Constitutional digital rights and effective legal protection for Internet users: a contemporary comparative analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70577/asce.v5i1.686Keywords:
Digital rights; Digital constitutionalism; Effective judicial protection; Personal data protection; Digital platforms; Internet governance.Abstract
The expansion of social life into data-driven environments shaped by platforms and automation has intensified violations affecting privacy, informational self-determination, and freedom of expression, therefore the legal challenge is not merely to proclaim rights, but to secure guarantees that deliver effective protection for citizens who use the Internet, this study comparatively examines how exposure to a constitutional framework of digital rights, versus the absence of explicit constitutional protection, relates to levels of effective legal protection against digital harms, the theoretical framework draws on digital constitutionalism, effective judicial protection, horizontal obligations in the digital ecosystem, and remedy-based approaches to hybrid power between states and intermediaries, the methodology follows a simple documentary and systematic literature review based on structured searches in SCOPUS, Web of Science, SciELO, and Google Scholar, selecting thirty open-access studies published between 2020 and 2025 under P–E–C–O criteria, with full-text screening and component extraction, results indicate that effective legal protection tends to be stronger when constitutional recognition is operationalized through accessible procedures, due process safeguards, transparency duties, specialized oversight, and complaint-and-redress pathways, while persistent barriers stem from digital divides, platform power asymmetries, and technical compliance complexity, thus constitutionalization offers a structural advantage only when backed by institutional capacity and workable procedural design.
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