Responsible Data Lead

This role is a critical role at Simprints – a social enterprise working at the intersection of tech and the global health and international development ecosystems – which supports our commitment to rights-based, privacy-first ethical technology and high-quality data – enabling us to meet our primary mission of radically transforming the way the world fights poverty.

This is partly an internal data protection role, supporting ‘the right’ steps under the UK GDPR to enable transparent, lawful use of data. But it’s also far, far more.

Our responsibility doesn’t end with the UK or the GDPR – we work increasingly in contexts outside Europe with their own – or no – Data Protection framework. But crucially, as a social enterprise working in development and humanitarian settings we also draw from good practice in these spaces, embracing rights and do-no-harm-based approaches – we care fundamentally about doing the right thing. You’re here to help us do that.

You will support and work tightly with delivery teams supporting and implementing humanitarian, development, and global health programming – helping ensure that vaccine programmes, cash distribution, land rights registration, and other ‘social impact’ work puts people, rights, and data first.

And as an innovator who builds our own tech and integrates other people’s, you will work with not just front line delivery teams, but technology and innovation teams internally and within our partners – helping ensure that from cradle to grave we endorse, support, build, integrate, deploy, and offer solutions which consider privacy, harms, rights and dignity.

Through your work, you will:

• Support Simprints’ ongoing Privacy and Responsible Data Program through high-quality support, oversight, and guidance, ensuring that we retain a laser-focus on rights, harms, and applicable legal frameworks when working with data.

• Contribute directly to Service Delivery, leading on privacy for projects working with data to ensure they are well-designed, undertake Privacy Impact Assessments, and that risks are well-managed, and enabling the right partnerships.

• Support ethical and privacy-respecting innovation, contributing to development of our product and services offerings to ensure they meet our partners’ privacy needs as well as broader ethical and ‘Do No Harm’ considerations.

• Build capacity and capability internal and external teams, delivering workshops, hands-on support, and other work which supports ethical implementation in our ecosystem and contributes to our core mission of alleviating poverty through high-quality data and technology.

Your role may involve occasional travel to program or other contexts.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Working closely with the Director of Privacy, Responsible Data & Risk to support development and execution of our privacy & cybersecurity strategy;

• Delivering timely and high-quality support for projects and initiatives involving tech and data to ensure they benefit from the right privacy and data ethics advice;

• Delivering high-quality Privacy Impact Assessments which consider context, tech, people, and deliverables – enabling the right risk management and ethical steps;

• Training, capacity-building, and workshop delivery with implementing teams and others to build knowledge and understanding of key privacy and ethical issues;

• Participating in conferences, industry or sector spaces, or coordinating groups to share learning, build good practice, and empower our partners and ecosystem;

• Drafting and execution of Data Processing or Sharing Agreements, identifying the appropriate controller, and carrying out related analysis;

• Handling where necessary breach reporting steps, Data Subject Requests, or other operational data protection issues;

• Continuing to grow and update your knowledge, understanding and skills – ensuring they remain right for you and for us as we grow, expand, and improve.

• Supporting Simprints’ partnership and delivery strategies to deepen relationships with our partners and our technology roadmap.

Required competencies and skills

Essential – you’ll need all of these to do your job well

• Significant subject matter expertise in Privacy and ideally broader Responsible Data approaches – perhaps obtained in an in-house team, research, work in civil society, or elsewhere;

• Experience undertaking and leading on Privacy Impact Assessments and other data protection advisory work;

• Strong communication skills – you can contextualise complex subject matter including legal and risk concepts and communicate them to a range of audiences.;

• Risk management skills – you can pick apart what matter, what doesn’t, and augment your technical understanding with a focus on people, harms, rights, and risk;

• General technology skills – you don’t need to be a developer, but you should come with a basic understanding of modern computing, including cloud computing concepts, dataflow, and how tech is implemented;

• Curiosity, Tenacity, and Integrity – you’re interested in solving interesting problems, continually upgrading your knowledge and understanding, you don’t give up quickly, and you can gently stick to what you can see is right when you need to;

• Demonstrable enthusiasm for digital rights, equity, and social impact. You find the idea of your work on privacy contributing directly to a better and fairer life for some of the world’s most vulnerable people exciting and empowering;

Desirable – if you come with some of these they will really help you sing

• Experience in biometrics, foundational or functional identity, digital ID, and their use in enrolment, registration, and other systems;

• Experience in the International Development or Humanitarian sectors;

• Language – you speak a language other than English fluently or to working level, in particular one of the working languages of the UN (Arabic, Chinese, French, Spanish, or Russian) or another working language in a country we work in (currently this includes Ghana, Ethiopia, India and Bangladesh.)

• Formal training, learning, or higher education in a related area – Computer Science, Law, Privacy, Cybersecurity, International Relations, Development, or something else – or professional or volunteer experience which amounts to the same thing;

• Experience in another tech-focused organisation with customer/partner-focus – for instance, a services, product, or delivery-focused provider.

• Lived experience in the Global South, a Low or Middle Income Country, as a humanitarian or development service recipient, or other lived experience of inequity, power imbalance in the context of data and development interventions or other social services;

• NGO or Civil Society Experience – you’ve worked with, for, or participated in a social enterprise, charity, activist group, cooperative, foundation, NGO, or other group exploring social needs, justice, and equitable societies and government;

• Experience in a consulting practice, advisory team internally, or other ‘information services’ role which is customer-facing;

• Experience carrying out research or advocacy – for instance, in an academic context, as an independent practitioner, as part of civil society, or in a role in a knowledge-based or campaigning organisation

• Deeper tech skills, including a basic understanding of cryptographic concepts such as encryption, hashing, and emerging tech such as decentralized data storage, novel types of encryption or privacy preserving technologies;

• Entrepreneurial – you have lived experience, passion, or skill growing, building, and developing. We are a young and fast-moving team, and when you join us, you’ll join us as a Social Entrepeneur.