Robin Wilton

Robin Wilton is the Internet Society’s Director, Internet Trust. He is a specialist in online privacy and digital identity, with over 30 years’ experience in systems engineering, consulting and industry analyst roles.

Robin joined the Internet Society in 2012, and has represented it in the OECD’s Internet Technical Advisory Committee, the Council of Europe’s committee on privacy and data protection, and in numerous industry forums. He recently led a project to produce Personal Data Protection Guidelines for Africa in conjunction with the African Union Commission.

He is a board member of the Kantara Initiative - a non-profit tech incubator and identity assurance organisation dedicated to enhancing trust in digital identity. Robin is also an ethics board member and external reviewer on a number of EU Horizon2020 projects in the areas of healthcare data, authentication and authorization.

Recently, Robin’s work has been on:

- Trust, privacy and user agency in the Internet of Things;
- How to apply ethical data-handling principles to product development;
- The impact of quantum computing on encryption.

Robin is an effective communicator in speech and writing, with a reputation for ‘translating’ complex topics between technologists, business-people and policy-makers. His long-term interest is in how social constructs such as identity, privacy and trust are mediated through technology.

Robin speaks English and French, some German, and just enough phrases of Russian, Turkish, Norwegian, Japanese, and Italian to get into trouble.

Recent publications:

Springer/Nature paper on ethics and healthcare data:
https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2017/07/a-new-hippocratic-oath-first-do-no-harm-to-me-or-my-healthcare-data/

What CEOs need to know about encryption:
https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2018/03/ceos-encryption-questions-need-asking-experts-2/

ISOC/AUC Personal Data Protection Guidelines for Africa:
https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2018/05/the-internet-society-and-african-union-commission-launch-personal-data-protections-guidelines-for-africa/

Robin is located in the UK.

Image credit: © Jordi Ruiz Cirera/Panos