The Digital Rights Delusion Humans, Machines and the Technology of Information

This book examines the ever-increasing impact of technology on our lives and explores a range of legal and constitutional questions that this raises. It considers the extent to which concepts such as 'cyberspace' and 'digital rights' advance or undermine our understanding of this development and proposes a number of novel approaches to the effective protection of our rights in this rapidly evolving environment. Finally, it shows how the abuse of the adjective digital has demoted legal rights into subjective and individual claims. The work will be of particular interest to scholars of privacy, artificial intelligence and free speech, as well as policymakers and the general reader.

1. Ain’t no such thing as ‘cyberspace’2. The quest for digital rights3. Social Networks and Rights4. Encryption and Rights5. AI, Robots and (their?) rights6. Conclusions

Andrea Monti is an Italian lawyer, journalist, and academic, whose expertise ranges from biotechnology to privacy and high-tech law. He previously taught Public Order and Security at the Gabriele d’Annunzio, University of Chieti, Italy, where he is now an Adjunct Professor of Digital Law. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Cybersecurity Contracts at the da Vinci online University in Italy. Over the last few years, he has delivered lectures as part of the Italian State Police training programmes. He has published several papers on bio-information, computer forensics, technology, and public order, as well as books on computer hacking. His most recent publications are Protecting Personal Information: The Right to Privacy Reconsidered (2019), COVID-19 and Public Policy in the Digital Age (2021), National Security in the New World Order (2022) with Raymond Wacks, and, in Italian, Cybercrime e responsabilità da reato degli enti (2022).