Luciano Floridi was born in Rome in 1964. He was educated at Rome University La Sapienza, where he graduated in philosophy (laurea) in 1988, first class with distinction. He obtained his MPhil in 1989 and his PhD in 1990, both from the University of Warwick.

He was lecturer in philosophy at the University of Warwick in 1990-1. He joined the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Oxford in 1990 and then the Department of Computer Science in 1999. He was Junior Research Fellow (postdoc) in Philosophy at Wolfson College, Oxford University in 1990-4, Francis Yates Fellow in the History of Ideas at the Warburg Institute, University of London in 1994–95, and Research Fellow in Philosophy at Wolfson College, Oxford University in 1994-01. During these years in Oxford, he held several lecturerships in different Colleges. Between 1994 and 1996, he also held a post-doctoral research scholarship at the Department of Philosophy, Università degli Studi di Torino. Between 2001 and 2006, he was Markle Foundation Senior Research Fellow in Information Policy at the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Oxford University. Between 2002 and 2008, he was Associate Professor of Logic (tenure) at the Università degli Studi di Bari. In 2006, he was elected Fellow by Special Election of St Cross College, Oxford University.

Between 2006 and 2010, he was President of IACAP (International Association for Computing And Philosophy). In 2009, he became the first philosopher to be elected Gauss Professor by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences. Still in 2009, he was awarded the Barwise Prize by the American Philosophical Association in recognition of his research on the philosophy of information, and was elected Fellow of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour. In 2010, he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Springer’s new journal Philosophy & Technology and elected Fellow of the Center for Information Policy Research, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. In 2011, he awarded a laurea honoris causa by the University of Suceava, Romania, for his research on the philosophy of information. In 2012, he was appointed Chairman of the expert group, organised by the DG INFSO of the European Commission, on the impact of information and communication technologies on the digital transformations occurring in the European society. Still in 2012, he was the recipient of the Covey Award, by the International Association for Computing and Philosophy, for “outstanding research in philosophy and computing”. He is the recipient of the Weizenbaum Award for 2013 for his "significant contribution to the field of information and computer ethics, through his research, service, and vision” (the Award is given every two years by the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology). Still in 2013, he was elected Fellow of the British Computer Society (FBCS).

In 2009-11, he was the Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded project “The Construction of Personal Identities Online” and of the Marie Curie Fellowship Grant on "The Ethics of Information Warfare: Risks, Rights and Responsibilities" (FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF). He is currently the Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded project “Understanding Information Quality Standards and their Challenges” (2011-2013) .

Since 2008, he is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hertfordshire – where he holds the Research Chair in Philosophy of Information and the UNESCO Chair of Information and Computer Ethics – and Fellow of St Cross College, University of Oxford, where he is the founder and director of the IEG, Oxford University Information Ethics research Group.

Floridi’s research concerns primarily the Philosophy of Information and Information Ethics. Other research interests include Epistemology, Philosophy of Logic, Philosophy of Technology, and the History and Philosophy of Scepticism. He has published over a 150 papers in these areas, in many anthologies and peer-reviewed journals.

His most recent books are: The Philosophy of Information (Oxford University Press, 2011, volume one of the tetralogy Principia Philosophiae Informationis); Information – A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2010); and the Cambridge Handbook of Information and Computer Ethics (edited for Cambridge University Press, 2010).

His forthcoming books are: The Ethics of Information (Oxford University Press, volume two of the quadrilogy); and The Fourth Revolution - The Impact of Information and Communication Technologies on Our Lives (Oxford University Press, under contract).

His previous books include Scepticism and the Foundation of Epistemology – A Study in the Metalogical Fallacies (Brill, 1996); Internet – An Epistemological Essay (Il Saggiatore, 1997); Philosophy and Computing: An Introduction (Routledge, 1999); Sextus Empiricus, The Recovery and Transmission of Pyrrhonism (Oxford University Press, 2002). He is the editor of the Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information (Blackwell, 2004).

His works have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Greek, Japanese, Italian, Hungarian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.