The Fourth Generation of Human Rights in the Digital Age: The Impact of the Internet and Modern Technologies

Abstract

Contemporary legal theory increasingly recognizes the emergence of a fourth generation of human rights in response to accelerated digitalization and profound technological transformation. This shift reflects fundamental changes in the ways human rights are exercised and protected in the digital environment. The expansion of the internet, artificial intelligence, mass data processing, and digital platforms has generated new forms of social power, but also new forms of individual vulnerability, which the existing normative frameworks do not fully address. This paper examines whether this fourth generation of human rights is theoretically and normatively justified as a distinct category of rights shaped predominantly by modern technologies. The central hypothesis is that digital technologies no longer function solely as means for the exercise of existing rights, but operate as de facto regulators of social relations, significantly altering the traditional relationship between the individual, the state, and private actors. The research is based on the normative-dogmatic method, comparative legal analysis of relevant international legal sources, and a critical review of contemporary legal theory on digital rights. Although the concept of a fourth generation of human rights theoretically encompasses a broader range of technologically conditioned rights – including bioethical rights, the right to genetic integrity, and the right to scientific and technological development – ​​the paper focuses primarily on digital rights as its most developed and socially significant segment. The authors analyze the right to personal data protection, the right to internet access, the right to protection against algorithmic discrimination, and the right to cognitive autonomy. They conclude that these rights reflect an objective normative need of contemporary society and require both the systemic adaptation of existing legal frameworks and the development of new protective mechanisms in the digital sphere.