Information Technology & Communication

Information has been the subject of rigorous and sustained analysis for over fifty years in disciplines as diverse as economics, communication theory, psychology and law. It seems that we live in a world of information and that the study of information is one of the foremost of modern academic pursuits.

The invention of new information technologies and the consequent development of novel ways for processing, transmitting and storing information has generally been analyzed from a legal perspective under the headings, ‘information technology law’ or ‘computer law’. These approaches to legal analysis focus on the technology in question and how it affects existing legal precepts, without addressing the nature of information itself or the legal consequences of its peculiar characteristics.

Clearly, information has assumed a very important role in advanced economies, yet scant attention has been given to the issue of whether in fact information deserves sui generis legal analysis and what form that analysis should take.

Our firm has adopted the position that information is a distinct social phenomenon and that the law, as regulator of social relations, directly affects the creation, content and communication of information in society. On this basis there is an overwhelming case in favour of constructing a conceptual framework for analyzing the legal treatment of information. We have therefore attempted to direct legal analysis towards considering the information phenomenon itself and to formulate ‘an information law approach’ for analyzing the impact of the law on information.