Richard Tynan is a digital and information security consultant at Open Briefing. Richie is a technologist and ethical hacker who has been building and evaluating secure systems for over 15 years. He is passionate about using technology to help civil society organisations flourish and well known for providing clear and concise explanations of complex legal and technology issues and the interplay between them. Richie was the director of digital and information security at Open Briefing until February 2024. He was previously a penetration tester at Guardian News & Media, where he served for a period as the most-senior member of their information security team. Prior to that, he was the head of technology at Privacy International for five years, and also led the organisation’s data exploitation programme for two years. Richie holds a PhD in computer science, a graduate diploma in law, and a BCS foundation certificate in data protection.