Born in 1933 in Cosenza, to a middle-class family of Arbëreshë origin from San Benedetto Ullano,[1] he attended Liceo classico Bernardino Telesio in his hometown and later the Sapienza University of Rome, where he graduated in 1955 under professor Emilio Betti, an Italian jurist, Roman Law scholar, philosopher and theologian, best known for his contributions to hermeneutics.

As well as giving lectures and seminars at several universities in the United States, Canada, Australia, Latin America, and India, he was a visiting scholar at All Souls College in Oxford and Stanford Law School on a Fulbright grant.

Instead, he was elected to the Parliament for the Independent Left, affiliated to the Italian Communist Party (PCI) becoming member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.

In April 1992 he returned to Parliament for the fourth time, was elected as Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies and re-confirmed as a member of the new Bicameral Commission for institutional reforms.

[3] From 1997 to 2005 he was the first President of the Italian Authority for the Protection of Personal data, while from 1998 to 2002 he chaired the Coordination Group of Trustees for the right to privacy of the European Union.

[6] In 2010, November 29 he presented to the Internet Governance Forum a proposal to bring in the Italian Constitutional Affairs Committee the adoption of new Article 21a.

In 2009 Rodotà drafted together with fellow jurists Alberto Lucarelli and Ugo Mattei the popular referendum to oppose water and other utilities privatisation.

In 2013 Rodotà became a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, proposed by the Five Stars Movement[7][8] and various appeals of civil society, also collected from several members of the Democratic Party and Left Ecology Freedom.

In 2007 he was appointed by the Ministry of Justice of the last center-left Government to chair the Commission for the reform of the Italian Civil Code in the domain of public property.