This course investigates the economic, cultural and societal value of information, and the legal framework concerning its use. The development and omnipresence of information technologies brought about the information society and digital economy, where knowledge and information are crucial value-generators. Questions of who collects, processes and controls information, heaps of which us, users of the internet, generate every day, became crucial. The lines between public and private, things we own and those we license, services which are free and those which come as a cost, became blurred, challenging some of the fundamental legal concepts conceived in and for a different reality.

In this course, students will be exposed to and engage with some of the key legal debates concerning the use and regulation of information technologies across different fields of law such as data protection, privacy, fundamental rights and intellectual property. This may include, for example, internet governance, intermediary liability, freedom of expression, disinformation and automated decision making. Throughout the semester, students will conduct an overview of the relevant legal fields, examining how they interact in the regulation of information, to explain and engage in contemporary policy discussions.

10 x 2-hour seminars in semester 1.

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The course is assessed by a 3-hour 'seen' examination (100%) with the questions made available to the students in advance.

The aim of this course is to provide students with an understanding of some of the key legal debates concerning the use and regulation of information technologies. Those debates engage a variety of legal fields, including data protection, privacy, fundamental rights and intellectual property. The course provides an overview of the relevant legal fields, allowing students to make connections between them, and link them to the contemporary policy discussions.

Further aims are to:

■ Foster understanding of a complex legal framework concerning the use and regulation of information technologies;

■ Provide students with an opportunity to examine the relationship between law and technology and their mutual influence on each other;

■ Equip students with knowledge and ability to constructively evaluate the positions taken in current debates and to propose possible reforms;

■ Explore the policy justifications underpinning current regulatory interventions; 

■ Encourage independent learning and research. 

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Identify and discuss the main rules governing the use of information online; 

■ Evaluate the contemporary legal debates concerning the use and regulation of information technologies;

■ Identify and critically assess wider trends in the regulation of information technologies;

■ Situate legal issues concerning the use of information online in a broader economic, societal and cultural context.  

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.