DATA MARKETS AND STATE SURVEILLANCE: A COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL INQUIRY

Abstract

In the recent world personal data has become a strategic asset due to the quick development of the data markets and algorithmic governance, rapidly expanding the scope of state surveillance in constitutional democracies. This development raises a fundamental constitutional question that how should legal orders balance the demands the data-driven governance with ensuring the protection of fundamental rights most specifically, right to privacy in a political economy increasingly shaped by the data extraction and the logic of surveillance capitalism?1 This paper conducts a comparative constitutional analysis of the India, Australia and the United States, to examine whether existing legal regulations have the structural potential to significantly limit the convergence between corporate data power and state authority. The analysis is intentionally placed within the larger political economy of data markets, emphasizing the institutional and democratic interests associated with these changes. Although the Indian constitutional system has significantly recognized privacy as a fundamental right, demonstrates notable doctrinal dynamism, However the boundaries of this recognition are progressively being strained by massive state-run digital infrastructures. The Australian framework relies on legislative mechanisms that although flexible, are structurally vulnerable to executive overreach since it lacks an explicit constitutional guarantee. In United States, Fourth Amendment law which has long been seen as a pillar of privacy protection, is becoming more inadequate in addressing the dual pressure of widespread private sector data aggregation and digital surveillance. In all three jurisdictions, due to the increasing coupling of public governance with surveillance capitalism has operated to normalize pervasive monitoring as a method of state administration. This paper examines that existing regulatory frameworks are not adequately equipped to address the governance realities brought about by the data driven power. As a result, it promotes the development of a renewed framework of digital constitutionalism, one that institutionalize strong data sovereignty as a foundational value and focuses on rigid mechanisms of democratic accountability within the governance of personal data.