Rethinking Autonomy in the Age of Extraction

In 1983, the German Federal Constitutional Court recognized a new constitutional right: informational self-determination. The decision—known as the Census Act Case (Volkszählungsurteil)—held that individuals must retain control over how their personal data is collected and used, grounding this right in the principles of human dignity (Menschenwürde) and free personality development (freie Entfaltung der Persönlichkeit).

Four decades later, this foundational insight resonates across legal systems, but the threat it responded to has exponentially grown. What we might call the “age of extraction „ refers to an economic and political order in which personal data has become the primary raw material of value creation. Surveillance capitalism, predictive profiling, and algorithmic decision-making now mediate nearly every domain of life. From job applications to credit scores, from targeted ads to political manipulation, the “digital self”„ has become a construct shaped by opaque, often uncontestable data flows.

This new condition demands a constitutional response: a shift from privacy as mere non-interference to digital self-determination—a normative claim to govern the ways in which one is known, represented, and acted upon in digital space. Elements of this shift can already be discerned. In Germany, the Federal Constitutional Court, in its 2008 decision on the confidentiality of IT systems, recognized a right tailored to the challenges of networked digital environments. At the European level, the e-Privacy directives and the GDPR attempt to give individuals a measure of control over pervasive data processing. In Hungary, the 2011 Privacy Act enshrines informational self-determination as a statutory right, reflecting the broader European trend of embedding autonomy in the digital domain. Taken together, these developments point toward a constitutional paradigm where the individual is not merely shielded from intrusion but actively empowered to shape how digital infrastructures construct and act upon their identity.

From Negative Liberty to Data Sovereignty

Liberal constitutional traditions have long grounded autonomy in negative liberty: freedom from arbitrary interference, particularly by the state. In U.S. law, this ideal is reflected in the Fourth Amendment’s protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures”„–where, as Wimberly argues, privacy should be grounded–and in landmark privacy rulings like Griswold v. Connecticut and Roe v. Wade, where liberty was interpreted to protect private decision-making. Similarly, in Germany, Articles 1 and 2 of the Basic Law provide the basis for the landmark Volkszählung ruling.

Hungarian constitutional doctrine also reflects this dignitarian foundation. Article II of the Fundamental Law of Hungary declares: “Human dignity shall be inviolable.”„ This is complemented by Article VI(3), which guarantees the right to the protection of personal data and access to data of public interest.

In Decision 15/2014. (V. 30.) AB, the Hungarian Constitutional Court addressed this issue directly. While stopping short of endorsing a comprehensive “right to be forgotten,”„ the Court emphasized that personal data protection serves a broader constitutional purpose: enabling the individual’s autonomy and self-determination in the digital domain—particularly where dignity, reputation, and identity are concerned.

Across these jurisdictions, we see a doctrinal evolution: from privacy as spatial or decisional separation, to a positive entitlement to shape one’s digital self. European instruments such as the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights (Article 8) and the GDPR (Articles 12–22) reflect this shift in form, even as enforcement often lags behind the ideal.

As Julie Cohen observes, classical privacy law envisions an individual who is static, autonomous, and rational—yet digital subjects are dynamic, profiled, and increasingly shaped by unseen systems. This requires a different constitutional vocabulary.

Consent Without Understanding? Autonomy at Risk

In most data governance regimes, consent remains the cornerstone. But informed consent in the digital age is often a legal fiction. Platforms present users with lengthy, complex policies under “take it or leave it”„ conditions, undermining both voluntariness and comprehension.

As scholars such as Daniel Solove and Woodrow Hartzog have shown, modern consent regimes often collapse in the face of power imbalances, cognitive overload, and the opacity of algorithmic inference.  For instance, Solove critiques the ideal of “privacy self-management”„ by pointing out that individuals cannot meaningfully manage countless privacy decisions in complex technical environments”„. Hartzog, in turn, argues that formal notions of consent mask the substantive inequalities and manipulations in data systems, and calls for alternative legal duties (such as data loyalty) to constrain exploitative practices. Even when users “agree,”„ they rarely know to what they have agreed—or how their data may be repurposed, recombined, or monetized by third parties.

In constitutional terms, this undermines the very notion of autonomy. Consent without comprehension cannot serve as a foundation for self-governance. And yet, contemporary legal frameworks continue to treat consent as if it were both informed and revocable—when in reality, it is often neither.

Hungarian constitutional law’s emphasis on human dignity and personal data protection provides a possible corrective. As the 2014 AB Decision suggests, data-related rights must protect more than technical compliance; they must ensure that individuals retain agency over their digital identities. This may require limiting the kinds of data processing that can occur, regardless of purported user consent—particularly in high-risk contexts such as biometric surveillance, political microtargeting, or AI decision-making.

Toward a Constitutional Framework for the Digital Self

Can digital self-determination be grounded in existing constitutional principles? There are a number of promising pathways.

As Mary Wimberly argues, in the U.S., doctrines of substantive due process and expressive autonomy have historically protected the individual’s right to shape their identity and relationships. If algorithmic systems now functionally constrain those same freedoms—by classifying, ranking, or targeting individuals without transparency—then constitutional scrutiny may be warranted, even in private-sector contexts.

In Europe, the link between data governance and constitutional identity is more explicit. The German Constitutional Court has reaffirmed informational self-determination as a core component of democratic citizenship, and the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes obligations of risk assessment, content moderation transparency, and algorithmic accountability—nudging platforms toward quasi-public responsibilities.

Hungary’s own jurisprudence offers fertile ground for further development. By rooting data rights in human dignity rather than mere informational accuracy, the Constitutional Court has provided a value-based anchor for expanding digital rights within a constitutional framework.

Conclusion: Dignity Beyond the Data

As the boundaries between selfhood and data collapse, digital self-determination becomes more than a legal aspiration—it becomes a precondition for constitutional personhood. It is not enough to be protected from surveillance; one must be able to contest, redefine, and govern the digital mirror through which the world sees them.

The next phase of constitutional evolution must engage with this challenge. Whether through the reinterpretation of existing rights or the articulation of new ones, democracies must confront the central question of the datafied era: Can autonomy survive without control over how one is known?

Réka Kérész is a fourth-year law student at the Széchenyi István University, Ferenc Deák Law School in Győr, Hungary. Her main interests include Constitutional Law, International Law, and the combination of the two.