Sandra Wachter

Dr. Sandra Wachter is a lawyer and Research Fellow (Asst. Prof.) in Data Ethics, AI, robotics and Internet Regulation/cyber-security at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford where she also teaches the course Internet Technologies and Regulation. Sandra is also a Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in London, a Fellow of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Values, Ethics and Innovation, an Academic Affiliate at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford’s Law Faculty and a member of the Law Committee of the IEEE. Prior to joining the OII, Sandra studied at the University of Oxford and the Law Faculty at the University of Vienna and worked at the Royal Academy of Engineering and at the Austrian Ministry of Health. Sandra serves as a policy advisor for governments, companies, and NGO’s around the world on regulatory and ethical questions concerning emerging technologies. Her work has been featured in (among others) The Telegraph, Financial Times, The Sunday Times, The Economist, Science, BBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, New Scientist, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Engadget and, WIRED. In 2018 she won the ‘O2RB Excellence in Impact Award’ and in 2017 the CognitionX ‘AI superhero Award’ for her contributions in AI governance. Sandra is specialising in technology-, IP-, and data protection law as well as European-, International-, human rights and medical law. Her current research focuses on the legal and ethical implications of Big Data, AI, and robotics as well as governmental surveillance, predictive policing, and human rights online. She is also working on ethical design of algorithms, including the development of standards and (auditing) methods to ensure fairness, accountability, transparency, interpretability, and group privacy in complex algorithmic systems. Sandra is also interested in legal and ethical aspects of robotics (e.g. surgical, domestic and social robots) and autonomous systems (e.g. autonomous and connected cars), including liability, accountability, and privacy issues as well as international policies and regulatory responses to the social and ethical consequences of automation. Internet policy and regulation as well as cyber-security issues are also at the heart of her research, where she addresses areas such as online surveillance and profiling, censorship, intellectual property law, and human rights and identity online. Areas such as mass surveillance methods such as the European Data Retention Directive and its compatibility with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights as well as tensions between freedom of speech and the right to privacy on social networks are of particular interest. Previous work also looked at (bio) medical law and bio ethics in areas such as interventions in the genome and genetic testing under the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.