Digital Challenges to the Protection of Personal Data

Abstract

This report argues that the challenges facing the protection of personal data in the digital age are complex and interwoven, arising from the interaction between rapid technical development, notably artificial intelligence and big data, and legislative deficiency. It adopts a descriptive-analytical and comparative method, drawing on academic literature, the instruments of supervisory bodies, and the frameworks of the European Union, the Council of Europe, the African Union and Algeria. Technically, the challenges consist in the inability of conventional encryption to protect data while it is in use, in the risks of artificial intelligence systems that operate as a black box, in the capacity of models to infer sensitive attributes from apparently innocuous records, and in ransomware and social-engineering threats. Legally, conflicts of jurisdiction, data localisation requirements and weak cross-border enforcement stand out, alongside the failure of legislation to keep pace with technologies such as blockchain, whose immutability sits uneasily with the right to erasure. Ethically, the challenges appear in the phenomenon of consent fatigue produced by the use of dark patterns to press users into surrendering their privacy, and in the absence of an embedded culture of algorithmic accountability. The report accordingly recommends a shift towards anticipatory strategies: adopting the principle of privacy by design and by default, investing in privacy-preserving computation such as homomorphic encryption and federated learning, enacting legislation that imposes algorithmic accountability and a meaningful right to explanation, strengthening international cooperation among supervisory authorities, and embedding privacy literacy in education as a primary line of defence.