Dr M.R. Leiser is Assistant Professor at the Center for Law and Digital Technologies, research fellow of the Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a Pluralist World research program, and thesis coordinator for the Advanced Masters in Digital Technologies at Leiden University.

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Dr M.R. Leiser is Assistant Professor at the Center for Law and Digital Technologies, research fellow of the Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a Pluralist World research program, and thesis coordinator for the Advanced Masters in Digital Technologies at Leiden University. He holds a BSc in Communications and Media Studies, an LLB (Hons) and PhD from the University of Strathclyde, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA) and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Dr Leiser was supervised by Professor Andrew Murray at the London School of Economics where he also lectured before joining Leiden Law School. He has a professional background in law, IT, investment banking, and journalism.

Dr Leiser’s expertise is in the regulation of the Internet and his research interests include heuristics, platform regulation, data protection, digital rights, consumer protection, and computational propaganda. His research focuses on implementing insights from cognitive and social psychology as well as behavioral economics into regulation of the online environment. In practice, his work applies to the regulation of ‘fake news’, machine speech, platform regulation, and the GDPR’s data portability right. Dr Leiser’s research objective is to restore trust to the infosphere by working with industry partners and government to mitigate the effects of deceptive content and state-sponsored algorithmic-processing and automated forms of propaganda spread via bots, botnets and scripts and has been influential in the regulation of computational propaganda.

Dr Leiser won the British and Irish Law Education and Technology Association (BILETA) award for Best Paper in 2014 and again in 2017. His work on the role of non-state actors in governance of the online environment (with Professor Andrew Murray) was published in The Oxford Handbook of the Law and Regulation of Technology (edited by Roger Brownsword, Eloise Scotford & Karen Yeung). Dr Leiser presents to various industry partners and politicians on the ‘human element’ of digital technologies and is known for his vocal criticism of the EU’s data protection regime. He is a regular contributor to the British and international press on technology issues and has presented his work in numerous public lectures, international conferences, and private seminars.