Dr. Lachlan D. Urquhart

Translation between design and legal knowledge and practices is key for the effective regulation of data-driven technologies.

Lachlan Urquhart is a Lecturer in Technology Law at the University of Edinburgh, Visiting Researcher and Founding Member of Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute, and a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute. He has a multidisciplinary background in computer science (PhD) and law (LL.B; LL.M). His research interests are at the intersection of human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, and technology law. He has been an investigator on interdisciplinary projects totalling over £5m including projects Defense Against the Dark Artifacts, Emotional AI in Smart Cities, and the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Node on Regulation. He has published widely in leading venues in HCI, IT law, and computer ethics. This includes varied topics including cybersecurity regulation in smart homes; the role of edge computing in data protection compliance; legal and ethical challenges of affective computing in cars and public spaces; protecting privacy in future adaptive architecture and human (smart) building interactions; ideation tools for law and ethics ‘by design’; and the legal challenges of live facial recognition use by law enforcement.