Leading scholarship

The research by Professor Lilian Edwards, Newcastle Law School, is one of five academic papers which has received the 9^th Annual Privacy Papers for Policymakers (PPPM) award. The award recognises leading international privacy scholarship that is relevant to policymakers in the United States as well as data protection authorities around the world.

Professor Edwards joined Newcastle Law School earlier this month and leads the School’s new Law, Innovation and Society research group. She is a leading expert on legal matters relating to artificial intelligence, information technology, privacy, e-commerce and the internet, and was co-founder of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Centre for IP and Technology Law.

Papers that are successful in the PPPM Award are those that demonstrate thoughtful analysis of emerging issues and research that has a real-world policy impact. Winning papers are chosen by a diverse team of academics, advocates and industry privacy professionals. 

Improving privacy practices

Professor Edwards will present the paper ‘Slave to the Algorithm? Why a ‘right to an explanation’ is probably not the remedy you are looking for’ with her co-investigator Michael Veale, from University College London.

Professor Edwards said: “I’m extremely honoured to be recognised in this way and to have the opportunity to talk to U.S. policymakers about my work.

“Following recent high profile cases such as those involving Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, law-makers in the U.S. are paying much more attention to the issue of data privacy - particularly in relation to how the private sector in the U.S. stores and uses the data it collects.

 “This could prove to be a real turning point: the U.S. has historically lagged behind Europe in terms of privacy protections for its consumers and businesses but increasing concern over data privacy has led it to look to Europe as an example of how legal safeguards can be put in place.

“While European law – namely GDPR – is not necessarily the holy grail of regulation, it does provide a useful framework that can be used to improve privacy practices, especially in relation to AI and machine learning algorithms. This is the topic of the paper I’ll be presenting to policymakers in Washington, and I’m looking forward to discussing with them how we think algorithms can be tamed in order to be more transparent and more useful to the whole of society.”