Dr Ian Brown

• Senior Research Fellow, January 2009 -
• Research Fellow, July 2007 - December 2008

Dr Ian Brown's research is focused on public policy issues around information and the Internet, particularly privacy and copyright. He also works in the more technical fields of communications security and healthcare informatics. He is Principal Investigator of Privacy Value Networks and Towards a Future Internet; Co-Investigator of FRESNEL and Privacy Open Space; and on the advisory board of Integrated Mobile Security Kit. His research group includes Alissa Cooper, Mahmood Enayat, Fadhila Mazanderani, Anne-Marie Oostveen, Chrysanthi Papoutsi, Wolf Richter, Túlio de Souza, Christian Wallenta and Joss Wright.

Since 1998 Dr Brown has variously been a trustee of Privacy International, the Open Rights Group and the Foundation for Information Policy Research and an adviser to Greenpeace, the Refugee Children’s Consortium, Amnesty International and Creative Commons UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the International University of Japan and the British Computer Society, a senior member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and has consulted for the US Department of Homeland Security, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, Allianz, McAfee, BT, the BBC, the European Commission, the Cabinet Office, Ofcom, the National Audit Office and the Information Commissioner’s Office. Previous projects include Pilot Interactive Mobile Multimedia System (PIMMS), Control and Prediction of the Organic Solid State (CPOSS), CLEF (Integrating Information for the clinical e-Scientist), Fair Tracing, e-Curator and the Cambridge-MIT Institute's Critical Infrastructure Protection working group.

Dr Brown's work has been covered by the BBC, CNN, CBC and numerous newspapers and magazines. He has written for the Financial Times, Daily Telegraph and Guardian. In 2004 he was voted as one of the 100 most influential people in the development of the Internet in the UK over the previous decade.

A full list of pre-2007 articles is available from UCL.

Email: firstname.lastname at oii.ox.ac.uk

Blog: Blogzilla

Research interests

privacy, copyright, e-democracy, information security, networking, healthcare informatics

Contact information

Dr Ian Brown, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St Giles Oxford OX1 3JS, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0)1865 287210 Fax: +44 (0)1865 287211 Email: enquiries@oii.ox.ac.uk

