TAG nomination statement

My two year term on the W3C TAG has flown by, and it's election time again. If you're a W3C AC representative, you can vote here (link restricted to AC reps) or read all of the candidate nomination statements here. Please consider ranking me favourably!

I grew up alongside the Web, and have never known the world without it. Early tinkering with HTML and CSS shaped the course of my life and became a formative part of how I interacted with the world. It is deeply important to me to see the Web move forward as a positive force, and to push back against the surveillance, manipulation, and abuse that are routine across many parts of the Web today.

The TAG has a great record over recent years of promoting security, privacy, and accessibility as core parts of Web architecture. I have spent my efforts during my two years as a member of the TAG pushing to go above and beyond these foundations; as a member of the TAG's Privacy Task Force, as well as editor of the draft Societal Impacts Questionnaire. I intend to continue enabling and encouraging specification authors and implementers to consider the broader consequences of their work in the context of a global web which is part of an enormous and ever-changing landscape of cultural norms, legislation, and innovation.

I hold a PhD in Informatics from the University of Edinburgh, with a visiting year at MIT. My thesis builds on my personal experiences with online communities; I researched self-expression on the Web and how interconnected social and technical systems support or impede online interactions. At the same time, I helped shape the future of the social Web through co-editing and implementing several specifications of the W3C Social Web Working Group, including the ActivityPub specification which has seen recent attention due to a surge in public interest in decentralised social networks. I also spent a year and a half as the Working Group's Team Contact, which familiarised me with W3C processes and politics.

I spent the years since developing software to support openness and transparency for public good. I have worked with investigative journalists and open data activists, facilitating the efforts of civil society groups, governments, and the private sector internationally. I continue this work as a Director of Open Data Services Co-operative, building and maintaining tools that use the Web to promote civic use of data and fight corruption worldwide. I also work with Digital Bazaar on Web standards related to decentralisation, with the goal of enabling a foundational layer of technologies to support individual agency on the Web.

These experiences at the intersection of civic work and cutting edge standards development give me a unique perspective for my time on the TAG. There is no need for trade-offs between participation and privacy, or between community and autonomy, when building empowering Web technologies. My strengths lie in listening to input from a range of perspectives, discerning the common grounds on which to move forwards, and turning consensus into concrete specification text.

Should my term be renewed, I will continue to advocate for thoughtful and intentional design of web platform features which account for diverse perspectives and usage scenarios, as well as bringing this mindset to specification design reviews.

Find me at rhiaro.co.uk.