Phil Booth

Phil led NO2ID, the UK-wide non-partisan campaign against the database state, from 2004 to 2011 – stepping down after the comprehensive defeat and dismantling of the Home Office ID scheme, including the repeal of the Identity Cards Act 2006. Phil’s new venture, TRUTH2POWER, provides “ruthlessly practical” strategic advice and skills training to campaigners and campaigning organisations. He sits on the advisory boards of Privacy International and the Foundation for Information Policy Research, and is an honorary research associate of the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham.

Variously a teenage Z80 machine coder, public sculptor and lecturer, Phil set up his first digital media company in 1994. After several years assisting international clients to adapt to the web, he joined BBC Digital Media Education in 1997 where he helped build Schools Online. In the early 2000s he worked with children’s charity, the Who Cares? Trust to build Carezone – a secure online space to help looked-after children manage their online information and ‘make sense of’ the care system.

Beyond his campaigning and advocacy interests, Phil builds tools and organisations to create systems that embody certain ‘digital fundamentals’ in an attempt to ensure that the information society comes to reflect the best of human nature, not its worst.