AI Constitution
1

Thesis

Right to Privacy

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AI should not violate the human right to privacy, including a right to determine how data about them is collected and used.

Summary

The case for including this

Privacy is acutely threatened by AI's capacity to collect, infer, and exploit personal data at unprecedented scale, making an explicit right to control one's information indispensable. Affirming individual control over data collection and use empowers people against surveillance and profiling and aligns the constitution with strong existing data-protection norms. Without it, the dignity, autonomy, and safety rights elsewhere in the document are easily undermined through information misuse.

The case for changing or excluding this

Including this trades transparency and bias-auditing against data control: auditing AI for discrimination or investigating serious harm often requires retaining and inspecting the very data privacy norms would lock away. A right to 'control how data about them is collected and used' is also in tension with training and operating AI on vast public datasets, and an absolute reading could conflict with free expression, journalism, and others' rights to discuss shared events. It needs calibration to balance individual control against legitimate accountability needs and competing public interests.

Discussion

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  • Eric ForstJun 19, 2026, 5:23 PM
    The constitution’s Right to Privacy says AI should not violate “a right to determine how data about them is collected and used.” This principle has been systematically gutted for fifty years by Smith v. Maryland (1979) and the third-party doctrine. The government can purchase from data brokers what the Fourth Amendment prohibits it from collecting directly and then feed it directly into Palantir’s ELITE system. Surveillance capitalism serves as the functional equivalent of a general warrant that the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent, because it’s conducted by private actor. We must close the third party doctrine loophole to make the privacy right meaningful, and it’s missing from our document.
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