Colin Bennett received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the University of Wales, and his Ph.D from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Since 1986 he has taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of Victoria, where he is now Professor. From 1999-2000, he was a fellow with the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

His research interests have focused on the comparative analysis of information privacy protection policies at the domestic and international levels. He has published Regulating Privacy: Data Protection and Public Policy in Europe and the United States (Cornell University Press, 1992). He is also co-editor of Visions of Privacy: Policy Choices for the Digital Age (University of Toronto Press, 1999), and co-author of The Governance of Privacy: Policy Instruments in Global Perspective (Ashgate Press, 2003; MIT Press, 2006). He has published articles in: Public Administration, International Review of Administrative Sciences, Policy Options, The Journal of Public Policy, Governance, Science, Technology and Human Values, Canadian Public Administration, the Information Society and the European Journal of Political Research, as well as in specialized journals such as Privacy Laws and Business.

He has given addresses and papers on these subjects in Canada, the United States, Europe, China, Australia and New Zealand. He is an occasional contributor of articles on privacy to The Ottawa Citizen, The Vancouver Sun and the Victoria Times-Colonist. He has completed policy reports for the Canadian Standards Association, the Standards Council of Canada, and Industry Canada on Canadian privacy protection policy, and for the European Commission on the implementation of the European Union's Data Protection Directive. He is currently involved in a comparative project on the subject of "Privacy Advocacy" in advanced industrial states.