Dr. Rachel O’Connell, founder & CEO of TrustElevate, a child age verification and parental consent provider. Rachel is one of the preeminent authorities on electronic identification and age verification and is the author of a technical standard entitled PAS 1296 Age Checking code of practice, published by the British Standards Institution on March 8, 2018, and is becoming a global Age Assurance standard. Rachel was the fifth person to join the start-up social networking platform, Bebo, and was instrumental in operationally building the business, which was acquired by AOL in 2008 for $850M.

Before joining Bebo, Rachel led a series of highly successful large-scale Pan-European projects, which involved managing teams located in 19 countries across Europe. She also chaired the group that developed the EU Safer social-networking principles. In 2000, Rachel set up the Cyberspace Research Unit, at the University of Central Lancashire and secured funding from the European Commission to establish and operate the first UK Internet Safety Centre (2000- 2006) funded by the EU Commission, which was based at the Cyberspace Research Unit.

Rachel’s PhD examined the implications of online paedophile activity for investigative strategies. The findings of her research have led her to be so passionate about leveraging technology to keep children safe online.