Publications, subjects and clients
A selection of Brainbox's work
Assessing Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet for institutional investors
Institutional investors representing $13 trillion issued an ultimatum after the Christchurch attacks: platform companies must do better. Two years on, how have they performed? What is the trend of global regulation?
Transparency-based approaches to social media regulation
Brainbox worked with the University of Otago and the Global Partnership on AI's responsible AI working group. GPAI was proposing collaborative study of how social media recommendation systems deal with terrorist content.
Designing legislation from outside government
A global and national movement has led progress toward enforceable rights for disabled people. Brainbox collaborated to design legislation that would enforce Accessibilty for all New Zealanders.
The Digital Legal Systems Lab
The use of digital systems to perform legal tasks has promise, but it needs exploration through real examples. Brainbox is working to found a lab to build such systems. By collaborating where law, policy and technology meet, respective communities can understand more about the other.
Hosting 13 government agencies to talk about our findings
Often a conversation is more effective than reading a report. Brainbox hosted a forum with 13 government and regulatory agencies at Internet NZ's premises in Wellington.
Can and should we transform legislation into computer code?
A global movement called "rules as code" claims law should be translated into computer languages. Legislation could be drafted and implemented as code. What are the merits of this concept and what should policy makers know?
Medico-legal systems and health policy
Brainbox has longstanding experience in medico-legal systems and health policy covering practitioner competency, patients' rights, medico-legal causation and the accident compensation scheme.
Assisting the Human Rights Commission on responding to COVID-19
COVID-19 policy is moving rapidly, cutting across a range of policy areas and fundamental human rights. We worked with Antistatic to prepare a series of briefings to support the Commission to fulfil its statutory role.
Access to justice and dispute resolution systems
Brainbox has published work on dispute resolution systems and access to justice: in medico-legal disputes; and in an online safety context. See our submission on the proposed New Zealand voluntary code on online harms and safety.
Deepfakes, disinformation and synthetic media
Artificial intelligence technologies have allowed a wider group of people to manipulate and generate audio, text, video and images. There is global concern about mis- and disinformation. Brainbox has deep expertise in navigating these subjects.
Can we build a system for analysing judicial decisions at scale?
Brainbox collaborated with Openlaw NZ to build an open source research tool for analysing case law at scale. In the process, we outlined a superior system of judicial publishing that would increase access to decisions.
Submission on proposed national internet filter
Brainbox submitted to the Government Administration Committee on a proposed national internet filter, drawing on our research and consulting in related areas.
Trust in automated systems used by Government
To conduct its work programme for 2021, the Digital Council of Aotearoa needed to understand trust and automated decision-making. Brainbox collated research insights to inform scenario design for a series of workshops and bring clarity to a complex set of topics.
New Zealand law and synthetic pornography
New Zealand law doesn't make it clear whether synthesising sexual imagery of someone without their consent is criminal. We made a submission to the Justice Committee outlining how the law should be fixed.
Presentation to the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (legal frameworks working group)
Following our work on social media regulation for the investor coalition and for GPAI, we were asked to present our findings by New Zealand's Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, responsible for online safety and the Christchurch Call.