Elections Bill Amendments: Accessibility, Inclusivity, Independence and Secrecy

The Elections Bill has just passed, including my amendments which will enable blind voters to vote independently and secretly. Tonight, Monday 25th April, the Elections Bill passed its final stage, Third Reading, in the House of Lords.  The Bill will soon receive Royal Assent and pass into law.   Until now, for so many citizens, …

Blockchain APPG Evidence Meeting – Government, Democracy and Voting

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain held an evidence session considering how distributed ledger technologies (DLT) could support democracy. Chaired by Martin Docherty-Hughes MP, I was delighted to join the discussion and sit on a virtual panel alongside other witnesses: Dr. Luke Riley, Head of R&D, Quant Network Dr. Robert Herian, Associate Professor of …

Protecting Democracy

I sat down with BBC Cyber-security reporter Joe Tidy to discuss the recommendations of our House of Lords report into Democracy and Digital Technologies – and to try and answer the question posed by the webinar which was about how the UK Parliament is combatting online attacks on elections. It was a good opportunity to …

Barack doesn’t want your Bitcoin

Today’s Twitter fallout is the latest reminder of the importance of cyber security, privacy and trust; all of the issues that social media platforms – and the way we use them – throw up. The attack, described as ‘effective but not sophisticated’, illustrates not just how vulnerable the platform is to hackers but, as significantly, …