Research topics of interest and ongoing work

• Intellectual Property issues related to technology (The Internet, IT systems, E-Learning etc).
• Privacy & ethics related to technology.
  
• Law & regulation of criminal activity related to IT systems (Cybercrime).
• Law & ethics related to use of the Internet & various Information systems
  (e.g. eHealth, Medical Informatics, E-Government, Electronic commerce).
• Artificial Intelligence & Law.
• Information value & context.
• Legal issues in software design & development.
• Software quality & liability issues.

Selected research projects

• ISIS - Protecting children in online social networks
  EPSRC Project No: EP/F035454/1
  Value: £264,411
  Duration: 01 June 2008 - 31 May 2011
  Dr Penny Duquenoy

  The aim of the Isis project is to develop an ethics-centred monitoring framework and tools for supporting law enforcement agencies in policing online social networks for the purpose of protecting children. The project will develop natural language analysis techniques to help identify paedophiles from chat logs and monitoring mechanisms that can be non-invasively attached to file sharing systems for identifying the distributors of child abuse media. The ethical issues associated with such monitoring activities will be rigorously studied and consistently fed back into the development of the framework and tools. The project results will be used and evaluated by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre as part of their own policing activities.
  
  3 year project with partners from Lancaster University, Swansea University and CEOP.Combined award (£735,400)
  Start date: 1st June 2008
  

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• Information Law Project
  Collaborative Project
  Duration: Ongoing
  Dr Carlisle George
  
  Collaborative research between with Dr Bostjan Bercic of the Institute for Economics, Law and Informatics (Slovenia).
  Current work is focused on three broad areas namely:
  (a) Investigating the application of database theory to data protection;
  (b) Investigating issues related to the collection & processing of personal data in the provision of medical
  services;
  (c) Investigating the mapping of legal notions from information law (e.g. personal data, defamation etc.) to their underlying intangible semantic forms (notions from areas of information science and knowledge management) to gain insights into the connection between law and information science / knowledge management.
  

Past Projects

• ARMQA: Internal Quality Assurance for Armenian HEIs
  EU Tempus programme Project
  Value: 253,700 Euros
  Duration: 1 Sept 2007 - 31 August 2009
  Elli Georgiadou
  
  The overarching objective of this Tempus project (ARMQA: Internal Quality Assurance for Armenian HEIs) is to bring university management culture and practice in Armenia in accordance to the internationally recognised standards, address university management process in general and in particular the issue of internal quality assurance (IQA), allowing the creation of the IQA system, its constant monitoring and further enhancement aimed at providing quality education.

• Ethicbots Project (Emerging Technoethics of Human Interaction with Communication, Bionic and Robotic Systems). EU funded Project.
  Dr Penny Duquenoy working with with Dr Satinder Gill, Dr Chris Huyck, and Prof Steve Torrance at Middlesex University and also other partners throughout Europe.

Research supervision

• Members of ALERT are actively involved in supervising research degrees. Please see individual member profiles for more information and contact details.