The course focuses on legal and regulatory aspects of digital data, software, the Internet and related technologies. It covers topics of concern to individuals as well as business and government, including protection of privacy and intellectual property in a digital environment, electronic contracts, computer and information security, cybercrime, and the implications of advances in analytics, machine learning and autonomous systems.

The interaction between traditional law and information technology plays a central role in the course. To analyse the impact and application of traditional legal principles in a new technological environment, the principles must be translated into the language of the technologies involved. The translation must preserve the original meaning and policy rationale, while exploring its application to both novel and familiar scenarios arising from the ubiquity of digital technologies. It is the aim of the course to teach, encourage and nurture such thinking. Examples of problems we shall encounter and analyze in the course include the connection between enabling technologies of cyber crime and the contours of liability of cyber criminals and their enablers; how the principles of personal information privacy can be adapted to a virtualised global setting; how emerging technologies can disrupt existing legal forms such as contracts or ‘anonymous’ data; and determining the appropriate models of liability and responsibility applicable to platforms based on eg, social media or AI.

A statement by Professor Lawrence Lessig captures the essence of the course: “[w]hen dealing with cyberspace, judges are to be translators; different technologies are the different languages; and the aim is to find a reading of [legal principles] that preserves [their] meaning from one world’s technology to another. This is fidelity as translation.” Lawyers who fail to understand the translation will likely pursue sub-optimal litigation strategies, fail to identify emerging conflicts of interests, face unsatisfactory enforcement prospects, and may overlook effective and potentially powerful defences.

Topics

Introduction to Internet, software, digital data and related technologies
Translation
Contracts, ‘disruption’ and protection of parties in a digital environment
Data and cyber security in virtualised industries
Cybercrime: law, enabling technologies and remedies
Data surveillance and regulation of global data practices
Examples of regulatory challenges of novel technologies, including AI
Data sovereignty and extraterritoriality