El tratamiento de protección de datos y su incidencia en el derecho ecuatoriano: un estudio crítico.

Abstract

This research addresses the treatment of personal data protection and its impact on Ecuadorian law, from a general critical study perspective. The right to personal data protection is expressly recognized in Article 66, paragraph 19, of the Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador, and has been developed, since 2021, by the Organic Law on Personal Data Protection (LOPDP). It is a fundamental right whose effective incorporation into the national legal system is recent and still under construction. The general objective of the research was to analyze, through a dogmatic legal approach and the analytical, hermeneutical, and comparative methods, the conceptual, normative, and institutional framework of this right, with emphasis on the development and effective performance of the Superintendency of Personal Data Protection (SPDP) between 2024 and 2026. The findings support the claim that the Ecuadorian regime has moved beyond the stage of merely formal recognition of the right, consolidating instead a dual protection scheme that combines judicial and administrative avenues. The latter is no longer a normative provision without practical application; in December 2025, the Superintendency of Personal Data Protection sanctioned both the Ecuadorian Professional Football League and the Ecuadorian Football Federation, marking the first concrete exercise of its sanctioning authority. Even so, significant gaps remain. The interpretive criteria issued by the SPDP are not binding beyond the specific case that gives rise to them; the law still does not expressly regulate a right to be forgotten; and there is still no empirical evidence confirming whether institutional oversight extends to sectors other than the one analyzed in this study. It can therefore be affirmed that the protection of the right has strengthened, although it would be premature to call it complete; this conclusion is what gives rise to the lines of normative and institutional reform proposed later in this work.