Dignitas Infinita and Data Privacy: Your Soul, Your Self, Your Metadata

“Every human being possesses an infinite dignity, inalienably grounded in his or her very being.”
— Dignitas Infinita, §1 (2024)

In 2024, the Vatican released a document that went largely unnoticed in many digital circles, yet it contains one of the boldest and most urgent statements of our time: Dignitas Infinita (On Human Dignity). Issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in April 2024, this declaration affirms what many people instinctively know but struggle to articulate in the age of surveillance capitalism and artificial intelligence: your dignity is not for sale—not in your body, not in your soul, and not in your data.

While Dignitas Infinita addresses a wide range of issues—from poverty and war to abortion and gender ideology—its theological heart beats with a consistent rhythm: every human person is created in the image and likeness of God, and nothing—not age, condition, utility, or identity—can erase that truth.

But what happens when our most personal information—our digital behaviors, preferences, conversations, movements—are harvested, analyzed, sold, and weaponized? What does infinite dignity mean when the world sees us not as persons but as data points?

And more pointedly: Is our metadata a moral frontier that the Church must begin to evangelize?

Infinite Dignity Meets Infinite Data

“Dignity” in Catholic thought is not a floating concept. It is anchored in creation theology: we are made in the Imago Dei (Genesis 1:27). This dignity is ontological, not earned or granted by governments, markets, or machines. As Dignitas Infinita puts it:

“Human dignity precedes every human decision or recognition; it is intrinsically linked to the very fact of being human.” (§10)

This flies directly in the face of a data-driven economy that reduces individuals to behavior patterns and predictive analytics. In the hands of modern platforms and AI systems, human beings are routinely depersonalized—profiled not for relationship, but for profit.

Our digital activity—what we read, click, say, track, and buy—creates what Shoshana Zuboff calls “behavioral surplus.” That surplus becomes predictive power in the hands of corporations. It’s used to sell products, manipulate elections, and shape habits.

But from a Catholic lens, the human person is not raw material for market experimentation. Your metadata has moral weight because it flows from you, a person with dignity. Even if the data isn’t “personal” in the conventional sense, it reflects your mind, your choices, your digital shadow—all of which touch on who you are.

Dignity Is Not Disconnected

In Dignitas Infinita, the Church warns against any logic that “conditions dignity” based on subjective or utilitarian measures. It is particularly forceful in condemning systems—whether economic or ideological—that treat people as disposable or instrumental.

While the document does not yet address digital privacy or data ethics explicitly, its implications are unavoidable for anyone who takes theology seriously in the information age. When tech companies train large language models on personal posts, or when health data is sold to brokers, or when AI decides hiring or policing patterns based on data bias—human dignity is violated not only in theory, but in form.

What makes it harder is that these harms are often invisible, buried beneath user agreements, cookies, and consent checkboxes. They happen silently, algorithmically. But as Pope Francis notes in Laudato Si’, the “technocratic paradigm” often leads to a loss of authentic freedom and an erosion of moral accountability.

“We forget that time is greater than space, that being is more important than having.”
— Evangelii Gaudium, §222

In the digital world, “having” data has often become more important than “being” a person. This is not just unethical—it’s theologically incoherent.

The Right to Be Known… by God

One of the most profound questions theology poses in this conversation is: Who has the right to know us?

Scripture is full of examples of being “known” by God—deeply, intimately, personally:

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me… even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.” — Psalm 139

God’s knowledge of us is loving, not extractive; total, not transactional. In contrast, most corporate or state knowledge is partial and monetized.

There is a difference between being known and being mined.
There is a difference between being seen and being tracked.

To have infinite dignity is to be seen by God as someone who is never reducible to your usefulness, your opinions, or your history. The question facing theologians now is: How do we preserve that sacred mystery in a world obsessed with full disclosure and optimization?

Digital Dignity Requires Digital Boundaries

The Church has long taught about the sacredness of conscience, the importance of modesty, and the right to a private interior life. These teachings must now expand to include digital spaces.

We must begin to develop a Theology of Data Privacy grounded in:

The dignity of personal identity
The moral limits of surveillance and profiling
The sacramental nature of presence and communication
The right to digital solitude and silence
The obligation of companies to design ethically, not just legally

Just as the Church affirms that medical interventions must preserve human dignity, so too must digital systems. Ethical architecture is not just good UX—it is moral theology in code.

As a woman in tech, I’ve often sat in rooms where data is praised as the new oil—the ultimate commodity. But I’ve also seen how dehumanizing it can be when users are treated as inputs, not as people.

Sometimes I wonder: how much of myself lives in the cloud? How much of my story is known not by God or my community, but by an algorithm trained to guess what I’ll click next?

And yet—I also believe technology can be redeemed. I believe data can serve, not enslave. But only if we remember what the Church has never forgotten: we are not functions. We are not profiles. We are beloved.

Dignitas Infinita gave me the theological language for something I’ve long felt in my bones: that every digital decision, every design pattern, every privacy setting is not just technical—it’s spiritual.

The internet isn’t just a tool—it’s a terrain. And data isn’t neutral—it’s moral material. If the Church is to remain a credible witness to human dignity in this century, it must bring Dignitas Infinita to bear on every sector of the digital economy.

This means forming theologians who understand systems thinking. It means preparing priests and catechists to address AI and data ethics from the pulpit. It means calling tech leaders to account—and supporting Catholic developers who are striving to build platforms that reflect the dignity of the person, not the dominance of the platform.

Because your soul matters.
Because your self is sacred.
Because even your metadata deserves a moral response.

Let us start building it—together.