Who we are
Our team includes experts in digital identity, biometrics, cyber security, digital forensics and identity and document fraud
Alastair Treharne
Co-founder
Julian White
Co-founder
Chris Allgrove
Co-founder
Co-founder
Alastair is an expert advisor on digital identity with a background in business, political and security risk, working on UK and international initiatives across the humanitarian, development, public and private sector. Alastair’s work has recently focused on digital identity, biometrics, identity fraud and cybersecurity. He has advised clients across industry including banking, insurance, asset management, and private equity; UK Government, United Nations and World Bank; US federal agencies including the US Treasury, the United States Digital Service, Department for Homeland Security; the Australian Government and European Commission eID activities.
Alastair is presently an expert digital identity advisor to the UK Government. He is a senior adviser to the UK’s Minister responsible for digital identity, the Director responsible for digital identity, and the NHS’s digital identity service. His roles include responsibility for the identity standards for the UK Government, and the UK Government’s trust framework for digital identity, which has included working with a broad section of UK and international financial services companies, institutions, and regulators. He has led the work with HM Treasury, JMLSG and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that has reflected digital identity best practice in global and national financial services guidance and legislation.
Alastair sits on a number of digital identity expert groups including as the UK Governments digital identity representative to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Union eID/KYC expert group, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Biometrics Institute; and industry groups at the FIDO Alliance, Open Identity Exchange and Open Identity Foundation. He is also presently a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on digital identity.
Co-founder
Julian is an expert advisor on cyber security, person identification and standardisation. Julian has been a certified information assurance expert working in the public protection arena within the UK public sector and related EU and global initiatives including identification, policing, border control, international police cooperation (including INTERPOL), and combating money laundering for 20 years, providing support and advice to programmes, Governments and other organisations in relation to digital services, cyber security and public protection.
Julian worked with the European Commission drafting the eIDAS Regulation on the use of cross border identification to enable EU residents to easily access and use the services being operated in another member state, was the editor for drafting the implementing acts that support it and was a member of the European Union eID/KYC expert group and eIDAS Cooperation Network. He is also supporting HM Treasury, JMLSG and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) work in reflecting digital identity in global and national financial services guidance and legislation.
Julian has been advising the United States Digital Service (White House Administration), 18F (General Services Administration) and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) on their digital identity services. He has also been working with international partners in ISO, the EU and the UN on international standards relating identity including the eIDAS regulation, ISO/IEC 29115 & 29003, FIDO, NIST 800-63, UNCITRAL and IETF VoT.
Julian sits on the OASIS Cyber Threat Intelligence Technical Committee to define open threat intelligence standards, the British Standards Institute (BSi) working group in identity, security and privacy, Biometrics Institute, and Open Identity Exchange and is working with the UK Government, national bodies and experts on defining test methodologies and assessment process standards for biometric identification systems. He is also presently a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on digital identity.
Advisor
Chris has been working in identity and biometrics for 25 years, having initially received his PhD in electronics, specialising in the application of biometrics, from the University of Kent where he was a researcher in computer vision research group. Chris is presently an expert independent advisor to a range of UK and international clients on the user of biometrics in digital identity, as well as more widely around identity authentication.
Chris previously worked in the UK Government with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC, part of GCHQ) where he was Head of Identity in Government and managed the NCSC teams responsible for identity and biometrics.
Chris was an internationally-recognised subject matter expert in the field of biometrics. He headed a research team investigating the performance and vulnerabilities of biometric systems, in support of the work of the NCSC and GCHQ as the UK Government National Technical Authority.
Chris was the author of NCSC’s guidance on the use of biometric systems, and a subject matter expert contributing to NCSC’s password guidance, end user device guidance and other identity and cybersecurity publications. In addition to his work in the NCSC, Chris was also the co-chair of the Cross Government Identity Standards Group within the UK government and worked at the Identity and Passport Service advising on identity, biometrics and PIV cards.
Chris is an active member of the Biometrics Institute, an international body promoting the responsible and ethical use of biometrics, and has been a member of the UK national committee IST/33/5 on identity and biometrics, responsible for UK contributions to ISO SC27 WG5.
Advisor
Gavin Burton served over 25 years in the Metropolitan Police and was the operational lead of the Amberhill false identity team; the only team in national law enforcement dedicated to identity crime in the UK. Gavin received training from the National Document Fraud Unit in the examination of physical and copy documents and has also worked with many of the leading suppliers of identity document validation technology. He provides expert advice relating to counterfeit and forged identity documents, their criminal use, impact and the threats which affect the identity verification industry. Gavin is an advisor to the Association of Document Validation Professionals and is a certified L&D trainer with a focus on document inspection.
Advisor
Alistair has worked in the luxury travel and technology sectors for more than 12 years. He founded a luxury travel agency, Luxury Cottages in 2019 along with Seed Ventures, an advisory company focused on digital businesses. Prior to that he founded Second Estates, a PropTech company focused on acquiring and managing holiday homes.
Prior to this Alistair worked at The Raine Group and helped set up their London office before spending six months in Silicon Valley. Alistair has also worked for a number of international Investment Banks including GP Bullhound, Jefferies International and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Alistair is a qualified solicitor, having trained at Slaughter and May, and studied Geography at Oriel College, Oxford and law at the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice.