Damian Collins

senior fellow Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy McGill University

Damian Collins is a former UK government Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy, with responsibility for online harms, digital competition and AI safety. He was Chair of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, where he led major inquiries into social media disinformation and the impact of addictive and immersive technologies. Damian also Chaired the Joint Committee of the House of Lords and House of Commons which led the scrutiny of the UK’s Online Safety Act.

In 2018 Damian launched and became the first Chair of the International Grand Committee on Disinformation and Fake News which brought together over thirty parliamentarians from more than a dozen countries to hold big tech companies to account. Damian was a Conservative Party member of the UK House of Commons from 2010 to 2024. He is also a board member of the Center for Countering Digital Hate and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University, Canada.

Damian writes on politics and technology for the New European and is the author of a biography of former UK Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, Rivals in the Storm: How Lloyd George seized power, won the war and lost his government, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2024. In May 2025, Damian is also the Festival Director for the inaugural Fleet Street Festival of Words, London’s newest literary festival. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2023, for political and public service in the United Kingdom.

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Eventi IJF 2025