Dan Shearer
Team leader, Open Source founder. Privacy law, health research and AI safety.
In a world run by software and data, I am interested in where the control lies. I conclude control is settled by structure, regardless of how well or badly organisations behave. The question, who ought to be in control, and how do we keep it that way?, appears throughout AI, tech giant monopolies, privacy law and health data, and I try to change the answers.
CV and background. Contact me at dan@shearer.org ↗.
If you’re here about…
…open source & computer science: Samba and its history have lessons for today, and LumoSQL applies them at a much larger scale. Not-forking makes it possible to build on code you do not control without forking it. Security analysis led me to consider intent, starting with Margaret Hamilton.
…AI ethics or agentic systems: safety belongs in the structure around AI, and reliable structure improves on what AI companies offer. I work on the Perseverance Composition Engine ↗, which implements Artificial Organisations, copying how human institutions have handled untrustworthy members for thousands of years, and address big problems in AI.
…medical research, biobanks, epidemiology or data ethics: Who owns health data? My work in epidemiology covers One Health and rule-based malaria modelling. Medical Snapshot proposes a system that is structurally forbidden to tell you your own results, compared against 25 systems used in the last 90 years. The Active Heat Exchanger is a 3D-printed retrofit at TRL 7 that improves indoor air quality and generates data that exists nowhere else. Radiophobia explains a widespread medical problem I experienced myself.
…IP, governance and regulation: Data mobility after Brexit is a continuing problem for UK organisations, while much larger EU–US privacy battles may be decided in 2026, and paracopyright is the new way to extort entire populations. Large companies often ignore regulation while claiming compliance; sometimes the regulation has surprising wrinkles, such as the facts buried in GDPR Article 28 that turn a trust problem into a cryptography problem.
…advisory, expert witness or collaboration: I work with founders, boards and courts on software IP, privacy regulation and open-source strategy. Six years of technology due diligence for a Nordic venture fund, and expert witness work before the Court of Session.
…contributions and corrections: errors, missing references and additions are welcome; the site challenge has the details.
More: AI and agentic systems · health and research · open source · law and privacy
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