Data, which direction? How can the UK best reform its data protection regime?

Rt. Hon. John Whittingdale MP

John Whittingdale MP is the former Minister of State for Media and Data in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Before serving as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from May 2015 until 14 July 2016, he was the chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. He is a member of the OSCE and the Conservative Party where he was elected Conservative MP for Maldon in 1992.

Dr Mahlet Zimeta

Head of Public Policy, Open Data Institute

Dr Mahlet (Milly) Zimeta is Head of Public Policy at the Open Data Institute.

Prior to joining the ODI in September 2020, Milly was Senior Policy Adviser at the Royal Society, the independent scientific academy of the UK, where she led the Society’s policy programme on Data and Digital Disruption including projects on data governance, data science skills, and privacy enhancing technologies.

Milly was previously Programme Manager at the Alan Turing Institute, Britain’s national institute for data science and AI, where she managed the Turing’s research partnership programmes in Health and in Finance/Economic Data Science. She has also worked at the Medical Research Council, and served on an Advisory Group at Chatham House. She holds degrees in philosophy from Oxford, Cambridge and York (UK).

: @TechMilly

Imogen Parker

Associate Director for Policy, Ada Lovelace Institute

Imogen is Associate Director at the Ada Lovelace Institute, where she is responsible for creating social change through developments to policy, law, regulation and public service delivery. She is a Policy Fellow at Cambridge University’s Centre for Science and Policy.

Her career has been at the intersection of social justice, technology and research. In her previous role as Head of the Nuffield Foundation’s programmes on Justice, Rights and Digital Society she worked in collaboration with the founding partner organisations to create the Institute. Prior to that she was acting Head of Policy Research for Citizens and Democracy at Citizens Advice, Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and worked with Baroness Kidron to create the children’s digital rights charity 5Rights.

: @ImogenParker

Matthew Peake

Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, Trainline

No bio provided

: matt-peake-52420112

Neil Ross

Associate Director, Policy, techUK

As Associate Director for Policy Neil leads on techUK's public policy work in the UK. In this role he regularly engages with UK and Devolved Government Ministers, senior civil servants and members of the UK’s Parliaments aiming to make the UK the best place to start, scale and develop a tech business.

Neil joined techUK in 2019 to lead on techUK’s input into the UK-EU Brexit trade deal negotiations and economic policy. Alongside his role leading techUK's public policy work Neil also acts as a spokesperson for techUK often appearing in the media and providing evidence to a range of Parliamentary committees.

In 2023 Neil was listed by the Politico newspaper as one of the '20 people who matter in UK tech' and has regularly been cited as a key industry figure shaping UK tech policy.