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Stephen is the Group Privacy Officer and Head of Legal – Privacy, Security & Content Standards at Vodafone Group, one of the world’s leading mobile communications companies. Stephen is responsible for leading Vodafone’s global privacy policy and strategy, and the development and implementation of Vodafone’s global privacy programme.

Stephen joined Vodafone in 1997 where he played a central role in the creation of Vodafone’s global legal function. In 2002 Stephen founded and chaired Vodafone’s international network of privacy & security law experts. In 2005 he was appointed Head of Technology and Media law with responsibility, among other things, for legal and regulatory advice on the development of global products and services, and where he succeeded in the formulation and adoption of Vodafone’s global privacy policy.

With over 14 years in the mobile industry, Stephen has worked on many the emerging privacy issues for the sector including geo-location, mobile advertising, identity management and human rights, and spoken at many industry, privacy and security conferences in Europe and the US.

In 2005 Stephen was appointed European Chair of the Public Policy Expert Group of the Liberty Alliance, an industry alliance focused on building technology and business standards for federated identity management. Stephen was also one of the founder members of the multi-stakeholder dialogue that led to the formation of the Global Network Initiative in 2008, and continues his work with investors, academics and civil society organisations on the protection of human rights within the ICT sector. From 2009 Stephen helped found and co-lead the Mobile Privacy Initiative, a global mobile industry initiative under the auspices of the GSMA to create a privacy framework to advance privacy in the evolving mobile internet eco-system.

Stephen is also a Steering Committee member of the International Privacy Law Forum.