The Privacy and Digital Transformation Chair participates in the first anniversary of the Charter of Digital Rights.

The commemorative event for the first anniversary of the presentation of the Charter of Digital Rights (July 14th, 2021) brought together the specialists who participated in its drafting and the authorities who made this process possible. Among them, Carmen Artigas, Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence.
 
The aim of the meeting, held in Madrid, was to take stock of the Charter's contribution to the public discussion on digital rights and, on the other hand, to project its possible areas of influence into the future.

The Privacy and Digital Transformation Chair Microsoft-Universitat de València was represented by its director, Professor Ricard Martínez Martínez. The academic was a member of the Advisory Group of Experts that wrote the Charter, specifically in the group of speakers, which also included Susana de la Sierra, Manuela Battaglini, Borja Adsuara and Moisés Barrio.

In his speech, Martínez highlighted the Spanish government's commitment to digital rights. "From the point of view of the Digital Agenda 2025, the Charter of Digital Rights is a perfectly planned milestone in the context of a roadmap," he said. "This initiative is much more than a willingness to open a debate," he said. 

"This initiative is much more than a willingness to open a debate," he said. "There is a clear and strategic design of the government to make digital rights a part of the centre of the action and with a clear message to those companies that within the digital transformation are going to develop their activity.”.

In addition to the above, the academic stressed that inclusion and security are inherent values of the Charter that allow the country, in digital matters, to be resilient to the scenario of crisis and changes that the continent is experiencing. 

"The context of crisis coincides with the process of greater accumulation of capital in information technologies and with a significant take-off of all the tools in the framework of research, innovation and entrepreneurship that are the basis for all digital growth," he said. "In other words, the Charter is not alien in many of its solutions to what is supposed to make us stronger, fairer, more inclusive and more equal," he concluded.

The Charter

The Charter of Digital Rights was drawn up on the basis of the work done by the Advisory Group of Experts. This commission was set up by the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.

The Group was formed by Tomás de la Quadra-Salcedo, Susana de la Sierra, Ricard Martínez, Manuela Battaglini, Borja Adsuara, Moisés Barrio, Argelia Queralt, Celia Fernández Aller, José Luis Piñar, Rodolfo Tesone, Carissa Veliz, Paloma Llaneza, Ofelia Tejerina, Simona Levi, Emilia Saiz, Enrique Goñi, Miguel Pérez Subías, Javier Ruiz Díaz.

"The rights and freedoms recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Spanish Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and the international treaties and agreements on the same matters ratified by Spain are applicable in digital environments".

—Article 1, Charter of Digital Rights