Students

• Alissa Cooper, DPhil student

• Mahmood Enayat, DPhil student

• Fadhila Haeri Mazanderani, DPhil student

• Chrysanthi Papoutsi, DPhil student

• Wolf Richter, DPhil student

Taught courses

• Internet Technologies and Regulation

Publications

• Adams, A. and Brown, I. (2009) Keep Looking: The Answer to the Machine is Elsewhere. Computers & Law.
• Brown, I. (2009) Constitutions and tussles in cyberspace. EIFFEL Future Internet workshop, London, February 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Cybercrime and data sharing. Fifth Annual Conference on Geospatial Intelligence, London, January 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Database State, Privacy Open Space. Berlin, April 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Faraday cages, marbled palaces and Humpty Dumpty: the reality of Internet governance. Global Governance Challenges, Oxford, February 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Information society research and sustainability. ICT for a Global Sustainable Future, Brussels, Belgium, January 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Liberalism, democracy and privacy in Europe. European Parliament, April 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) On the toxicity of personal data. Information Security Best Practices, Pennsylvania, January 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Privacy is paramount. UK Health Informatics Today.
• Brown, I. (2009) Privacy, neuroimaging and public policy. Neuroethics, London, May 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Regulation of Converged Communications Surveillance. In: B.Goold and D.Neyland (eds) New Directions in Privacy and Surveillance. Exeter: Willan, pp. 39-73.
• Brown, I. (2009) Robust privacy protection for the Future Web. Web Science: Society Online, Athens, March 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Trust, privacy and biometrics. Biometrics Working Group, London, May 2009.
• Brown, I. (2009) Ubicomp challenges for privacy law. Ubicomp at a Crossroads: Art, Science, Politics and Design, London, January 2009.
• Brown, I. and Korff, D. (2009) Terrorism and the Proportionality of Internet Surveillance. European Journal of Criminology 6 (2) 119-134.
• Brown, I., Kleine, D. and Light, A. (2009) Understanding the provenance of ethically produced goods. Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information Technology and Development 2009, Doha, Qatar, 17-19 April 2009.
• Edwards, L. and Brown, I. (2009) Data Control and Social Networking: Irreconcilable Ideas? In: A.Matwyshyn (ed.) Harboring Data: Information Security, Law and the Corporation. Stanford University Press.
• Richter, W. and Brown, I. (2009) Designing effective regulation for the 'Dark side' of the Web [Presentation Slides]. Proceedings of the WebSci09 - Society Online Conference, Athens, 18-20 March 2009.
• Richter, W. and Brown, I. (2009) Designing effective regulation for the 'Dark side' of the Web. Proceedings of the WebSci09 - Society Online Conference, Athens, 18-20 March 2009.
• Brown, I. (2008) Activism 2.0. Amnesty International communications strategy workshop, London, September 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Can we censor prejudice on a free internet? No Frontiers? Free Speech and the Internet, Cumberland Lodge, November 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Cybersecurity threats: long-term solutions. National Security 2008, Brussels, October 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Cyberterrorism. Changing Character of War seminar series, Oxford University, February 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Design principles from the European Court of Human Rights. Future Trends in Security and Privacy, Oxford, December 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) DRM 2.0: ISP monitoring and blocking mandates. Legislating for Web 2.0, London, September 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Internet filtering - be careful what you ask for. In: S.Kirca and L.Hanson (eds) Freedom and Prejudice: Approaches to Media and Culture. Istanbul: Bahcesehir University Press, pp. 74-91.
• Brown, I. (2008) Internet Filtering in the UK. ACM Computers, Freedom and Privacy, Yale, May 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Involving citizens in assessing dilemmas of privacy and security. Towards privacy enhancing security technologies, Vienna, April 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Online opportunities for psychological operations and surveillance. Combatting Terrorism: The Role of International Regimes, Oxford University, March 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Politics and privacy engineering. Launch of Eindhoven Institute for the Protection of Systems and Information, Eindhoven University of Technology, April 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Privacy and online advertising. Behavioural Targeting, London, November 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Retaining democratic control over surveillance technologies. International Crime Science Conference, London, July 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Rethinking media regulation (again). Legislating for Web 2.0, London, September 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Security technology and democratic legitimacy. European Security Research Innovation Forum, Brussels, September 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Social Utilities, Dominance and Interoperability: a Modest Proposal. GikIII, Oxford, September 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Trust in Online Communities. International Conference on Information Culture, Seoul, Korea, June 2008.
