The Royal Society of New South Wales was delighted to learn that Professor Lyria Bennett-Moses FRSN FASSA was recently elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA).

The Council of the Society extends its warmest congratulations to Professor Bennett-Modes.

Lyria Bennett-Moses is an international leader in developing a critical understanding of the impact of technological change on law. Her work seeks to understand the operation of law at the technological frontier, drawing conclusions about the relationship between law and socio-technical change on a general level, across different doctrinal, technological and historical contexts. It draws connections among legal dilemmas that arise as technology changes across contexts, articulates how legal institutions can best meet the challenges posed by technological change, and critiques oft-quoted concepts such as “legal lag”, “technology neutrality” and “technology regulation.” Through this work, she has developed a better approach at the micro (drafting) and macro (institutional) level to managing the need for ongoing adaptation of legal and regulatory frameworks in a context of socio-technical change. This work contributed to the recognition of a new subdiscipline with its own FOR code, 480408, and new journals. 

She has a strong focus on impacting government policy and the legal profession. Her research is cited in parliamentary committee, law reform and government policy reports with substantive impact, ensuring the challenges identified for legal frameworks in the context of socio-technical change are addressed in a way that recognises the need for ongoing adaptability. She participates actively in Standards Australia’s IT-043 committee on AI standards and has been involved in a range of ACOLA activities. 

Lyria’s research leadership within cooperative research centres (as project lead in the Data to Decisions Cooperative Research Centre and as theme co-lead in the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre) have been directly relevant to policy relating to the use of data analytics in security and designing legal and regulatory frameworks for cyber security, respectively. Through this work, she has set goals for law reform to better regulate information sharing among law enforcement agencies, articulated a high-level framework for appropriate uses of data and analytics in security contexts, and outlined a broad vision for understanding law’s contribution to cyber security.

She engages extensively with media to increase public understanding of the complexities of law as it operates in new contexts as well as policy on how to ensure more responsible technology practices. 

More information about Professor Bennett-Moses’ work and achievements is available on the ASSA website.