Kieron O’Hara is an Associate Fellow at Bright Blue and an associate professor in electronics and computer science at the University of Southampton, researching into the social and political impact of technology, particularly the World Wide Web. His interests are focused on privacy, trust and transparency, especially in the context of ‘big data’. He is the author of several books in this area, including ‘The Spy in the Coffee Machine: The End of Privacy As We Know It’ (with Sir Nigel Shadbolt), and ‘The Devil’s Long Tail: Religious and Other Radicals in the Internet Marketplace’ (with David Stevens). His latest book, ‘The Theory and Practise of Social Machines’, was published in early 2019. He also researches into the theory and practice of conservatism, on which he has written books including ‘After Blair: Conservatism Beyond Thatcher’, and ‘Conservatism’, as well as books on the Enlightenment, Aldous Huxley and Joseph Conrad.
Kieron is a leader in the UKAN network of anonymisation professionals, developing best practice on how organisations can share data without compromising privacy. His report for the Cabinet Office on privacy and open data was published in September 2011, and from 2010-15 he chaired the transparency sector panel on crime and criminal justice data for the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office.
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The Extinction Rebellion seems to be going nicely. The BBC likes the photogenic shots of protesters; the ‘Torygraph’ thunders at it; it tickles the tummies of the likes of Polly…
In a remarkably short time, the Internet, and the World Wide Web which sits upon it, have become critical infrastructure for governments, the military, companies and individuals alike. It can…
Over the last several months, fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs), electronic gambling machines which lurk in betting shops, have been the subject of deep opprobrium, from the puritan left to…
