Data Ethics Committee

What is the purpose of the Data Ethics Committee?

The  Data Ethics Committee (DEC) is made up of colleagues – both retired and currently working – who bring a wide range of experience in data and ethics from across different organisations. Volunteering their time, they come together to independently review projects and offer thoughtful, constructive advice on how to strengthen ethical practices.

By providing an impartial perspective, the committee helps teams identify potential risks and enhance transparency, ensuring that our work supports people and communities in Essex in a fair, responsible, and meaningful way.

The Committee is available to support any Essex public service organisations. Whether you’re just starting out your project or refining your work, the committee can help you think through potential risks and ensure your project delivers fair and responsible outcomes to Essex residents.

Previous projects presented to the DEC include the Information Sharing to Tackle Violence research initiative, Identifying and Supporting Perpetrators of Domestic Abuse project and the Identifying Vulnerabilities Across North East Essex research project.

Take a look at our DEC Terms of Reference to understand how we operate our committee: ecda Data Ethics Committee ToR

Latest Meeting Minutes

Minutes from previous DEC meetings can be found in the dataset: Data Ethics Committee

Who makes up the Data Ethics Committee?

Katerina Hadjimatheou (Chair)

Kat is the Director of the Centre for Criminology at the University of Essex. She is an applied ethicist and criminologist and is interested in technologies and data used for policing, criminal justice and security. She works particularly in the fields of domestic abuse, surveillance, criminal records, and human trafficking.

Kat has published research on police ethics, predictive policing, data-driven policing, surveillance of protest movements, and undercover policing. She has served on various ethics committees including for the National Crime Agency, College of Policing, MET Police, HMRC and Ministry of Defence. Kat also regularly acts as Independent Ethics Expert for police and security technology research projects funded by the European Commission.

Karthik Durgaprasad

Karthik is an Inward Investment Manager at Essex County Council, and works to promote Essex as great place to invest and grow business. He brings nearly 20 years of experience in the public sector, particularly within economic development, innovation management, smart city, clean energy and business engagement experience.

Karthik’s expertise lies in delivering strategic outcomes through meticulous project management, ensuring that all aspects – from stakeholder engagement to policy alignment – are thoroughly considered. His ambition of shaping citizen centric data projects for more inclusive outcomes and creating better opportunities and prosperity for all makes him a valued member of the committee.

Anton Beer

Anton currently works for a large Global Insurance Broker in London, and has spent his whole career in Financial Services. Having started his early career in IT support roles, it generated an interest in all things “Data”.

Along with his keen interest in data, he also brings a wealth of experience from a wide range of corporate roles from Investment & Corporate Banking to Insurance. Anton has been a valuable member of the Committee since 2021.

Sally Messenger

Sally’s career has been focused in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). She is the Vice Chair of Governors at Colchester Institute, and an Enterprise Adviser for the Greater Essex Careers Hub. Having lived in the region for twenty-eight years Sally is very interested in seeing how it is developing.

Andrew Knott

Andrew Knott is currently the Chief Executive of a NHS pathology network in London and has a background in leading major transformational change programmes.  Prior to a career in health, Andrew worked in professional services, including PwC, Deloitte and Accenture.

Andrew was one of the founder members of the Data Ethics Committee and also serves on a similar committee for Essex Police. 

Yani Tyskerud

Yani Tyskerud is a Programme Director at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), and has a background in international development and research working with governments, charities, and research organisations in the UK, Africa, and Asia.

She has experience in developing data sharing processes to support research and evidence-led policy development through the application of insights from administrative data. She has also worked on the design and implementation of several large surveys, ensuring that data collection processes are ethical, transparent, and fair. Yani works with IFS’ research ethics and data protection leads to ensure compliance and promote best practice, and brings to the Committee a keen interest in providing a research perspective to projects.

Lucia Hawkes

Lucia has been part of the central government’s Data Ethics team, now the Responsible Data & AI team, for 2.5 years. This has involved gaining a variety of policy and hands-on experience in data ethics and supporting responsible innovation across the public sector.

In this role, she has led work to develop and operationalise key government guidance, including the Data Ethics Framework and the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS). Lucia also regularly collaborates with teams internally and across government on a wide-range of high-impact data ethics and AI workstreams.

Alongside her role, she has completed an MSc apprenticeship in Applied Data Analytics. This experience deepened Lucia’s understanding of data science techniques and practical use cases, in turn, strengthening her ability to bridge technical and policy domains.

Alex Fassio

Alex is a data and AI ethics specialist with extensive experience in designing and operationalising ethical frameworks and strategies in complex, data-driven environments.
As the Data Ethics Lead at the Ministry of Justice UK, she provides strategic leadership on the department’s data and AI ethics agenda, overseeing the implementation of the MoJ AI and Data Science Ethics Framework and driving cross-functional collaboration to embed ethical practices across the data, digital and AI units.

At the Data for Children Collaborative, she led the development of the award-winning Responsible Innovation process, guiding multidisciplinary teams to integrate ethical considerations into data projects aimed at improving outcomes for children. Additionally, Alex supported the development of the UNICEF Child Climate Risk Index, exploring the ethical dimensions of climate change’s impact on children’s rights.

Alex has also played a key role in shaping national-level data ethics initiatives, including contributions to the Scottish Government’s Data & Intelligence Network ethics framework and the independent report “Building Trust in the Digital Era.”

She is currently a board member for the charity Young Scot, sitting on their Data Advisory Group and providing data ethics support, guidance and advice. She has also worked with Social Finance and the Wellcome Trust as a panel judge for their mental health data prize.

Alex holds an MA (Hons) in Philosophy and an MSc in Mind, Language and Embodied Cognition from the University of Edinburgh, with a focus on applied ethics.

Mackenzie Jorgensen

Mackenzie is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Northumbria University on the PROBabLE Futures research project researching responsible AI use in law enforcement. She is also a Research Volunteer at the Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (CETaS) at The Alan Turing Institute. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from King’s College London where she was funded by the UKRI CDT in Safe and Trusted Artificial Intelligence. Her work focuses on the responsible use of AI, AI governance, and how to effectively evaluate AI’s use and impact