Kate Jones appointed new head of Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum
The DRCF is pleased to announce the newly appointed Chief Executive, Kate Jones.
The Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) was formed in July 2020 consisting of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and the Office of Communications (Ofcom). The three organisations were later joined by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in April 2021.
The role of the DRCF is to harness the collective expertise of its members to support strong regulation of online services.
Kate is a technology governance expert who has published in various fields including AI governance; disinformation and foreign interference; technical standards; digital platforms and self-regulation. She has worked with a range of governments, industry representatives and civil society in these fields.
In addition, Kate’s background is as an international and human rights lawyer and diplomat with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and then as Director of the Diplomatic Studies Programme at Oxford University. Her current affiliations include Associate Fellow at Chatham House and Senior Associate, Governance, Human Rights and Diplomacy at Oxford Information Labs.
Starting her new role on 2 May 2023, Kate will support DRCF members in ensuring the digital landscape is regulated effectively, efficiently and coherently. She will also work closely with each organisation to develop joined-up approaches and ensure that regulatory policy is developed in a responsive and holistic way.
Kate Jones, DRCF Chief Executive said:
Regulation of emerging technologies is one of the most important challenges of our time. I am very much looking forward to continuing the DRCF’s excellent work with the four member regulators to promote a coherent and collaborative regulatory landscape.
The chair of the DRCF, UK Information Commissioner, John Edwards added:
This role is vital in ensuring a joined-up approach to digital regulation. As the online world rapidly expands and changes, it is important that expertise and guidance stems from the top.
The forum will benefit greatly from Kate’s experience, and I am looking forward to working with her and the other regulators involved to create a clear approach to digital regulation moving forwards.
About the DRCF
As a voluntary forum, the DRCF works to ensure a greater level of coordination between regulators of online services. It builds on the strong working relationships between the four organisations to drive a coherent approach to digital regulation – for the good of internet users and the companies that serve them.
The nature of digital services means that different regulatory regimes will interlink and overlap.
The four organisations currently hold different regulatory responsibilities for online services. Together, these span: addressing competition concerns (CMA, FCA and Ofcom), protecting consumers (CMA, FCA, Ofcom and ICO), upholding information rights (ICO), news and media plurality and some types of online content (Ofcom), and the regulation of financial services (FCA).
Current projects in the DRCF’s 2022 to 2023 workplan include:
- Protecting children online – improving outcomes for children and parents by ensuring the privacy and online safety protections overseen by the ICO and Ofcom work in unison together.
- Promoting competition and privacy in online advertising - fostering competitive online advertising markets that deliver innovation and economic growth, while respecting consumer and data protection rights, via joint ICO and CMA work.
- Supporting improvements in algorithmic transparency – supporting the use of algorithmic processing to promote its benefits and mitigate the risks to people and to competition, by exploring ways of improving algorithmic transparency and auditing.
- Enabling innovation in the industries we regulate – encouraging responsible innovation and exploring different models for how work is coordinated with industry to support innovation.