About my research
My main research interests are within eGovernment, data protection, legislative drafting and legal technology.
Automation of legal decision-making is central, and could be used to illustrate how these research topics often go well together: Automated legal decisions require legal technology and development of ICT systems. In this process legal rules are transformed from natural language to programming language. The algorithms of the system expressing these rules, also determine input. Often, input is personal data: Automated systems often produce new personal data on the basis of automatically collected and processed personal data. Thus, automated legal decision-making may trigger a range of questions regarding data protection, often closely related to rule of law and legal protection. It may for instance be that legal rules embedded in the programmes deviate from the intentions of the legislator, and in worst case, represent incorrect or inadequate interpretation of the law. To avoid such negative effects, one option could be to draft “automation-friendly legislation”; something which in turn could be supported by computerized tools for drafting of legislation. This is the core of my research universe!