PRIVACY AS A MORAL RIGHT IN THE ERA OF PERVASIVE INTERNET AND BIG DATA ANALYTICS

Abstract

Tensions between data utility and personal privacy have increased due to the widespread adoption of Internet technologies and Big Data analytics. Even though current privacy-preserving techniques and legal frameworks have enhanced data protection, they frequently consider privacy as a technological or legal issue rather than as a basic moral right based on autonomy and dignity. This paper argues that such approaches are unsuitable in contemporary data ecosystems characterized by large-scale aggregation, algorithmic inference, profiling, and collective damages. Through a critical analysis of moral rights-based theories and models, privacy frameworks, and Privacy-by-Design approach, the paper examined how privacy is framed as a moral right and established important normative and practical constraints. The Ethically Grounded, Contextual, and Collective Privacy-by-Design (ECC-PbD) framework, which incorporates moral justification, contextual governance, collective protection, and technical embedding, is proposed in the study based on this analysis. By incorporating ethical commitments into system architectures and governance structures, ECC-PbD offers a more coherent and enforced implementation of privacy as a moral right in data-intensive situations