humanity. In the context of privacy, this would mean that we are not only afraid of prohibitions and surveillance, but also of indifference. Indifference to our own data, our own intimacy and our own inner space and thus the absence of a social reaction to the increasing invasion of our inner private space, which is collapsing and narrowing in the face of algorithms of artificially controlled, or rather imposed, intelligence.
In a world full of laws that are supposed to guarantee the right to privacy, in accordance with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, it is increasingly obvious that the normative framework is losing pace with the rapid development of technology. The public interest is increasingly identified with the interests of the state, while the space for individual freedom is gradually narrowing. This is a reality that is shaping up faster than society is able to fully understand it, confirming and surpassing the darkest warnings of Orwell and Huxley, in ways that even they themselves could not have fully foreseen.
It is about analyzing and reflecting on contemporary challenges in protecting the right to privacy and personal data, but also on the simultaneous feeling of responsibility and powerlessness in the face of comprehensive surveillance mechanisms. Although it is normatively clear how the right to privacy should function through laws, international standards, and the principles of proportionality and purposefulness in this context, no legal provision can permanently protect a society that has given up on its internal need to remain free.
Therefore, this is not a call to return to the analog world, nor a rejection of technology, and least of all a Woke ideology, but a call to conscious resistance, not against technology, but against its unquestionable authority, not just thinking twice before clicking on consent to the processing of our personal data, but on clicking in the shaping of a modern society, which creates for itself a space of responsible politics, ethical design and a society that still believes that privacy is not an obstacle to progress, but its condition. The fear is not that technology will defeat man. The fear is that man will accept defeat without a fight, convinced that it is about progress. That is why modalities for protecting citizens' rights are still being sought, although no mechanism will be sufficient if there is no awareness of why privacy is being defended. Not as a luxury, not as a technical obstacle, but as a space in which man remains alone with himself and thus still free.
We probably cannot completely avoid the dystopias that Orwell and Huxley announced in their works. However, from the aspect of geopolitics on a global scale, we may only now be in Orwell's 1984 and the new design of multipolarism through the imposition of power. While from the aspect of privacy and the way we accept the new platforms and algorithms offered, we are deep in Huxley's world in which we voluntarily accept as normality. Stuck between Orwell and Huxley, i.e. the fear of open surveillance and the danger of voluntary surrender. Between repression and dependence. The question is no longer just how to prevent data abuse, but how to preserve the awareness that privacy has value at all in a world where constant visibility has become the norm.
The author is an expert in the field of data protection; he was the president of the Council of the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information
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