Bio
Emily Laidlaw is a CIGI senior fellow, a Canada Research Chair in Cybersecurity Law and an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary. She is an associate member of the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Law, Technology and Society. She is currently serving as the Rovinescu Visiting Scholar on Anti-Hate Speech at the University of Ottawa. Beyond academia, Emily contributes her expertise on the boards of the National Cybersecurity Consortium and the Canadian Internet Society.
Her research centres on technology regulation, cybersecurity and human rights, with particular emphasis on platform regulation, privacy, online harms, freedom of expression and corporate governance. She is the author of Regulating Speech in Cyberspace: Gatekeepers, Human Rights and Corporate Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and co-editor, with Florian Martin-Bariteau, of the forthcoming book The Security of Self: A Human-Centric Approach to Cybersecurity (Ottawa University Press, 2025).
Emily’s academic journey began in the United Kingdom, where she earned her L.L.M and Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and held her first professorship at the University of East Anglia Law School. She initially practised as a litigator and has since returned to legal practice, now operating her own law firm. In 2014, she joined the University of Calgary.
Her research bridges Canadian, UK, European and international law, drawing on her extensive experience abroad. Emily actively engages in law reform and consults for governments and organizations, contributing to projects on cybersecurity, online harms, misinformation and disinformation, defamation law, intimate image abuse, intermediary liability and content moderation.
A dedicated public scholar, Emily is deeply committed to knowledge engagement —whether through teaching, community events, public panels, conferences, judicial education or testifying before government.