Have a personal or library account? Click to login
Human Rights and Digital Choice: Rethinking the Right (Not) to Use the Internet Cover

Human Rights and Digital Choice: Rethinking the Right (Not) to Use the Internet

Open Access
|Nov 2025

References

  1. Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. (2023). Resolution 2510. Closing the digital divide: Promoting equal access to digital technologies. https://pace.coe.int/en/files/33001/html
  2. Custers, B. (2019). Nieuwe digitale (grond)rechten. Nederlands Juristenblad, 44, 3288–3295. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4014541
  3. Decision of the Constitutional Council of France of 10 June 2009, case no. 2009–580 DC.
  4. Decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of France of 3 June 2022, case no. 452798.
  5. De Hert, P., & Kloza, D. (2012). Internet (access) as a new fundamental right: Inflating the current rights framework? European Journal of Law and Technology, 3(3). https://ejlt.org/index.php/ejlt/article/view/123
  6. European Commission. (2024). State of the digital decade 2024 (Report to the European Parliament and Council). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=COM:2024:260:FIN
  7. Faith, B., & Hernandez, K. (2024). Smartphone – and tablet-reliant internet users: Affordances and digital exclusion. Media and Communication, 12. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.8173
  8. Frosini, T. E. (2014). The internet access as a fundamental right. Studia Prawnicze, 1(14), 5–12.
  9. Gallistl, V., Rohner, R., Hengl, L., & Kolland, F. (2021). Doing digital exclusion: Technology practices of older internet non-users. Journal of Aging Studies, 59, 1–8.
  10. Inter-American Development Bank. (2020, 29 October). At least 77 million rural inhabitants have no access to high-quality internet services. https://www.iadb.org/en/news/least-77-million-rural-inhabitants-have-no-access-high-quality-internet-services
  11. International IDEA. (2023). Rights in the digital age. International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/html/rights-digital-age
  12. Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 30 June 1993 on the case of James v. United Kingdom, application no. 8793/79.
  13. Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 30 June 1993 on the case of Sigurður A. Sigurjónsson v. Iceland, application no. 16130/90.
  14. Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 29 April 2002 on the case of Pretty v. United Kingdom, application no. 2346/02.
  15. Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 4 December 2008 on the case of S. and Marper v. United Kingdom, application nos. 30562/04 & 30566/04.
  16. Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 17 September 2009 on the case of Manole and Others v. Moldova, application no. 13936/02.
  17. Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 18 December 2012 on the case of Ahmet Yıldırım v. Turkey, application no. 3111/10.
  18. Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 19 January 2016 on the case of Kalda v. Estonia, application no. 17429/10.
  19. Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 24 September 2019 on the case of Vučina v. Croatia, application no. 58955/13.
  20. Karaboga, M., Matzner, T., Obersteller, H., & Ochs, C. (2017). Is there a right to offline alternatives in a digital world? In: Leenes, R., van Brakel, R., Gutwirth, S., De Hert, P. (eds) Data Protection and Privacy: (In)visibilities and Infrastructures. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978–3-319–50796-5_2,pp. 31–50).
  21. Kaun, A. (2021). Ways of seeing digital disconnection: A negative sociology of digital culture. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 27(6), 1571–1583. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565211045535
  22. Kaur, H. (2021). Protecting internet access: A human rights treaty approach. Brooklyn Journal of International Law, 46(2), 767–806.
  23. Kloza, D. (2024). The right not to use the internet. Computer Law & Security Review, 52, 105907. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2023.105907.
  24. Kloza, D., Kużelewska, E., Lievens, E., & Verdoodt, V. (Eds.). (2025). The right not to use the internet: Concept, Contexts, Consequences. Routledge.
  25. Koops, B.-J., Newell, B. C., Timan, T., Škorvánek, I., Chokrevski, T., & Galič, M. (2017). A typology of privacy. University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law, 38(2), 483–575.
  26. Kużelewska, E., Tomaszuk, M., & Malinowski, D. (2025). The elderly digital divide: Digital exclusion versus the right not to use the internet. International Journal for Semiotics of Law. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196–025-10334–4
  27. Lucchi, N. (2013). The role of internet access in enabling individual’s rights and freedoms. European University Institute – RSCAS working paper, 47,1–22.
