Professor Victoria Baines

Professor Victoria Baines FBCS is a leading authority in the field of online trust, safety and cybersecurity. She frequently contributes to major broadcast media outlets on digital ethics, cybercrime and the misuse of emerging technologies, including Extended Reality and Artificial Intelligence. Her areas of research include electronic surveillance, cybercrime futures, and the politics of security.

Victoria has published on cyberspace governance, online surveillance, the future of cybercrime, and the politics of security. Drawing on her Classical education, her book Rhetoric of Insecurity (Routledge, 2021) sheds light on 2000 years of security speak and is a toolkit for understanding why security issues always seem to be so novel, urgent and divisive. She also provides research expertise to a number of international organisations, including Interpol, UNICEF and the Council of Europe.

For several years Victoria was Facebook’s Trust & Safety Manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Her work focused on operational support to law enforcement, and strategic engagement with policy makers on criminal activity online. Before joining Facebook, Victoria led the Strategy team at Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), where she was responsible for the EU’s cyber threat analysis. She designed and developed the iOCTA, Europe’s flagship threat assessment on cybercrime, and authored Projects 2020 and 2030, scenarios for the future of cybersecurity that were the bases for award-winning movies. Prior to this, Victoria was Principal Analyst at the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). She began her career in law enforcement in 2005 as a Higher Intelligence Analyst for Surrey Police. In 2008, the International Association for Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysts recognised Victoria’s work with a global award for outstanding achievement.

Victoria is a Liveryman of the City of London and Chair of the Information Security Panel of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists. She serves on the Safety Advisory Board of Snapchat, the Advisory Board of cybersecurity provider Reliance Cyber, and is a trustee of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

Victoria is a Senior Research Associate of the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge, a Senior Research Fellow of the British Foreign Policy Group, and a Fellow of the British Computer Society. She is also Visiting Fellow at Bournemouth University’s School of Computing, a former Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University, and was a guest lecturer at Stanford University in 2019 and 2020. She is a graduate of Trinity College, Oxford and holds a doctorate from the University of Nottingham.