Kieron O’Hara is a senior research fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, researching into in the philosophy, sociology and politics of technology, particularly the World Wide Web and the Semantic Web, and the use of technology to support human memory. Key topics in his research are trust, transparency and privacy. He has also written extensively on British politics and political theory, and is a research fellow for the Centre for Policy Studies.

His books include: After Blair: Conservatism Beyond Thatcher (2005), The Referendum Roundabout (2006), Democratising Conservative Leadership Contests (2008, with Andrew Denham), The Spy in the Coffee Machine (2008, with Nigel Shadbolt), and The Enlightenment: A Beginner’s Guide (2010). His latest book is Conservatism (2011), a comprehensive theory of conservatism as a philosophy of resistance to change.

He chairs the transparency sector panel for crime and criminal justice in the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. His report on transparency and privacy for the Cabinet Office, Transparent Government, Not Transparency Citizens, appeared in September 2011.