About the job This is a 12 Month Fixed Term Appointment. Applications for this role close 26th July 23:59 UK Time.
About the job: This is a rare opportunity to shape the security, privacy and trust foundations of one of government's most ambitious AI enabled services. Gov Voice is building a reusable AI voice capability that will transform how people access government services by phone. For millions of people, contact centres are one of the most important and highest volume ways they interact with government. We're creating a service that can make those interactions simpler, faster and easier to navigate - while meeting the highest standards of security, privacy and public trust.
This is not innovation for its own sake. We're building a real service for real users in a high trust, high scrutiny environment. That means designing security, privacy and data protection into the service from the outset, and ensuring they remain central as the platform grows across government.
This role is central to that mission. It combines hands on security architecture and engineering with leadership on privacy and data protection in the context of an AI enabled public service. If you're motivated by solving hard problems, shaping trusted AI in government, and building services that could improve how millions of people experience government, this is an opportunity to make a genuine impact.
Who we are Gov Voice is part of the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which is working to make digital government simpler, clearer and faster for everyone. We are a team at the forefront of applying cutting edge AI to transform how people experience government services. We sit within the Government Digital Service. We are not currently part of the Incubator for AI, although the two teams will work increasingly closely together.
We are a multidisciplinary team bringing together product, delivery, AI, policy, operations, service design, security and data expertise to turn emerging technology into practical public services. We're not building prototypes for the sake of it - we're building something real, reusable and trusted that departments across government can adopt with confidence.
This is the kind of project that comes along rarely: frontier technology, real world delivery, meaningful public impact, and complex problems worth solving. We're looking for people who want to help define what secure, privacy conscious and trustworthy AI in government looks like.
What you will do The Lead Security, Privacy and Data Protection Architect will be accountable for the security architecture, privacy architecture and data protection design of a government service. This is not solely a cyber security architecture role: it requires someone who can bring together secure by design, privacy by design and data protection by design in the delivery of an AI enabled public service.
Initially, the role will be hands on and operational. You will help harden the platform against security risks, support monitoring and threat detection, respond to incidents, and build a more systematic approach to security, privacy and data protection assurance. As the service scales, you will define and lead security, privacy and data protection architecture and controls across departments and ALBs using the service, acting as a senior authority in this space.
As a Lead Security, Privacy and Data Protection Architect, you will:
- Shape strategy and influence across government
- Build effective relationships with senior stakeholders across departments and ALBs, while engaging with wider cross government security, privacy and data communities
- Communicate and translate technical security, privacy and data protection risks to both technical and non technical stakeholders
- Reach and influence a wide range of people across larger teams, programmes and communities
- Own the relationship between DSIT, GDS, adopters and the Information Commissioner's Office to support best practice in privacy and data protection
- Lead the architecture for the platform, ensuring security by design, privacy by design and data protection by design are embedded throughout the service lifecycle
- Research and apply innovative architecture solutions to new or existing problems, and clearly justify and communicate design decisions
- Develop vision, principles and strategy for security, privacy and data protection architecture across a project or technology area
- Analyse technical solutions and produce architectural patterns that support assurance, quality and scalability
- Assess risks relating to AI, integrations, infrastructure, identity, and personal data flows
- Define and assure appropriate controls for voice data, transcripts, logs, model inputs and outputs, retention, deletion, auditability and access management
- Lead the technical design and implementation of controls around the user focused platform
- Provide expert leadership on privacy and data protection in the design and operation of the service
- Ensure the platform meets legal obligations and user expectations for privacy and data protection
- Assess and advise on personal data processing, minimisation, retention, deletion, access controls, auditability and data sharing across the platform and adopter integrations
- Support or lead Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), privacy risk assessments and mitigation planning, ensuring outcomes are reflected in technical and operational controls
- Work closely with legal, policy, delivery, platform and operations teams to ensure personal data is handled appropriately and lawfully
- Drive operational security and assurance, work with platform and operations teams to secure early deployments, provide expert input into security incidents, remediation activity and areas for change, while advising on best practice across government
- Perform reactive security monitoring and incident support, respond to alerts and challenges, support investigations, and provide feedback that shapes policy and requirements
- Assist with vulnerability triage and remediation tracking
- Own security, privacy and data protection architecture and strategic frameworks across multiple departments and ALBs
- Define advanced controls, monitoring approaches and defence in depth patterns
- Establish cross government approaches to privacy assurance, data sharing, retention, accountability and governance
- Support continuous assurance in increasingly complex threat and operating environments
- Act as a senior security, privacy and data protection authority for the government service
Person specification Essential experience
- Experience designing and implementing security architecture in a complex organisation, and applying it at both technical and operational levels
- Experience embedding privacy by design and data protection by design into architecture, engineering and service delivery
- Strong understanding of the specific security and privacy issues presented by generative AI, and the ability to stay current with emerging best practice in this area
- Experience applying cyber security principles, including understanding of infrastructure security, information security, penetration testing, vulnerability management, and mitigating common cyber threats (e.g., DDoS attacks)
- Experience understanding, interpreting and applying legal obligations, policies and regulations such as UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, and other applicable data protection requirements in the design and operation of digital services
- Experience identifying and managing privacy and data protection risks in complex systems, including AI enabled services, third party integrations and cross organisational data sharing
- Experience leading, contributing to, or advising on Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) or similar privacy risk assessments, and translating findings into technical or operational controls
- Experience analysing and advising on personal data handling, including data flows, minimisation, retention, deletion, access controls, auditability and sharing arrangements
- Experience designing, identifying and implementing new technologies within an organisation
- Experience prioritising work, working under pressure, and dealing with changing priorities and ambiguity
- Experience translating technical security, privacy, data protection or system architecture details and risks to non technical stakeholders, both verbally and in writing
- Experience leading and managing colleagues across multiple disciplines, and escalating concerns within a workstream, team or programme where appropriate
- Experience responding to security incidents and working within incident or risk management frameworks
- Experience interpreting, explaining and reviewing system architectures
- Experience identifying and analysing technical platform vulnerabilities
- Experience working with Agile practices and processes
Salary explanation Salary is paid within the grade range shown below. As this is a GDAD role, the maximum salary includes a non pensionable technical allowance, and successful candidates will be appointed somewhere within that range depending on assessment. Grade 6: £74,605 + potential GDAD non pensionable technical allowance of up to £16,151. Total compensation up to £90,756 inclusive.
What we offer
- Career defining projects with outsized impact
- Backing from the Prime Minister and No10 to scope and build transformative AI projects . click apply for full job details