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David Smith retired from his position as Deputy Commissioner and Director of Data Protection in the UK Information Commissioner’s Office in November 2015. During his 25 year career at the ICO, first as Assistant Commissioner and latterly as Deputy Commissioner, David was closely involved in all aspects of the development and application of Data Protection regulation in the UK. As Deputy Commissioner and a member of the ICO’s Management Board David led work across all the ICO’s Data Protection functions. He was responsible to the Commissioner for ensuring that the ICO built and maintained its reputation as an effective but practical supervisory authority both in the UK and internationally. This included overseeing the introduction of civil monetary penalties from 2010 onwards.

During his 10 years as Deputy Commissioner David represented the ICO on the Article 29 Working Party of European Data Protection commissioners. Amongst his other international responsibilities David served as Chairman of the Joint Supervisory Body charged with supervising Data Protection compliance by the European police organisation, Europol and represented the UK in the privacy related work of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development).

Since leaving the ICO David now works part-time as an independent Data Protection expert. As well as acting as Nymity’s EU Research Adviser his assignments include a role as Special Adviser to the leading UK law firm Allen & Overy and continuing to assist the OECD in its data privacy work.