About

Questions about power and information, made into tools.

I work across digital rights, data systems, platform accountability, and public-interest technology.

I came to technology through questions about power, information, and harm — not the other way around. A background in political science and data analytics turned into hands-on work on how online platforms shape public life, and who carries the cost when they fail.

At the Digital Rights Foundation I worked on platform accountability, election integrity, and online harms — building harmful-content collection tools and a 290-term taxonomy for technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and representing the organisation in policy forums. At the Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre at LUMS I built the research infrastructure behind a large-scale digital-marketplace discrimination study: a six-part pipeline structuring 1.5M+ listings and 100K+ seller profiles.

I'm now studying MSc Information Technology at the University of Glasgow and building CivicSec Lab — an open-source civic-risk command centre for under-resourced public-interest teams. The throughline is the one I started with: turning digital harm from something people experience privately into something institutions can measure, contest, and respond to.

Abdullah leading a workshop, presenting an example of a deepfake video
Leading a session on deepfakes and online harms

Credential

Public-interest technologist

Open to work
Abdullah b. Tariq

Abdullah b. Tariq

Muhammad Abdullah bin Tariq

Based in
Glasgow, UK
Currently
MSc IT, Glasgow · building CivicSec Lab
Education

MSc Information Technology, University of Glasgow

BS Political Science with Minor in Data Analytics, Forman Christian College

Open to

AI governanceTrust & SafetyPlatform accountabilityTechnology policyResearch engineeringData policyDigital rightsPublic-interest technology
GitHubLinkedInEmail

What I work on

It all comes back to evidence and accountability.

Evidence systems

Platform Accountability

Research infrastructure for election integrity, harmful-content escalation, political ads, and policy evidence.

Governance questions

AI Governance

Public-interest analysis of automated systems, generative AI harms, and the institutional choices around deployment.

Human review

Trust & Safety

Human-review tooling for risk signals, online harms, TFGBV, and messy moderation contexts.

Research engineering

Applied Data Systems

Scraping, validation, ETL, schema design, and analysis pipelines built for research and civic response.

The path here

From political questions to public-interest engineering.

  1. September 2025 - September 2026

    MSc Information Technology student and Class Representative

    University of Glasgow · Glasgow

    Current MSc work in software engineering and information technology, alongside class representative responsibilities for MSc IT+.

    • Software engineering focus
    • Class Representative for MSc IT+
    • Current base in Glasgow

  2. February 2025 - August 2025

    Research Associate

    Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre at LUMS · Lahore

    Built research infrastructure for a digital marketplaces discrimination project with LUMS and Northeastern University research partners.

    • Built a six-part Python pipeline for 1.5M+ listings and 100K+ seller profiles
    • Led data collection, survey pilots, QA, and ethics workflows
    • Supported econometric analysis and peer-reviewed research preparation

  3. October 2023 - October 2024

    Research Associate

    Digital Rights Foundation · Lahore

    Worked across platform accountability, election integrity, harmful-content research, AI/GenAI literacy, and public policy submissions.

    • Built harmful-content collection tools and a 290-term TFGBV taxonomy
    • Represented DRF in policy forums and platform dialogues
    • Delivered AI/GenAI and digital literacy workshops

  4. January 2023 - October 2023

    Data Analyst / Data Engineer

    Odessys · Lahore

    Worked on finance audit reporting, workload reporting, ETL, and data architecture for operational decision-making.

    • Built finance audit and employee workload reports
    • Supported employee resource management analytics
    • Designed ETL processes for finance and HR data

  5. August 2020 - January 2023

    Founder and Operations Officer

    RhinoSource · Lahore

    Led a misinformation verification initiative focused on fact-checking operations, team coordination, and rapid social-media response.

    • Managed fact-checking workflows and team coordination
    • Built rapid verification processes for misinformation response
    • Established an early public-information throughline for later platform accountability work

How I work

Evidence before certainty

The work should show what is known, what is inferred, and what still needs human judgement.

Governance is a design problem

Interfaces, schemas, defaults, and escalation paths all shape institutional behaviour.

Public-interest systems need dignity

Tools for civic organisations should be practical, careful, and built around real constraints.

Outside the work

There’s a lighter side, too.

Cats, hiking, poetry, padel, cooking, cars, and the occasional 3D experiment. It lives on the not-serious page.

CatsFriendsHikingPoetry and BooksFood I Cooked3D Art and Illustrationsfall through

Get in touch

Open to roles and collaborations.

AI governance · Trust & Safety · Platform accountability · Technology policy · Research engineering · Data policy, and adjacent public-interest work.

Email meDownload CV