Principal - Privacy, Security and Academic Partnerships Verified listing

About Ofcom

Ofcom is the regulator for the communications services that we use and rely on each day.  We make sure people get the best from their broadband, home phone and mobile services, as well as keeping an eye on TV and radio.

Our culture is clear - we live by our values: Empowerment; Excellence; Collaboration; Agility and Respect. These define how we work to deliver our purpose, now and in the future. The behaviours which support these values set the path for a fully inclusive and innovative culture at Ofcom.

We focus not only on what we do, but how we do it. We pride ourselves on being an organisation of people who genuinely care about helping others.

Team Overview

The Trust and Safety Technology Team collaborates with various departments within the organization and external stakeholders to enhance the skills and knowledge required to keep pace with the rapid advancements in online and trust and safety technologies.

The team's primary objective is to oversee, engage with, and shape the development of technologies that ensure the safety of citizens online. They contribute to standards and best practices that promote innovation and influence service design, benefitting both citizens and the industry. These outputs inform Ofcom's regulatory approach. The team also focuses on developing privacy and computer security capabilities to prepare Ofcom for its new role as the UK's regulator for online safety.

Purpose of the role

As a key member of the Trust and Safety Technology team, the selected candidate will take charge of developing and implementing a work program aimed at enhancing understanding of the privacy and security technologies used by online services to help meet Ofcom's Online Safety objectives. The candidate will also be responsible for building relationships with academic stakeholders to assist the wider Trust and Safety Technology team.

The ideal candidate should have extensive knowledge of privacy and security technologies, particularly at the intersection of online safety, and the ability to effectively communicate this knowledge to various teams at Ofcom. Additionally, the candidate should have a proven track record of managing existing relationships with academic stakeholders and establishing new ones. This experience will be crucial in informing the work of the Online Safety program, including creating codes of practice, technology notices, and accredited technology.

Requirements of the Role

Knowledge gathering, sharing and technical distillation activities including:

• Horizon scanning: This involves researching and analysing the latest developments in privacy and security technologies to identify potential threats and opportunities for online safety. This includes keeping abreast of the latest research and advancements in the field, as well as emerging technologies and trends.
• Creating technical notes, presentations and seminars: This involves developing technical documentation, presentations, and seminars to share knowledge and insights with both technical and non-technical audiences. This may include creating materials that explain complex technical concepts in easy-to-understand language, as well as providing examples of how these concepts can be applied in the context of online safety.

Expertise and consultancy for wider Online Safety programme, including:

• Assessing privacy and security technologies: This involves using in-depth knowledge to assess the suitability of various privacy and security technologies for online safety purposes. This includes evaluating their effectiveness, feasibility, and potential risks and limitations.
• Providing guidance on available technology: This involves providing detailed guidance on the technology that is currently available for online safety purposes and assessing solutions by third parties we engage with. This includes providing advice on the capabilities and limitations of different technologies and tools.
• Undertaking research to scope and identify technologies: This involves conducting research to identify technologies that could be transformed into real-world solutions for use in enhancing online safety. This includes scoping out potential solutions and evaluating the feasibility of apparent solutions to determine whether they are viable.

Contributing to the wider Trust and Safety Technology programme, including:

• Building and fostering partnerships: This involves building and fostering partnerships with academic institutions to facilitate the gathering of relevant expertise and evidence. This includes guiding academic researchers towards research areas that are of interest to Ofcom and its objectives.
• Acting as a knowledge source and mentor: This involves acting as a knowledge source and mentor to advise less experienced scientists across the wider team on scientific rigour. This includes providing guidance and advice on how to conduct research, collect and analyse data, and effectively communicate complex results to different audiences.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience

In depth knowledge of:

• Encryption technologies, incl. end-to-end encryption and homomorphic encryption.
• Hashing, incl. cryptographic, perceptual and fuzzy.
• Privacy enhancing technologies, incl. soft privacy technologies which rely on trust (e.g. access control and differential privacy) and hard privacy technologies which perform without a trusted third party (e.g. onion routing, mix networks).

Significant experience with:

• Adversarial exploitation of technologies and associated threat models, incl. an understanding of the threat landscape and the ability to identify potential vulnerabilities and exploits against online safety technologies.
• Proactive technologies, incl. the relevance of false positives, false negatives, and exploit-ability in large-scale deployments of automated systems.
• Ability to monitor relevant developments and emerging technologies, incl. quantum cryptography.
• Understanding of human factors, incl. cognitive and psychometric biases, and the ability to evaluate and design systems with these biases in mind.
• Effective collaborations with machine learning scientists, incl. foundational understanding of data collection, data cleaning, key concepts of machine learning and statistics.
• Demonstrable experience of applying scientific methods through experimental design, exploratory data analysis and hypothesis testing to reach robust conclusions, including reviewing the work of others.
• Experience of acting as a thought leader within the privacy and security community, including through management and development of junior staff and others’ projects.
• Experience in stakeholder management, with demonstrable ability to build and maintain working relationships with a broad range of people, including industry and academic stakeholders and colleagues across Ofcom.
• Proven ability to working independently, demonstrating flexibility and adaptability, and supporting a culture of collaboration and trust.

Qualifications

PhD in Elec Eng, Comp Sci, Info Sec or related fields preferred but candidates with evidence of equivalent demonstrable skills and experience in required specialist knowledge areas will also be considered.