Heather Burns As part of my new consultancy role as a privacy advisor with Tap My Data, I was interviewed about how I came to become one. The story starts in the grunge …
Open source projects can use our influence to shape the laws and policies which impact our work, and we can do so while defending ourselves, and each other, from the unintentional consequences of project misuse.
In late November I was honoured to be asked to speak at the annual conference of the National Association of Data Protection Officers in London. My slides are available to …
I was honoured to be invited to speak at this year’s Accessibility Scotland conference on Brexit’s implications for web accessibility. The video of the talk has now been posted online, and it is fully captioned.
Sometimes the medium is the message and the backstory is the story. Here is one.
Heather Burns, an internet law expert who helps firms work towards compliance, said that GDPR has drawn a stark line in the sand between certain kinds of businesses. “It’s made …
I’ve set up a crowdfunding page so that I can continue the work I have started, as well as joined, on raising the standard of privacy across open source projects. …
I have two happy developments to report from my accidental, unpaid, and very much loved role as an envoy between developers and policymakers. The first is this public summary of …
You might think that privacy and accessibility are universally respected concepts and values. They are not.
I’ve had an interesting few years working in open source privacy. I wasn’t expecting this journey would lead to speaking in eight countries, supporting the creation of a core privacy …
Read moreWant to fund my work? Here’s what I’d like, and here’s how you can help.
Yesterday I had the absolute privilege of joining Dries Buytaert (Drupal), DB Hurley (Joomla! and Mautic), Barb Palser (Google), and Tim Lehnen (Drupal Association) for a panel discussion on the future of the open web and open source at Drupal Europe in Darmstadt, Germany.
Read moreTalking about the future of the open web and open source
A couple of months ago my life fell apart in a morning. Being self-employed, I had two figures in the bank, which wasn’t enough to be able to afford a …
Read moreOn speaker travel expenses, or, why enough is enough
If you’re a developer, could you answer three quick questions for me.
The Communications Committee of the House of Lords is currently consulting on the future of internet regulation in the UK in the light of Brexit, the Facebook revelations, fake news, and hate speech.
I’ve worked to amend the WordPress.org plugin guidelines so that plugins can no longer claim to make a site legally compliant in any regulatory requirement.
It’s absolutely killing me to have to air my dirty laundry in public but I’m starting to think that if I had aired it sooner, I wouldn’t be in this …
I wrote for Smashing on how GDPR will change your development workflow.
All weekends, holidays, and shore leave are cancelled until the summer due to GDPR. And I’m loving that. Supporting agencies and software developers to adopt the principles of privacy by …
Read moreBehold the pinnacle of slactivism, digital solutionism, and GDPRubbish
To me, we have already achieved something I would not have imagined a year ago today: it is possible for developers and coders across a range of ages, levels of experience, employment scenarios, and political stances to realise that we have more in common than that which divides us.
I have a side blog where I track discussions and developments on digital and tech policies stuck in Brexit limbo, including individual parts of the Digital Single Market strategy, data …
I returned to the Swedish UX Mafia to talk about GDPR as a creative opportunity for interface design. Love talking to these guys.
Before I sink my teeth into the smorgasbord of my 2018 workload, I wanted to share my predictions for the major issues that digital professionals will face this year, with the goal of getting you to think about how you will respond to them.
I spoke with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Assistive Technology about the European Accessibility Act, its progress through the EU legislative process as well as our own domestic scrutiny …
Far be it for me to close out one of the more surreal years of my life on a normal note, so I went on the WP Tavern podcast on …
This is a joint post written by myself and Marissa Goldsmith of Goldsmith Interactive in Washington D.C. By day Marissa is an advanced Google Analytics trainer and consultant. By morning, …
This week we learned that Theresa May will order banks and building societies to check 70 million current accounts per quarter to weed out 6,000 illegal immigrants per year. As …
Read moreOn Theresa May’s planned surveillance of every bank account in Britain
On one of my regular wanders down the rabbit hole of legislation, reports, and committee hearings, I found treasure.
Read moreThe root of all of our problems; or, how to climb out of the rabbit hole
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? The answer is both: it’s Brexit Britain, and the digital industry has been pulled so far down the well of fantasy …
Read moreDreaming, delusional, and daft: the UK Government’s ideas for post-Brexit data flows
Recently I spoke with Sarah at WP Tavern about GDPR, contact forms, and the need for developers to wake up to their new legal obligations. The article generated the expected …
Do you know what a decomposing body smells like?
Read moreWhat I learned about privacy from finding a rotting corpse