IAPP UK Intensive 2026: Privacy | AI governance | Cybersecurity law

Cambridge Classics Professor Emerita and Fellow of Newnham College Mary Beard is known across the world. She has written numerous books including the prize-winning “Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town,” best-selling “SPQR – A History of Ancient Rome” and the highly-acclaimed “Women and Power” and “Twelve Caesars - Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern,” all of which have been translated into multiple languages.

Mary is a regular media commentator and has presented several BBC Radio and TV series on history and culture including “Meet the Romans,” “Civilisations,” “The Shock of the Nude,” “Meet the Roman Emperor” and “Being Roman with Mary Beard.” Mary also writes a thought-provoking blog, “A Don's Life.”

Mary was made a Dame in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2018 for services to Classical scholarship and is a trustee of the British Museum. Her latest book, “Emperor of Rome,” explores one of the most extraordinary roles in history. She has recently launched a podcast, “Instant Classics,” where she discusses all things ancient (and modern) with her co-host, Guardian journalist Charlotte Higgins.

John Edwards has served as the sixth U.K. Information Commissioner since January 2022. Prior, he served as New Zealand’s Privacy Commissioner for eight years, building an international reputation in data protection and privacy, including chairing the now Global Privacy Assembly. He also worked in a range of roles including as a policy advisor to the NZ Government, a lawyer for over 20 years in the public and private sector, and even had a stint as a mountaineer.

John’s vision and mission is for the ICO to be a regulator that empowers people to share information for personal and public benefit, and for companies to use information to invest and innovate in the digital economy safely.

As a whole economy regulator responding to emerging cross border data protection issues, John is intent on delivering better, quicker and impactful regulatory interventions in AI and biometrics, children’s privacy, AdTech and online tracking.

John’s motto: “We spend once at the centre prompting savings for thousands of businesses across the economy.”

Dr Tiffany Jenkins is a writer and cultural historian. She is the author of the recently published “Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life,” reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement as a “magisterial intellectual history.” She is also the author of the acclaimed “Keeping Their Marbles: How Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums and Why They Should Stay There,” described in the Sunday Times as “an outstanding achievement, clear-headed, wide-ranging and incisive.” Her other works include “Contesting Human Remains in Museum Collections: The Crisis of Cultural Authority.” She is the editor of “Political Culture: Soft Interventions and Nation Building.”

She is a trustee of the British Museum. She has held positions as an honorary fellow in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh and visiting fellow in the Department of Law at the London School of Economics. She holds a BA is in art history and a PhD in sociology.

Jenkins wrote and presented the BBC Radio 4 series “A History of Secrecy” and “Contracts of Silence” about the rise of non-disclosure agreements. She has appeared regularly as a critic on Radio’4 Saturday Review and Front Row. She hosts the “Behind the Scenes” at the Museum podcast. Her opinion pieces have appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, the Financial Times, The Spectator and the Scotsman, where she was a weekly opinion columnist.