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Areeq Chowdhury

Areeq Chowdhury

Faculty

I am an experienced public policy adviser who has spent more than a decade thinking about how the internet and artificial intelligence are transforming society. As a public policy adviser, I help inform decision-makers and shape policies to address societal challenges related to technology.

I have worked across government, financial services, and politics - including roles in the UK Civil Service, KPMG, London City Hall, and the UK Parliament - and have held senior policy positions at the Royal Society, Future Advocacy, and as the Founder and Director of WebRoots Democracy.

At the Royal Society, I was Head of Policy (Data and Digital Technologies) and, working with some of the world’s leading scientists, led the Society's policy programmes on artificial intelligence, disinformation, and data governance. Some notable reports we published include Science in the age of AI: How artificial intelligence is changing the nature and method of scientific research (2024) and The online information environment: Understanding how the internet shapes people’s engagement with scientific information (2022). The latter report built on my long standing interest in disinformation with my most notable contribution to the field being a 2019 project at Future Advocacy to produce deepfake videos of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn endorsing each other to be Prime Minister and warning society of the need to regulate AI-generated content. Relatedly, I am a co-author of a 2023 paper published in Royal Society Open Science on deepfake detection with and without content warnings.

At WebRoots Democracy, much of my work centred on digital democracy and the potential of remote online voting for elections which may be particularly relevant to your fellowship. If you are interested in learning more about the challenges and opportunities associated with online voting, I would suggest reading The Cratos Principles: An essential guide to assessing online voting systems for use in elections (2020). This was my primary area of focus during my own fellowship at Newspeak House back in 2017.

From 2022 to 2026, I served as an elected Councillor in the London Borough of Newham and was the Green Party’s candidate to be Mayor of Newham in the 2026 local elections, finishing a close third place with 23% of the vote - an historic result for the party in Newham. As a Councillor, I led a successful campaign for Newham Council to oppose the police’s use of unregulated live facial recognition surveillance technology, which built on the WebRoots Democracy report Unmasking Facial Recognition: An exploration of the racial bias implications of live facial recognition surveillance in the United Kingdom (2020). Through my political activism, I have gained a lot of interest and practical experience in campaigning and can share my views on what works, what doesn’t work, and what would be useful in political campaigns.

I would be fascinated to hear your ideas, views, and questions on any of the above topics and to be a sounding board for your projects during your fellowship.

I aim to be at Newspeak House once a month (exact day tbc). I can also be available for calls on Microsoft Teams. Please email me if you would like to meet and we can book a time to chat.

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