• Brown, I. (2008) Trust in Online Communities. Proc. International Conference on Information Culture, Seoul, pp. 236-253.
• Brown, I., Kleine, D., Kundu, A., Light, A. and Montero, M. (2008) Global Social Responsibility, Technology and Consumer Choice: the EPSRC Fair Tracing Project. Department of Politics and International Relations, University of London Royal Holloway, 6 March 2008.
• Kitkat, J. and Brown, I. (2008) Observing the English and Scottish 2007 e-elections. Parliamentary Affairs 61 (2) 380-395.
• Marsden, C., Simmons, S., Brown, I., Woods, L., Peake, A., Robinson, N., Hoorens, S. and Klautzer, L. (2008) Options for and Effectiveness of Self-regulation in the Information Society. European Commission DG Information Society and Media.
• Marsh, S., Brown, I. and Khaki, F. (2008) Privacy Engineering. Cybersecurity Knowledge Transfer Network white paper.
• Millar, F., Were, G., Brown, I., Hess, M., MacDonald, S., Robson, S. and Ong, Y.-H. (2008) 3D Colour Scans for Object Assessment. Proc. Electronic Information, the Visual Arts and Beyond, London.
• Robson, S., Brown, I., Hess, M., MacDonald, S., Ong, Y.-H., Millar, F. and Were, G. (2008) Traceable storage and transmission of 3D colour scan data sets. Proc. Virtual Systems and Multimedia, Cyprus.
• Wallenta, C., Ahmed, M., Brown, I., Hailes, S. and Huici, F. (2008) We know what you did at 9am: analysis systems with dynamic user generated content. Proceedings of Multi-Service Networks, Abingdon, 10 July 2008.
• Brown, I. (2007) Current research. Oxford Internet Institute, 10 October 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Distinguishing consumer protection from rent-seeking. Intellectual Property and consumer rights, London, November 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) DRM is dead - monetise ubiquity, not scarcity. Guardian Changing Media Symposium 2.0, London, March 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Excel ate my election! St Andrew’s University, October 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Fair Tracing. Doors of Perception 9: Food, Energy, Design, Delhi, India, 28 February-4 March 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Is user-generated content disrupting politics? Law 2.0: New Speech, New Property, New Identity, Society for Computers and Law forum, London, 17-18 September 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Openness and innovation in the information society. i2010 High Level Group Review, European Commission, November 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Privacy as a key system requirement for building trust. Public Services Summit, Stockholm, December 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Privacy in the age of anti-terrorism. PRISE Users and Stakeholders Workshop, Copenhagen, January 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Privacy, human rights and Location Based Services. Location and Timing Knowledge Transfer Network meeting on privacy, Cambridge, April 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Technologies for forgetting. Los Angeles, April 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) The law and economics of cybersecurity. Law Quarterly Review 123: 172-175.
• Brown, I. (2007) Who 0wnz the Internet? Embedded, Networked and Distributed Systems seminar, Glasgow University, October 2007.
• Brown, I. (2007) Wild West or gulag: models for policing cyberspace. Patrolling and Controlling Cyberspace, NATO Advanced Research Workshop, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, April 2007.
• Brown, I. and Adams, A.A. (2007) The ethical challenges of ubiquitous healthcare. International Review of Information Ethics 8 (12) 53-60.
• Brown, I. and Light, A. (2007) Tracing premium food products. India International Coffee Festival, Bangalore, India, 23-25 February 2007.
• Brown, I. and Marsden, C.T. (2007) Co-regulating Internet Security: The London Action Plan. Global Internet Governance Academic Network Second Annual Symposium, Rio de Janeiro.
• Brown, I., Chopra, A., Kleine, D. Kundu, A., Light, A. and Wallenta, C. (2007) Fair Tracing Report. EPSRC Bridging the Global Digital Divide Network Conference, Cambridge, 8-9 January 2007.
• Brown, I., Edward, L. and Marsden, C. (2007) Stalking 2.0: privacy protection in a leading Social Networking Site. GikII 2 - law, technology and popular culture, London, September 2007.
• Carlberg. K., Desourdis, R., Polk, J. and Brown, I. (2007) Preferential Emergency Communications. Vol. 744 in The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science.
• Anderson, R., Brown, I., Clayton, R., Dowty, T., Korff, D. and Munro, E. (2006) Children's Databases – Safety and Privacy. Report.
• Brown, I. (2006) The evolution of anti-circumvention law. Law, Computers and Technology 20 (3) 239-260.
• Brown, I. (2006) UK government surveillance powers. Research Note.
• Roberts, L., Blanshard, L.J., van Dam, K.K., Price, S.L., Price, L.S. and Brown, I. (2006) Providing an Effective Data Infrastructure for the Simulation of Complex Materials. Proceedings of the UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2006, pp. 101-105.
• Brown, I. (2005) Who is Enfranchised by Remote Voting? Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC'05).
• Carlberg, K., Brown, I. and Beard, C. (2005) Framework for Supporting Emergency Telecommunications Service (ETS) in IP Telephony. RFC 4190.
• Brown, I. and Korff, D. (2004) Technology development and its effect on privacy and law enforcement.

