On Monday 2nd December, the Aula Magna of La Nau Cultural Centre of the Universitat de València, the conference La encriptación como Derecho Humano (Encryption as a Human Right) was given by David Casacuberta Sevilla, lecturer in Philosophy of Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and specialist in the social and cognitive impacts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The event was part of the Escola Europea de Pensament Lluís Vives programme.

Casacuberta, winner of the Eusebi Colomer Prize from the Epson Foundation for the best essay on social, anthropological, philosophical and ethical aspects related to the new technological society for his book Creación colectiva (2003) (Collective Creation), described our current society within the framework of ICT, a society in which all our actions are registered in the various technological devices: cameras, Internet servers, e-mail accounts or records of telephone calls. The new digital technologies in their current state are already de facto espionage systems. According to Casacuberta, this enormous technological change provokes social transformations that demand changes, related to the idea of intimacy as dignity, in our conception of human rights.

In La encriptación como Derecho Humano (Encryption as a Human Right), Casacuberta proposed an update in the ontological bases with which to unequivocally argue the need for a right to privacy in a society increasingly governed by computer algorithms. These algorithms do not capture all the nuances of human decision and, therefore, there are determinations that, for the moment, and according to the Catalan philosopher, we humans should take. From all this arises an injustice against which intellectuals like Casacuberta are fighting: the algorithmic injustice, which raises new questions and dilemmas that we have to face.

The Escola de Pensament Lluís Vives is a cultural project, promoted by the Office of the Vice-Principal for Culture and Sport and with the management of the General Foundation of the Universitat de València, which is shaped as a space for reflection and participatory and critical debate on current issues. The Escola has the participation of other actors from public administration and civil society: Presidency of the Generalitat, Valencia City Council, Regional Department of Transparency and Education, Research, Culture and Sport, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, Alfons el Magnànim Institute, Escola Europea d’Humanitats and Caixa Popular.