  28. Międzynarodowy Związek Telekomunikacyjny. (2024, 10 November). Fakty i liczby 2024 – Użycie inter-netu. https://www.itu.int/itu-d/reports/statistics/2024/11/10/ff24-internet-use/
  29. Mikołajczyk, B. (2023). Universal human rights instruments and digital literacy of older persons. The International Journal of Human Rights, 27(3), 403–424.
  30. Miranda Boto, J. M., & Brameshuber, E. (2024). The digitalisation of tools for workers’ representation in Europe and Spain: A first approach. Białostockie Studia Prawnicze, 29(2), 209–222.
  31. Mubarak, F., & Suomi, R. (2022). Elderly forgotten? Digital exclusion in the information age and the rising grey digital divide. The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, 59, 1–7.
  32. O’Sullivan, D. (2025, 23 March). ‘It’s political’: Why some people refuse to have a smart-phone. SwissInfo. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/digital-democracy/its-political-why-some-people-refuse-to-have-a-smartphone/89012366
  33. O’Sullivan, D. (2025, 3 April). How Swiss federalism is helping the rise of a new digital right. SwissInfo. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/digital-democracy/how-swiss-federalism-is-helping-the-rise-of-a-new-digital-right/89023201
  34. Passaglia, P. (2022). Behind the curtain: Questioning the right to access the internet. In search of definitions (and conditions). Völkerrechtsblog. https://doi.org/10.17176/20221017–110251-0
  35. Passaglia, P. (2025). An attempt to conceptualise the right to access the internet and its impact on the right not to use it. In D. Kloza, E. Kużelewska, E. Lievens, & V. Verdoodt (Eds.), The right not to use the internet: Concept, Contexts, Consequences (pp. 29–43). Routledge.
  36. Pollicino, O. (2020). The right to internet access: Quid Iuris? In von Arnauld A., von der Decken K., Susi M. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of new human rights (pp. 263–275). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108676106.021
  37. Reglitz, M. (2020). The human right to free internet access. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 37(2), 314–331. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12395
  38. Reglitz, M. (2023). The socio-economic argument for the human right to internet access. Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 22(4), 441–469. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470594X231167597
  39. Reglitz, M. (2024). Free internet access as a human right. Cambridge University Press.
  40. Right to Offline Coalition. (2024). Essential services must be accessible, even offline: The open letter. https://righttooffline.eu/?lang=en
  41. Rossi, J. (2025). Is there a right to be offline “for no reason” in France?. In D. Kloza, E. Kużelewska, E. Lievens, & V. Verdoodt (Eds.), The right not to use the internet: Concept, Contexts, Consequences (pp. 76–91). Routledge.
  42. Shandler, R., & Canetti, D. (2019). A reality of vulnerability and dependence: Internet access as a human right. Israel Law Review, 52(1), 77–98. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021223718000262
  43. Susi, M. (2025). Framing the right not to use the internet. In D. Kloza, E. Kużelewska, E. Lievens, & V. Verdoodt (Eds.), The right not to use the internet: Concept, Contexts, Consequences (pp. 44–63). Routledge.
  44. Terzis, G. (2025). Ethical meditations for a human right to an analogue life. In D. Kloza, E. Kużelewska, E. Lievens, & V. Verdoodt (Eds.), The right not to use the internet: Concept, Contexts, Consequences (pp. 7–28). Routledge.
  45. Tomalty, J. (2017). Is there a human right to internet access? Philosophy Now, 118, 8–11. https://philosophynow.org/issues/118/Is_There_A_Human_Right_To_Internet_Access
  46. Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. Basic Books.
  47. Warren, S., & Brandeis, L. (1890). The right to privacy. Harvard Law Review, 4(5), 193–220.
  48. Whitman, J. Q. (2004). The two western cultures of privacy: Dignity versus liberty. Yale Law Journal, 113(6), 1151–1221.
  49. Wiśniewski, A. (2021). The European Court of Human Rights and internet-related cases. Białostockie Studia Prawnicze, 26(3), 109–133.
  50. World Bank Group. (2023, 27 June). From connectivity to services: Digital transformation in Africa. https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2023/06/27/from-connectivity-to-services-digital-transformation-in-africa
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15290/bsp.2025.30.04.04 | Journal eISSN: 2719-9452 | Journal ISSN: 1689-7404
Language: English, Polish
Page range: 57 - 71
Submitted on: Sep 23, 2025
Accepted on: Nov 13, 2025
Published on: Nov 28, 2025
Published by: University of Białystok
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

© 2025 Elżbieta Kużelewska, Damian Malinowski, Mariusz Tomaszuk, published by University of Białystok
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.