Data as the object of a contract and contract epistemology

The syntagma ‘data’ enters in the legal language, following the recognition of the right of each person to the protection of personal data and only successively is used also in juridical discipline for the flow of information not referable to the natural person. The Regulations UE (679/2016 and 1807/2018) – that establish the free flow principle of different types of data and permitt so to consider the data as intangible entities, and consequently goods – are the foundations of data, considered as a good, and establish the process of legal objectification of data as a good for specific legal purpose and worthy of protection depending on the different uses. Nevertheless the statement of free flow of data raises the question whether the legal reception of unitary paradigm of data. The use of the same syntagma ‘data’ must not obscure the fact that the data relating to the natural person is the object of legal protection as such; differently, the non-personal data can be object of protection only if in an aggregated form, as it is unsuitable of generating a utility if singularly considered, with the consequent exclusion of protection as a legal good. The above observations, nevertheless, do not prevent to consider a different use of data, meaning finalized or not to circulation. Therefore the sharing of a case method of analysis has allowed to analyze the different contractual models inherent to data and that have stemmed from the use of the new technologies.