Foundations for Robust Data Protection: Co-designing Law and Computer Science

We argue that the co-design of law and computer science should be a fundamental component of efforts towards ensuring sociotechnical systems provide adequate protection against risks to privacy and data protection. We survey some of the critical gaps between the disciplines of law and computer science and how they implicate risks to individuals, groups, and society. To address these concerns, we propose a research agenda towards developing methodologies and tools for the co-design of law and computer science and the application of these tools in the design and implementation of sociotechnical systems based on legally- and mathematically-sound principles.