Professor Niloufer Selvadurai is a technology law scholar who analyses the regulation of emerging and evolving technologies, focussing especially on AI. She examines how laws and governance frameworks can be designed to calibrate the benefits and risks of technological innovation, and how such laws can be embedded within technology. A feature of her legal research is interdisciplinary collaborations with computing, engineering, finance and health. 

Niloufer is the Director of Research & Innovation at the Macquarie Law School and Co-Chair of the Australian Law Associate Deans Research Network (LADRN). In the technology sphere, she is a Co-Director of the Data Horizons Research Centre  and the Program Leader for 'AI and Law' at the Centre for Applied AI. Formerly, she was a Solicitor at Ashurst, Sydney, and worked at Allens. 

Qualifications include a BA LLB (First Class Hons) from the University of Sydney, a PhD from Macquarie University, and Admission as a Solicitor in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

Niloufer's present research projects relate to AI regulation, digital finance law, data privacy law and cybercrime law. A new book Recreating creativity, reinventing inventiveness: AI and intellectual property law, co-edited with Nikos Koutras, was published in 2024 by Routledge. 

Commencing in 2012 when there was scant legal scholarship on AI, Niloufer has published in leading outlets on AI issues relating to automated decision-making (Oxford), digital finance (UCLA, Stanford, Washington & Lee), copyright (Oxford), and face recognition technologies (Oxford).

Together with Professor Dali Kaafar, Professor Shlomo Berkovsky, Dr Ian Wood and Professor Mark Dras, she is currently a CI on an Australian Research Council NIS Discovery Project grant on 'Fighting Global Phone Scams with Conversational AI'.

Together with Professor Bamini Gopinath (lead) and a multidisciplinary team, she is a CI on an Australian Research Council Linkage project on 'A Digital Literacy Program Empowering Seniors with Sensory Loss,' commencing 2025.

Together with Professor Tom Smith, A/Professor Yin Liao, A/Professor Di Bu and Dr Natasha Fernandes, she is a CI on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project on 'Consumer Data Privacy Risk Analysis and Management in the Open Banking Era,' commencing 2025.

Together with Jon Truby and others, Niloufer is currently a CI on a research project on ‘The Regulation of AI,’ a multi-institutional project, involving Qatar University, University of Hong Kong, University of Ottawa and Macquarie.

Beyond AI, Niloufer's research relates to digital finance, data privacy and cybercrime law. She is an Academic Partner of the Digital Finance CRC that has been awarded government and industry funding over a 10-year period to develop a commercial, technological and regulatory framework for the digitisation of real-world assets. 

Together with Professor Talis Putnins, Professor Andreas Furche and others, Niloufer is the recipient of a CSIRO Emerging Technologies Program grant on a 'Central Bank Digital Currency - Infrastructure and Applications'. Industry partners include the Reserve Bank of Australia, ANZ Banking Group and DigitalX Ltd.  A co-authored article 'Towards an effective regulatory and governance framework for central bank digital currencies,'  first author Nancy Michail, is available in the 2023 Stanford Journal of Blockchain Law and Policy.

A 2021-2022 University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) JOLT Honorarium funded a research project on 'Governing the interface between natural and formal language in smart contracts' with Professor Joshua Fairfield. A Washington & Lee University 2022-2023 Honorarium further fundeed a research project on the 'Mitigating the legal challenges associated with blockchain smart contracts: The potential of hybrid on-chain/off-chain contracts'.

Recently completed work include a Fintech Governance project funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, an intermediary liability of telcos project (ANU JOLT article) funded by Optus, and Australian representation on the SIENNA (Stakeholder informed ethics for new technologies with high socio-economic and human rights impact), European Union H2020 research and innovation programme, University of Twente, Netherlands. Former multinstitutional research projects include an AI governance project with AMP, and information technology projects with Malaysia, Vietnam, Belgium, Greece and the United Kingdom. Niloufer has advised government and industry on a variety of issues relating to AI, digital privacy, cybercrime, digital finance and telecommunications law and has been co-author of Australia's submission to the World Congress of AIPPI on multiple occasions. Niloufer teaches technology law and intellectual property law, and is a member of the Macquarie University Human Research Ethics Committees (Medical Sciences).

Prior to joining Macquarie, Niloufer practised as a Solicitor in the media, technology and telecommunications group at Ashurst and worked at Allens. Niloufer is the Telecommunications Editor of the Australian Journal of Competition and Consumer Law and was the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Technology Policy Law, 2009-2021.

See further - ‘Speaking with Professor Niloufer Selvadurai’ in (2020) (1) The Brief 27-29 at Interview in the Brief 

Recent media and conferences - 

Data Governance, Governance Institute of Australia, NBN and PFK Nov 2023 - Video

AI, Authorship and Attribution, UNSW Law, December 2024, Video webinar

Sky Weekend Agenda - June 2023 The federal government's 2023 Safe and Responsible AI Discussion Paper

Sky News AM Agenda - May 2023 - The regulation of generative AI and ChatGPT

CPI Talks with Prof Niloufer Selvadurai - Data interoperability and portability law, Melbourne University Law School

• Interview on data governance
• Panel discussion on big data

Should AI generated inventions be patentable? 

Codes, conflicts of laws and digital jurisdiction, 'Code is law: Blockchain smart contracts, American Society for International Law

AI, Health and Human Rights webinar

Supervision of PhD, Masters of Research and LLB Honours Candidates: Artificial intelligence regulation, digital finance law, intellectual property law, cybercrime law, smart contracts law and digital competition law.

PhD Completions 

Niloufer has supervised 24 PhD students to completion. In 2022, she was awarded the 'Australian Legal Education Award for Excellence in Graduate Research Supervision' by the Australian Law Academics Association (ALAA). In 2023, she was named 'Higher Degree Research Supervisor of the Year' by Macquarie University.

Recent PhD completions (as Principal Supervisor): 

• Suman Podder (Domestic): Open banking regulation. Completed 2024.
• Vannessa Ho (Domestic): Internet jurisdiction and copyright law. Completed 2023. Winner of National Holt Prize for PhD dissertation.
• Seb Zada (Domestic): Public international law. Completed 2023.
• Atiq Rahim (International - Bangladesh): Digital copyright law. Completed 2020.
• Lam Uyen (International – Vietnam): The right to information. Completed 2019.
• Jennifer Farrell (Australia): Internet regulation and access to justice. Completed 2018.
• Jingyi Li (Cotutelle candidate with Shandong University, China): Digial Intellectual Property Law. Completed. 2018.

Law and Technology - LAWS5029 (Undergraduate) and LAWS8068 (Postgraduate)

Intellectual Property Law - LAWS5023 (Undergraduate) and LAWS8024 (Postgraduate)

Intelligent Machines, Ethics and Law - COMP2400 (offered by the School of Computing, Faculty of Science and Engineering)

Rights, Responsibilities and AI - PHIL8400 (offered by the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts)

Sampling Design and Analysis - STAT8101 (offered by the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering)