Information is the fundamental component of the technological advances that characterise our time. Increasing technological interactions between people, organisations, and artefacts generate, transmit, and process immense quantities of data about the social and physical world at an unprecedented rate and scale.
We are investigating the conceptual aspects of such radical transformations of reality brought about by this information revolution.
With new technologies shaping and being shaped by society, it’s important that we encourage beneficial developments whilst not losing sight of the essential rights and values upon which democratic societies are built.
Professor Sandra Wachter
Professor of Technology and Regulation
New technologies shape, and are shaped by, society. In choosing how to govern emerging technologies, we must encourage beneficial developments while not losing sight of the essential rights and values upon which democratic societies are built. International debate on the legal and ethical governance of AI and other emerging technologies increasingly recognises the need for an interdisciplinary approach, most commonly thought to require expertise in law, ethics, and computer science or machine learning at a minimum.
Within GET we investigate how to design, deploy, and govern the new technologies that pose novel challenges across law, philosophy, computer science, and related disciplines. Our research projects include issues such as data protection and inferential analytics, algorithmic bias, fairness, diversity and non-discrimination as well as explainable and accountable AI. These are areas where interdisciplinary thinking is pivotal.
This project, led by OII researchers including a legal scholar, ethicist, and machine learning specialist, takes a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to governance to investigate what:
So far, articles from this project have been published in a diverse set of journals, including Nature Machine Learning, Columbia Business Law Review, and International Data Privacy Law.
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Based on a case-study analysis of bias in the Chicago Crime Prediction Algorithm, this project explores the extent to which evidence of algorithmic bias can be used to guide policy responses to the societal disparities replicated in these tools.
This project will evaluate the effectiveness of accountability tools addressing explainability, bias, and fairness in AI. A ‘trustworthiness auditing meta-toolkit’ will be developed and validated via case studies in healthcare and open science.
This project transforms the concept of counterfactual explanations into a practically useful tool for explaining automated black-box decisions.
2 July 2026
In an age of AI chokepoints, Europe’s choices will depend on the capacities it builds now. The OII's Johanna Ballesteros and TUM Think Tank's DR Nicklas Berild Lundblad explain why.
24 June 2026
A new working paper by OII researchers argues that EU technology policy should hold AI companies to account for actual public wellbeing, not just reduced risk.
15 June 2026
Researchers and DPhil students from the Oxford Internet Institute are set to attend the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency (FAccT) in Montréal, from 25-28 June 2026.
techxplore, 06 July 2026
AI tools used to generate, edit or contextualize social media posts can introduce hidden biases that spread through online networks and shape public opinion, according to new research from the OII and the Hasso Plattner Institute.
Fortune Magazine, 16 June 2026
As Washington's decision to cut off global access to Anthropic's most powerful AI models sent shockwaves through governments and institutions, Prof Sandra Wachter shared her perspective with Fortune Magazine.
BMJ, 11 June 2026
The OII's Luc Rocher comments on the UK Biobank data breach.
Former Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information
Luciano Floridi‘s research areas are the philosophy of Information, information and computer ethics, and the philosophy of technology.
Professor Luciano Floridi is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the OII, as well as the Director of the Digital Ethics Lab. He is also Distinguished Research Fellow of the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics of the Faculty of Philosophy, and Research Associate and Fellow in Information Policy of the Department of Computer Science.
His research concerns primarily Information and Computer Ethics (aka Digital Ethics), the Philosophy of Information, and the Philosophy of Technology. Other research interests include Epistemology, Philosophy of Logic, and the History and Philosophy of Scepticism. He has published over 50 papers in these areas, in many anthologies and peer-reviewed journals. His works have been translated into many languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
His books include a series of books on the foundations of the philosophy of information published by Oxford University Press, most recently including ‘The Logic of Information’ (2019). At the OII, he has worked on a number of projects, including a John Fell Fund supported investigation into the ethics of biomedical big data. He teaches on the ‘The Philosophy and Ethics of Information’ course, as part of the OII’s MSc in the Social Science of the Internet.
Professor of Technology and Regulation
Professor Sandra Wachter is Professor of Technology and Regulation focusing on law and ethics of AI, Big Data, and robotics as well as Internet regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford
Professor of Data Ethics and Policy
Professor Brent Mittelstadt is a data ethicist and philosopher specializing in AI ethics, professional ethics, and technology law and policy. He is the founder/coordinator of the Governance of Emerging Technologies (GET) programme.
Professor of Digital Ethics and Defence Technologies
Mariarosaria Taddeo is Professor of Digital Ethics and Defence Technologies.
