The ICO exists to empower you through information.

Our Sandbox team brings a wealth of experience in compliance and data protection across both private, public and third sectors including:

  • health;
  • education;
  • retail;
  • social media;
  • technology providers;
  • finance, police and justice; and
  • central and local government.

Please see our previous blogs to find out more about some of the organisations we have worked with in the Sandbox.

We will work closely with colleagues who have specialist expertise from Technology Policy, Privacy Innovation, Policy and Intelligence. They will assist us in advising organisations in the Sandbox.

For questions, support and advice regarding Sandbox applications, please send your queries and questions to [email protected].

Please send applications to [email protected].

We aim to respond to all queries within three working days. We will let you know if it will take us longer to respond.

Lynne Currie, is the ICO’s Head of Privacy Innovation and leads the Innovation Department. She works on long-term strategic policy projects in new technology areas, co-ordinating formal requests for ICO consultations on Data Protection Impact Assessments, delivering support to innovators to build Data Protection into new and novel products and services, and supporting other regulators to remove perceived data barriers to innovation.

Claire Chadwick is the Group Manager for the Sandbox. She joined the ICO in 2009 and spent nine years in the ICO’s audit function assessing organisation’s compliance with data protection, including many within the NHS. She’s been part of the ICO’s Sandbox since its inception in 2019, helping design its beta phase and overseeing Senior Policy Officers with their participants and their complex data protection challenges whilst developing innovative products and services.

Martyn Boaler

Martyn Boaler is a Senior Policy Officer in the Sandbox team. He joined the ICO in 2017, focussing on providing information rights advice to organisations. Since joining the Sandbox in 2021, his primary role has been to help guide Sandbox participants through the objectives of their bespoke Sandbox plans and support the wider running of the Sandbox. Recently he’s been providing support to participants seeking to process personal data in innovative ways within the health, and finance and credit sectors.

Sarah Kennedy

Sarah Kennedy is a Senior Policy Officer in the Sandbox team. She joined the ICO in 2017, working in what was DPC&R. Sarah joined the Sandbox team in 2018 and supported the creation of its processes and worked on some of the original Beta projects. She’s currently working on data sharing projects, relating to the use of data in the gambling sector, and the sharing of data between local authorities in order to support individuals experiencing homelessness.

Ayo Adewole

Ayo Adewole is a Senior Policy Officer in the Sandbox team. She joined the ICO in 2020, working as a member of the policy guidance team. Since joining the Sandbox in 2022, she has supported participants in completing the objectives of their bespoke Sandbox plans that deal with topics such as anonymisation, data sharing, distributed ledger technology and research.