Charlie Harry Smith is a doctoral student at the Oxford Internet Institute. As an empirical political theorist, his research considers the normative and theoretical issues emerging at the intersection of digital identities and digital government. In particular, he is interested in the UK Government’s ongoing engagement with the private sector to develop and implement federated digital identity systems for state identification purposes. This work is fully-funded as part of the ESRC’s Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership and supervised by Professors Victoria Nash and Helen Margetts.
Charlie holds an MSc in Political Theory (Distinction) from the London School of Economics and a BA (Hons.) in Philosophy (First-Class) from Durham University. Whilst at Durham, he also spent a year studying aboard at the University of Hong Kong.
Alongside his research, Charlie regularly consults on contemporary digital identity projects. He currently handles social media monitoring for the Open Identity Exchange and has recently worked with the Digital Equity Association to bring the SMART Africa Trust Alliance – an ambitious cross-continental federated identity scheme – to the pilot project stage.
Digital identity, digital government, federated identity, national ID cards, reflective equilibrium, liberal political theory
Smith C.H. (2020) Corporatised Identities ≠ Digital Identities: Algorithmic Filtering on Social Media and the Commercialisation of Presentations of Self. In: Burr C., Floridi L. (eds) Ethics of Digital Well-Being. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 140. Springer, Cham.
Smith, C.H. (2023) ‘Digitising reflective equilibrium’, Ethics and Information Technology, 25(3). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-023-09722-w.
Nash, J. and Smith, C.H. (2023) ‘Rewiring the Web: The Future of Personal Data’, Demos. Available at: https://demos.co.uk/research/rewiring-the-web-the-future-of-personal-data/.
Director, Associate Professor, Senior Policy Fellow
Victoria Nash is the OII's Director and a Senior Policy Fellow. Her research focuses on the opportunities and risks experienced by children using digital technologies; she also leads OII engagement on Internet regulation and digital policy issues.
Professor of Society and the Internet
Helen Margetts is Professor of Society and the Internet, a political scientist specialising in digital government and politics. She was Director of the OII from 2011-18. She is a Professorial Fellow of Mansfield College.
