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Journal of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine

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The fourth generation of human rights: the right to a digital personhood

Olga Avramova

Received 11.02.2026, Revised 24.03.2026, Accepted 30.06.2026

Abstract

The article delineates the characteristics of the right to a digital personality as an emerging legal category, which is being shaped in the context of the development of digital technologies. It is substantiated that a digital personality constitutes a complex category encompassing a set of interrelated manifestations, including digital identity, virtual persona, and post-mortem digital persona, while acknowledging that further forms of its existence may emerge with technological advancement. It is demonstrated that through digital identity, a real digital persona is formed as a functional extension of a natural person within the digital environment. A natural person who independently creates and exercises their digital identity particularly through identification in state digital systems (e.g., the “Diia” system) is recognized as the subject of legal relations in the digital environment. Particular attention is given to the phenomenon of the virtual persona, which is actively utilized within digital environments, especially in the form of avatars. A virtual persona is defined as an objectified form of personality within the digital space, which may be linked to a real natural person or exist as an artificially constructed representation of a subject. It is emphasized that a virtual digital persona not associated with a real natural person (virtualis homo fictus) cannot be endowed with full legal capacity, yet it may constitute an object of legal regulation. It is further determined that the digital presence of a deceased person, as an inheritable object, may include digital identification, digitization of physical appearance, digital private life of the deceased, and other elements. The article demonstrates that the exercise of heirs’ subjective rights in relation to such objects is possible, provided there is access to the relevant digital inheritance. Such access may be granted by the deceased’s will during their lifetime or, in the absence thereof, through limited intrusion into the deceased person’s sphere of privacy pursuant to a court decision, in compliance with the principle of proportionality and the balance between the right to respect for private life and inheritance rights.

Keywords:

rights generation; digital environment; object of law; digital identity; legal subject; exercise of subjective rights; avatar

https://doi.org/10.31359/1993-0909.2026.33.2.31

Retrieved from Journal NALSU №2, 2026 year

Pages 31-52

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Suggested citation

Avramova, O.Ye. (2026). The fourth generation of human rights: the right to a digital personhood. Journal of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine, 33(2), 31-52. https://doi.org/10.31359/1993-0909.2026.33.2.31