THE RIGHT TO DIGITAL COMMUNICATION OF PERSONS DEPRIVED OF LIBERTY: FROM ABSOLUTE PROHIBITION TO INTELLIGENT CONTROL
THE RIGHT TO DIGITAL COMMUNICATION OF PERSONS DEPRIVED OF LIBERTY: FROM ABSOLUTE PROHIBITION TO INTELLIGENT CONTROL

Summary/Abstract: The digital transformation of society has profoundly altered the social content of communication, work, education, and family relationships, without the penitentiary enforcement regime undergoing an equivalent normative adaptation. At present, persons deprived of liberty benefit from limited forms of telephone communication and, in certain restricted situations, from online communications; however, the general prohibition on the use of mobile phones and other telecommunication devices continues to reflect a normative logic specific to the analog era. In a context in which digital communication has become the ordinary infrastructure of social, professional, and educational life, maintaining an absolute prohibition raises questions concerning the proportionality of the restriction and its compatibility with the reintegrative purpose of punishment. This paper examines the right to communication of persons deprived of liberty from the perspective of the digital transformation of society and argues for the necessity of a reconceptualization of the penitentiary enforcement regime applicable to communications. The analysis begins with the domestic legal framework governing telephone conversations and online communications and highlights its principal dysfunctions: unequal legal treatment among different categories of persons deprived of liberty, the insufficient nature of the existing facilities, and the lack of a genuine correlation between penitentiary security and the need to maintain family and social ties. The paper argues that the appropriate solution does not lie in maintaining absolute prohibition, but rather in transitioning toward a model of intelligent control, in which the regulated use of digital communications is permitted within predetermined limits, under technological supervision and effective human oversight. Such an approach makes it possible to reconcile penitentiary order, the protection of fundamental rights, and the contemporary requirements of social reintegration.

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