Silkie Carlo
"It's impossible to think of anything more intrusive or more dangerous or more dystopian."
Silkie Carlo is one of Britain's foremost civil liberties campaigners and the director of Big Brother Watch, the non-party organisation she has led since 2018 in its fight against state surveillance and the erosion of privacy. She has become a familiar face confronting police use of live facial recognition on Britain's streets, and a leading voice against the expansion of the surveillance state, biometric ID, and unchecked data collection.
Before joining Big Brother Watch, Carlo was Senior Advocacy Officer at Liberty, where she led work on technology and human rights and launched a legal challenge to the Investigatory Powers Act. She previously worked on Edward Snowden's official defence fund and has campaigned for whistleblowers at risk. She is the co-author of Information Security for Journalists, and writes regularly in the Telegraph, Guardian, and Mail.
"A passionate campaigner for the protection of liberties" ― Institute of Advanced Legal Studies