Information Commissioner Richard Thomas will retire in June at the end of his second term of office.
The Information Commissioner is responsible for ensuring that the Data Protection Act (DPA) and the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act are adhered to.
The Ministry of Justice has chosen Graham to succeed Thomas, but the appointment must be examined by Parliament's Justice Select Committee, which will hold a pre-appointment hearing and will report on Graham's suitability for the job.
Graham is currently the director general of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which regulates advertising.
"Director general of the ASA is one of the best jobs in the world, but I've been doing it since April 2000. It's time for somebody else to take things forward to the next level," Graham told The Guardian newspaper.
"Meanwhile, the Information Commissioner is so much at the centre of debates on information security, privacy, better government and the right to know that I am keen to take on this new challenge," he said.
In a review of his tenure, Thomas will tell the Parliamentary Justice Select Committee today that since he took his post in 2002 the information world has changed completely.
"Since 2002, few individuals are beyond the reach of Google and other search engines, the internet has made a reality of globalisation, the costs of computing and storing data have tumbled, intelligence-led policing has become the norm and government has embarked on an ambitious programme of IT-driven transformation of public services," he will tell the Committee.
He will say that despite initial doubts about the effectiveness of FOI laws, they have now become an important part of public life.
"Four years on, the national media reports disclosures made under the Freedom of Information Act (or the companion Environmental Information Regulations) almost every day," he will report. "Much more is disclosed at local level. Details of EU farm subsidies, heart surgery survival rates and schools performance are now routinely available. The surprise is no longer the nature and extent of disclosure. What is astonishing is how much was previously treated as secret. Freedom of Information is thus fast becoming part of the fabric of public life."
Thomas said that the biggest challenge facing the ICO was resourcing, and that its workload is growing while its budgets will stay level or even decrease.