Projects

• e-Curator Project

  October 2007 - March 2009

  e-Curator explores the use of 3D colour scanning and e-Science technologies to capture and share very large 3D colour scans and detailed datasets about museum artefacts in a secure computing environment, to assist curators and conservators.

• Fair Tracing Project

  October 2006 - September 2009

  The aim of the Fair Tracing project is to support Ethical Trade by implementing IT Tracking and Tracing Technologies in supply chains to provide consumers and producers with enhanced information.

• Internet governance

  October 2004 -

  A programme of seminars, forums and conferences informing our research on Internet governance.

• Privacy Value Networks

  October 2008 - September 2011

  Privacy Value Networks (PVNets) is producing an empirical base for developing concepts of privacy across contexts and timeframes, addressing a current lack of clarity of what privacy is and what it means to stakeholders in different usage scenarios.

• Towards a Future Internet

  December 2008 - August 2010

  The Internet Futures project will produce a single preferred vision of a 'Future Internet' for Europe by researching possible social, psychological, technological and economic options for its further development and their likely socio-economic impacts.

Events

• International Perspectives on Net Neutrality: A Policy Seminar

  Wednesday 17 March 2010 14:00 - 16:00

Webcasts

• The Future of the Internet: Private Sheriffs in Cyberspace

  Recorded on: 19 May 2009 Duration: 00:00:00

  Jonathan Zittrain discusses the ways in which online life will be regulated largely by people and institutions bearing no badges or government affiliation. Do private sheriffs help avoid cumbersome and ill-considered government intervention?

• Social Networking Conference. Session 2: Intimate Relationships and Online Social Networks

  Recorded on: 7 April 2008 Duration: 00:38:11

  A discussion of intimate relationships and online social networks, covering intimate relationships and online social networks: 'Netiquette within Married Couples' and 'Stalking 2.0. Social Networking and Privacy: Incompatible Ideas?'.

• Gov 2.0, or Truly Transformative Government, Part 1

  Recorded on: 22 January 2008 Duration: 00:22:24

  Introduction. Does the contemporary Internet have lessons for why government and public services fail to engage people?

News

• Beijing eases back on harsh plan for online censorship

  20 June 2009 The Globe and Mail

  Ian Brown comments on Chinese Government plans to install filtering software on all new computers. '"The reaction that the initial announcement elicited in China, it does seem to have caused the Chinese government to slightly back off,” said Ian Brown'

• Oxford Internet Institute Sets Out the Privacy Threats in 2009

  30 April 2009 New Media Knowledge

  Privacy and identity protection online is of constant concern to Internet users. New Media Knowledge speaks to Dr Ian Brown of the Oxford Internet Institute to get his diagnosis on the state of Internet privacy in the UK today

• Call to scrap 'illegal databases'

  23 March 2009 BBC News

  'A quarter of all government databases are illegal and should be scrapped or redesigned, according to a report by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust': Ian Brown is one of the authors of the 'Database State' Report

• Quarter of state databases "should be scrapped"

  23 March 2009 Reuters

  'A quarter of government databases in Britain should be scrapped or redesigned because they are fundamentally flawed and probably illegal, a report from a social justice think-tank said': Ian Brown is one of the authors of the 'Database State' Report

• Quarter of UK's databases are 'illegal'

  23 March 2009 The Independent

  'Researchers called for 11 systems assessed as "almost certainly illegal" under human rights or data protection law to be scrapped or substantially redesigned': Ian Brown is one of the authors of the 'Database State' Report

• Right to privacy broken by a quarter of UK's public databases, says report

  23 March 2009 The Guardian

  'A quarter of all the largest public-sector database projects, including the ID cards register, are fundamentally flawed and clearly breach European data protection and rights laws, according to a report published today': Ian Brown is one of the authors

• 10 government databases 'will break the law'

  22 March 2009 Times Online

  'At least 10 of the giant government databases built or planned by ministers unlawfully breach privacy, according to a report': Ian Brown is one of the authors of the 'Database State' Report

• One in four government websites illegal

  22 March 2009 The Telegraph

  'One in four Government databases are illegal under human rights or data protection and should be scrapped immediately, a panel of experts have warned': Ian Brown is one of the authors of the 'Database State' Report

• Data time limit stirs search engine debate

  11 December 2008 Financial Times

  'Ian Brown, privacy expert at the Oxford Internet Institute described Microsoft's pledge as a "positive step forward". "It's a real pity organisations such as Google have resisted reducing their retention rates further."'

