Peter Hawkes (BSc, PhD) has a long career in research and business development. Peter has led teams developing integrated circuit technology, smart cards, biometrics and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

He has presented numerous scientific and engineering papers on the results at international conferences. He is the recipient of two awards for lifetime achievement. In further recognition of his engineering achievements he was awarded adoctorate in sciencec by the University of Kent in July 2007.

He holds a BSc degree from Queen Mary College, London, and is a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. His career began at GEC. Later he moved to the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC). NRDC was a UK Government Agency developing and licensing new technology arising from the results of University and Government Laboratory Research.

After a merger with the National Enterprise Board the combined entity was privatised to become BTG plc. Major projects led by Peter at BTG included developing new uses of public key cryptography in smart cards. This was done with Donald Davies at NPL 1980-90. A series of Biometrics projects began in 1972. The Supertag project resulted in the first disposable RFID tag. The original inventions were made at the CSIR Labs in South Africa (from 1993).

The above activities involved assisting in the development of new ISO and BSI standards. He continues such work for BSI, serving now as an independent UK expert. He takes a particular interest in the tension between standards and patents. Many of his insights on this relationship were gained whilst working at BTG with Ian Bingham and Richard Davison.

He is a founder member of the UK government’s Biometrics Assurance Group (BAG).

Image