Surveillance Capitalism and the Dignity Deficit
Digital Dignity Institute Research Team
Abstract
How pervasive AI surveillance systems erode the conditions for autonomous selfhood — and what regulatory floors are needed to restore them.
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Download PDFKey Findings
- 01
Pervasive data collection changes behavior before any automated decision is made, weakening autonomy and public trust.
- 02
AI inference creates new forms of surveillance by deriving sensitive conclusions from seemingly ordinary data.
- 03
The burdens of behavioral surveillance are distributed unevenly and frequently reinforce existing social inequalities.
- 04
Notice-and-consent models cannot provide meaningful protection where surveillance is ambient, opaque, and unavoidable.
- 05
Enforceable limits, contestation rights, and independent oversight are necessary regulatory floors for digital dignity.
Methodology
Interdisciplinary analysis drawing on privacy law, human rights standards, political economy, documented surveillance deployments, and interviews with civil society, labor, and digital-rights practitioners.