This Element maps some histories of data rights formed in response to the socio-technical transformations of the postwar twentieth century.

Data Rights in Transition maps the development of data rights that formed and reformed in response to the socio-technical transformations of the postwar twentieth century. The authors situate these rights, with their early pragmatic emphasis on fair information processing, as different from and less symbolically powerful than utopian human rights of older centuries. They argue that, if an essential role of human rights is 'to capture the world's imagination', the next generation of data rights needs to come closer to realising that vision – even while maintaining their pragmatic focus on effectiveness. After a brief introduction, the sections that follow focus on socio-technical transformations, emergence of the right to data protection, and new and emerging rights such as the right to be forgotten and the right not to be subject to automated decision-making, along with new mechanisms of governance and enforcement.