Ben oversees our business development, finances and compliance. He is an international data protection law and policy expert specialised in the protection of vulnerable data subjects, new technologies, challenging processing environments and applied ethics.

Ben previously ran a niche data protection consultancy, DPSM, providing data protection impact assessment, data protection by design and general compliance services to international organisations, NGOs, commercial clients, universities and start- ups.

He has worked as a Legal Advisor to the International Committee of the Red Cross, developing data protection frameworks for complex innovation projects, including the ICRC’s Biometrics Policy. Ben also worked for the UN Refugee Agency, where he drafted the organisation’s Operational Guidelines on Data Protection and a toolkit for UNHCR operations. He has advised numerous EU bodies and agencies and wrote the Ethics and Data Protection Guidance for the EU’s flagship research programme: “Horizon 2020”.

Ben has 20 years’ experience working more broadly at the intersection of human rights and social policy. He has conducted ground-breaking research on inter/national security, counterterrorism, surveillance, border control, technology transfer, financial regulation and climate change, and worked for the Transnational Institute, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the Human Security Collective and Statewatch.

Ben received a PhD from the University of Ulster in 2008 for a thesis on EU law, international security and human rights. He lives in Totnes and is a mentor at the Environmental Futures and Big Data Impact Lab, a multi-partner incubator working across the southwest of the UK.