John Carr OBE is the former Chair of the UK’s Children’s Charities’ Coalition for Internet Safety and has agreed to chair this Board. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on children’s and young people’s use of the internet and associated new technologies, and a key figure in coordinating the activities of charities, academics and NGOs involved in online child protection across the EU and more widely.

John is a Board member of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and is a former Senior Adviser to ECPAT International, the Council of Europe, the International Telecommunication Union, and is a former member of Microsoft’s Policy Board for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In June, 2010, John was honoured by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II with an OBE for services to online child protection. In November, 2011, John received an award for “Outstanding Achievement” in the field of online child safety from the Washington DC based Family Online Safety Institute.  In 2006, he was named by the New Statesman as one of 50 global “Modern Heroes”. In 2003 John was also named by New Media Age as one of the UK’s 50 most influential people in the new media industries.

John regularly contributes to TV and radio programmes on the subject of online safety and security. John was also formerly the internet columnist for Prospect magazine and has written about the internet for The Observer,  The Economist, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Guardian, the Oxford University Press and many other journals, both in the UK and overseas.