• Google lehnt schärferen Datenschutz ab

  11 December 2008 Handelsblatt.com

  Dr Ian Brown comments on Microsoft's customer data pledge

• Russia and China accused of harbouring cybercriminals

  9 December 2008 Times Online

  'Russia and China are protecting gangs of criminals engaged in cybercrimes such as internet fraud, blackmail and money laundering, a study says today': Ian Brown is one of the authors of the annual Virtual Criminology Report

• Grant winners

  4 September 2008 Times Higher Education

  Dr Ian Brown wins research funding for Privacy Value Networks (PVNets) Project, which 'will generate a detailed understanding of individuals' and organisations' conceptions of privacy and identity across a range of contexts and time frames'

• Experts: Internet filtering and censorship rife

  21 August 2008 CNN.com

  'Believe the conspiracy theories: Out of sight and without your knowledge, governments truly are filtering what you see on the Internet': Jonathan Zittrain and Ian Brown comment on Internet filtering and circumvention

• How Big Brother watches your every move

  17 August 2008 The Telegraph

  'With every telephone call, swipe of a card and click of a mouse, information is being recorded, compiled and stored about Britain's citizens': Ian Brown comments on user data held by search engines and ISPs

• Why satnavs are a detective's best friend

  3 July 2008 New Scientist

  Ian Brown comments on data privacy: 'It seems likely that secure deletion of personal data will become a popular feature of this type of device sooner rather than later," he says.'

• Cybercrime agency faces cuts as computer raid threats grow

  4 December 2007 Times Online

  'Ian Brown, of Oxford University, one of the report's authors, said that attacks traced back to China have been found attempting to crack Whitehall passwords'

• MI5 alert on China's cyberspace spy threat

  1 December 2007 Times Online

  'Ian Brown, of Oxford University, one of the report's authors, said that attacks traced back to China have been found attempting to crack Whitehall passwords'

• Biometrics are definitely not the answer to the HMRC debacle

  29 November 2007 New Statesman

  Ian Brown and colleagues write an open letter to Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights

• Biometrics won't fix data loss problems

  27 November 2007 The Register

  Ian Brown and colleagues write an open letter to Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights, expressing their dismay at the way biometrics has been used as a magic wand which would have supposedly stopped Darling's great data giveaway

• ID cards criticised as 'fairy tale'

  27 November 2007 Computing

  'The national biometric identity card programme should be suspended until security fears have been eliminated, according to a group of academics'. Ian Brown and colleagues write an open letter to Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights

• Lost disc fiasco could scupper ID card scheme

  27 November 2007 Daily Mail

  'Leading academics have rounded on the Government's "fairytale view" of the technology needed to make the scheme work on its introduction in 2009.' Ian Brown and colleagues write an open letter to Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights

• Modern killers turn to video to get message out

  7 November 2007 Reuters

  Ian Brown comments on the posting on YouTube of a clip announcing a school shooting in Finland: '"New technologies like the Internet get used by a very wide range of people and unfortunately including in events like this," he said.'

• Burma's cyber-dissidents

  26 September 2007 BBC News

  Ian Brown on the Burmese government's control of Internet use: 'The Burmese government has a very repressive filtering regime... but it can be a bit inconsistent'

• Safety fears over new register of all children

  27 August 2007 Times Online

  'Ian Brown, a computer security research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, said that the scale of the database posed huge risks'

Last updated on: 3 February 2010