INTRODUCTION

Have you ever wondered how free services offered by websites or apps are funded?

We are in the midst of the digital revolution, characterized by a new economic landscape where the Internet plays a crucial role in supporting various sectors and activities. Products, processes, and services are becoming dematerialized, existing not only physically but also in virtual formats—and in some cases, exclusively in the digital world.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution extends beyond industrial environments, with innovations quickly absorbed by society. The development of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and reduced data storage costs have fueled the new economic model. In this context, the Internet serves as essential infrastructure for interactions across physical, digital, and biological domains.

The changes brought about by the digital revolution have enabled the rise of surveillance capitalism, a paradigm shift within the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This business model uses personal data as raw material—data that is mined, processed, and refined through the use of social networks, apps, websites, and platforms.

What makes the information-based industry so exceptionally powerful and profitable is its ability to gather insights from the past, monitor the present in real time, and predict the future, while simultaneously sparking desires and creating new needs.

In this context, technological advancements and the rise of surveillance capitalism pose significant challenges to the exercise of informational self-determination, emphasizing the need for stronger tools to protect privacy.

This field research aims to support investigations carried out in a Post-Doctoral project at the University of Coimbra, focusing on the quality of user consent for personal data processing by websites and apps and its compliance with data protection laws in US, Brazil and Portugal.