Julia Powles

Julia Powles is the Director of the UWA Tech & Policy Lab and Associate Professor of Law and Technology at UWA Law School. Her research focuses on privacy, intellectual property, internet governance, and the law and politics of data, automation, and artificial intelligence.

Known for her unflinching analyses of how tech firms evade and distort regulation, Julia co-led successful public investigations into the infamous NHS/Google DeepMind health data breach and Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs' thwarted smart city project. Current projects tackle civic resistance and political opportunism in Google Wing's ambitions to scale commercial drone delivery, novel responses to the paradox of Big Tech’s small liabilities for systemic misconduct with a focus on Uber and Facebook (Meta), and future-proof governance mechanisms for human monitoring in health and performance contexts.

Currently, Julia is an expert member of Australia's National Robotics Strategy Advisory Committee, National AI Centre's Responsible AI Think Tank, WA Government's Privacy and Information Sharing (PRIS) Implementation Steering Committee, and PRIS Universities Network (Chair).

Prior to joining UWA, Julia held appointments at New York University, Cornell Tech, the University of Cambridge, The Guardian, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Julia studied genetics, biophysics, and law in Australia and received her BCL from Oxford and PhD from Cambridge. In addition to her academic publications, Julia's writing can be found in the Financial Times, New Yorker, Guardian, One Zero, Wired, and Slate.