With the accelerated development and integration of Internet technology, information technology and artificial intelligence technology, enormous changes have been brought to human rights.

 

The way in which people exist in information gives human rights a digital nature. The concept of human rights can no longer be based only on the traditional natural person, but to a large extent also on the digital “information person”. The attributes of human rights no longer depend only on the biological nature of the person and the physical space, but also to a large extent on the information nature of the person and the virtual space.

 

The data-information ecology where rights develop has driven the digital evolution of human rights. Firstly, data information legal interests are incorporated into the connotation of rights. Secondly, data information elements contribute to the evolution of rights. In addition, data information is evolving into emerging rights.

 

The dual power ecology is gradually forming, and the protection of human rights is facing new challenges. Firstly, the traditional dual structure of government and market has moved towards a ternary structure of government/platform/merchant as well as public power/private power/private rights. Secondly, a “dual power” ecology of public power and private power has been formed. Thirdly, private rights are in a more vulnerable position, and even under the control of the “digital divide”, the hegemony of algorithms and the surveillance society, the mechanisms of power control and rights protection that have existed since modern era are facing difficulties and crises.

 

The exchange equilibrium of freedom and rights has exceeded the boundaries of government and market, as well as intervention and freedom. Firstly, the dominance of algorithms has increased efficiency, convenience and precision, while at the same time making people passively accept the results of automated decision-making in the face of an “algorithmic black box”, resulting in an invisible tendency of being controlled. Secondly, the space for freedom, equality and rights has been greatly expanded as well as greatly restricted. Thirdly, the traditional boundaries and logic of government/market as well as intervention/freedom have been deconstructed and reshaped by the dual space of the virtual and the real, as well as the distributed and shared power of digital information.

 

Therefore, the information revolution today is not simply an extension or expansion of the existing forms of production and lifestyle, but a total replacement of the traditional business society by the digital society, giving rise to the “fourth generation of human rights” - the “digital human rights”.

 

Firstly, the driving force of its development stems from the information revolution. The information revolution brought about an emancipation and institutional transformation of humanity. Although it did not take the form of armed struggle, it was a technological revolution that overturned the relations of production and life in the traditional industrial and commercial era, shaping an unprecedented state of informational existence and intelligent life for humanity and creating a new generation of human rights forms.

 

Secondly, in terms of connotation logic, a fundamental shift has taken place. In the digital era, a dual space of reality and virtual life has emerged, and the production and daily interaction of human beings have to be carried out through online and offline interactions. People's roles and identities, social relations and interaction behaviours are increasingly constructed and expressed in an informative and digital way, and human rights and various rights have changed in nature and direction.

 

Thirdly, its core values have achieved an upgrade in quality. First of all, it significantly expands the autonomy of human beings. Second, it adds the value of human rights in a new era. Third, it upgrades the quality of human rights. Compared to the three previous generations of human rights, it breaks the physical boundaries of time and space and the biological boundaries of human beings made by “God”, and thus comes closer to the dignity and value of human beings, and “constructs humanbeings through human rights”.

 

Fourthly, in terms of relational framing, it presents a social extension of the obligation of association. First, social power has become a new threat to human rights, requiring those people with social power to take the necessary responsibility for self-regulation and the obligation to avoid human rights abuses. Second, human rights are being violated in more technological ways, and there is an urgent need to impose the minimum obligation on those people with technological advantages not to violate human rights. Third, the seamless connectivity of information globalization that extends beyond the borders of sovereignty, requires that some international human rights protection obligations should be imposed on these social power subjects.

 

In conclusion, the emerging digital human rights have broken through the theoretical framework and protection mechanism of the existing three generations of human rights, and have moved towards the “fourth generation of human rights” in general. Therefore, how to protect digital human rights will become a major historical mission in the digital era.