Today, as we celebrate Global Encryption Day, it’s crucial to reflect on the role encryption plays not only in securing our digital communications but also in shaping a more democratic and just society. Encryption is more than just a tool for protecting our privacy—it has the potential to fundamentally reshape the way we govern, distribute resources, and ensure fairness in an increasingly data-driven world.

We are living in an era where predictive models, powered by big data, are becoming essential tools in managing our lives, institutions, and resources. However, these models often rely on proxies such as geography, gender, or race, which can lead to biased and unfair outcomes. In this context, transparency and fairness are more critical than ever. And that’s where modern cryptography comes into play.

Techniques like Homomorphic Encryption and Functional Encryption allow us to perform computations on encrypted data. This means that sensitive personal information—often irrelevant to the task at hand—can remain private while still enabling accurate and useful predictions. For example, a healthcare system could make life-saving predictions without ever knowing a patient’s race or gender, eliminating the bias that could otherwise seep into such models.

On Global Encryption Day, it’s essential to acknowledge the profound impact these cryptographic innovations can have on society. As we continue to develop techniques like Anamorphic Encryption, which allows for multiple meanings to be hidden in a single encrypted message, we are taking steps toward creating systems that are secure, transparent, and fair. These innovations could pave the way for digitally blind evaluation systems that, by design, remove bias, protect privacy, and empower more democratic decision-making processes.

Encryption, once thought of merely as a tool to secure computers and networks, is now about securing societies. By putting trust in mathematics instead of in governments or institutions alone, we can build systems that inherently promote fairness and accountability. On this Global Encryption Day, let’s recognize the power of cryptography in driving us toward a future where democracy, fairness, and privacy go hand in hand.