Richard Thomas CBE LLD

Biography

Richard Thomas CBE LLD was the Information Commissioner from November from 2002 to 2009, responsible for enforcement of the Freedom of Information and Data Protection Acts. He was subsequently the Chairman of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council and served as a Member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life from 2012 to 2017. He is currently a Global Strategy Adviser to the Centre for Information Policy Leadership; and the Vice President of the Trading Standards Institute. Richard’s earlier career spanned voluntary, public and private sectors. He served as a lawyer with the Citizens Advice Bureau Service and the National Consumer Council and was then the Director of Consumer Affairs at the Office of Fair Trading. He was Director of Public Policy at Clifford Chance, the international law firm, from 1992 until 2002. Richard has also been Deputy Chairman of Which? (the Consumers Association), a Trustee of the Whitehall and Industry Group, and was a Board Member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals.