Future Law

The Future Law: Technology and Society Research Group is a group of academics and researchers from Te Piringa - Faculty of Law, University of Waikato, that is focused on legal, ethical and public policy issues related to emerging, new or innovative technologies.

This 'Future Law' Research Group builds on existing research excellence and international impact in the following key areas:

• Information regulation, data innovation, privacy, data protection initiatives, and cyber regulatory measures, in the context of digital technologies in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally. Issues concerning data manipulation and data surveillance, as well as data sovereignty and the Treaty of Waitangi, are being examined. In addition, new paradigms and legal thinking about data regulation are being investigated.

• Governance of corporate and public actors, and regulatory regimes, concerned with emerging and new technologies nationally, internationally, and areas beyond national jurisdiction.

• Legal, ethical and policy frameworks about future spaces. In addition, the range of approaches to regulation and impact assessments of emerging and future technologies in cyber space, e.g. blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT), Artificial Intelligence, robotics, Internet of Things, cyber security, encryption, and quantum computing, as well as (outer) space law, are being examined.

• Democratic legitimacy and viability, as well as constitutional governance, self-determination and individual autonomy, in the face of technological changes.

• Regulation, oversight and societal impact of emerging, new or innovative technologies in consumer-focused healthcare.

• The regulation of content and communications, human rights and freedoms, law enforcement, and issues of social equity, on the internet.

• Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) developments and implications for intellectual property law and policy.

• Fintech and emerging technological and innovative methods in the delivery of financial services.

• Gender perspectives concerned with emerging, innovative and new technologies.

• Mātauranga Māori, traditional Maori knowledge, or Māori science, Treaty of Waitangi, and Māori as well as indigenous perspectives of issues related to technology are being investigated by the Research Hub.

• The interface between technology and environmental as well as biological systems – threats, opportunities and regulation.

• Socio-legal studies of technology and innovation, as well as access to justice, in the digital age.

• Current issues regarding the use of emerging, innovative and new technologies to address matters of high priority, nationally as well as globally, such as the intersection of ICT and Covid19, and preparing students, society, and the workforce for the future.