Digital damage protection of personality rights and functions of civil liability in the virtual environment

Abstract

The research focuses on analyzing the protection of personality rights in the digital environment and the evolution of the functions of civil liability in the face of new technological challenges in the Brazilian legal system. The study examines how digital damages have demanded a reinterpretation of civil liability, transcending the traditional view focused only on material damages and allowing the scope of the right to privacy, intimacy, image, name, honor, reputation, forgetfulness and information in the digital environment. Using a deductive methodology, based on an analysis of legislation, doctrine and case law, the research problem investigates how the Brazilian legal system has responded to the need to protect personality rights in the face of damage caused in the virtual environment, and how the functions of civil liability have been adapted to guarantee effective protection of these rights in the digital age. The work addresses the concept of digital damage, analyzes violations of personality rights in the virtual environment and examines civil liability from the constitutional, civil, consumer and data protection perspectives. Special attention is paid to the emerging issues of the responsibility of digital platforms in removing offensive content, including the discussion on the constitutionality of article 19 of the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, which demands the application of reasonableness and proportionality in the defense presented by the platforms in the name of freedom of expression and the defense of the full exercise of the fundamental rights of Internet users. The results follow the position of the Superior Court of Justice, highlighting the need to adapt traditional legal institutes to the peculiarities of the digital environment, considering both the protection of individual rights and the challenges of the information society.