The Open Rights Group

About ORG

Politicians and the media don’t always understand new technologies, but comment and legislate anyway. The result can be ill-informed journalism and dangerous laws.

The Open Rights Group is a grassroots technology organisation which exists to protect civil liberties wherever they are threatened by the poor implementation and regulation of digital technology. We call these rights our “digital rights”.

In 2005, a community of 1,000 digital rights enthusiasts came together to create the Open Rights Group. Since then, ORG has spoken out on copyright term extension, DRM and the introduction of electronic voting in the UK. We have informed the debate on data protection, freedom of information, data retention and the surveillance state.

These are issues that affect all of us. Together, our community, which includes some of the UK’s most renowned technology experts, works hard to raise awareness about them. If these are issues that you care about, become part of our community and support the Open Rights Group today.

Our Goals
Review of Activities
ORG staff
Former ORG Staff
Board of Directors
Advisory Council
Patron
Contact Us
Company Information
Legal Disclaimer
Work at ORG
Privacy policy

Our Goals

To raise awareness in the media of digital rights abuses
To provide a media clearinghouse, connecting journalists with experts and activists
To preserve and extend traditional civil liberties in the digital world
To collaborate with other digital rights and related organisations
To nurture a community of campaigning volunteers, from grassroots activists to technical and legal experts

Review of Activities

On 19 November 2007, the Open Rights Group published a review of its activities for the first two years of its operations October 2005 - October 2007. This review is available for download, or you can read the HTML version by clicking here.

Staff

Becky Hogge, Executive Director
Michael Holloway, Operations Manager

Former ORG Staff

Suw Charman, Executive Director
Jason Kitcat, e-Voting coordinator

Board of Directors

The responsibility of the Board is to oversee the running of the Open Rights Group. They are required to spend one or two days a month on helping the organisation, with a monthly conference call or meeting (depending on location). They are responsible for helping run the organisation, overseeing the staff etc, raising funds, introducing us to potential donors. Together with the Advisory Council, the Board oversees the setting of Open Rights Group policy.

James Cronin, Company Secretary and Treasurer
Louise Ferguson, Acting Vice-Chair
David Harris
William Heath, Chair
Ben Laurie
Dan McQuillan
Danny O’Brien
Rufus Pollock
Vijay Sodiwala

Advisory Council

The Advisory Council is made up of a number of digital rights experts.

It is the responsibility of the Advisory Council to:

provide guidance on the Open Rights Group’s policies
contribute to the ongoing policy debate and to individual policy strands
fundraise and/or make fundraising introductions
introduce ORG to other experts and organisations
be available for media contact if required

Each member of the Advisory Council may contribute to one or more of these activities, though all are expected to promote ORG whenever possible.

Advisory Council members should be able to devote a few hours each month to ORG (though this time will generally be dispersed rather than in one block), and attend quarterly meetings, either in person or on the phone. Members are appointed to the Advisory Council for a term of two years.

The Advisory Council currently comprises:

Richard Allan
Owen Blacker
Nick Bohm
Ian Brown
John Buckman
Michelle Childs
Richard Clayton
Tom Coates
Alan Cox
Grahame Davies
Cory Doctorow
Lilian Edwards
Wendy Grossman
Ben Hammersley
Jason Kitcat
Paula Le Dieu
Stef Magdalinski
Kevin Marks
Desiree Miloshevic
Keith Mitchell
David Rowntree
David Weinberger
Jonathan Zittrain

Patron

The Open Rights Group’s patron is Neil Gaiman.

Contact

By phone:
Call +44 (0)20 7096 1079

By email:
Press enquiries: contact Michael Holloway, Operations Manager.
Supporters enquiries or questions about signing up, donations etc.: supportersATopenrightsgroup.org
Information about Open Rights Group events: eventsATopenrightsgroup.org
All other enquiries: infoATopenrightsgroup.org

By post:
Open Rights Group, 7th floor, 100 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8AL

Legal Disclaimer

The Open Rights Group is not a legal advice service, so you should not contact us regarding the provision of legal services. Offering legal advice necessarily incurs liability so should only be performed by professional and specialist lawyers. We do realise, however, that many people may need legal services in regards to an issue related to our interest, so may look to our organisation for help. The links below are thus provided solely as a convenience to you. The Open Rights Group does not endorse these sites or services, and has made no attempt to review these services in any way.

http://www.own-it.org/
http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk
http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/public/help/index.asp#Free
http://www.freerepresentationunit.org.uk/
http://lawworks.org.uk/
http://www.barprobono.org.uk/navigate/home.html
http://www.lawcentres.org.uk/
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk