Constitutional safeguards in the digital age
Governments have fallen under the spell of networked digital technologies. Due to their adherence to a set of naive and unfounded beliefs which Karen Yeung has termed the ‘digital enchantment‘, they are enthusiastically embracing AI and automation, beguiled by promises (rather than proof) and indifferent or ignorant of their dangers and downsides, even and especially in areas that could impinge the human rights of ordinary people.
Our constitutional principles were built to withstand rapid changes in society by providing fundamental safeguards for rights and freedoms while nurturing the social and political conditions necessary for individual freedom and peaceful cooperation.
By carefully grasping important technical features, capabilities and vulnerabilities of networked digital systems, my research reveals their novelty, opacity and consequential effects in ways that seriously and often radically magnify the asymmetries in power between state and citizen.
In liberal democratic states, constitutional principles ensure and maintain government under law to safeguard and protect individuals against the dangers of despotic government and to establish and foster democratic self- government, including principles of legality, transparency, due process, reason-giving, and proportionality. These principles are evergreen, capable of adapting to our ever-changing society and thus capable of protecting individuals from the abuse of power even as social, technical and economic contexts change.
