Professor Guido Noto La Diega
Law
Personal statement
An award-winning Italy-born naturalised British law academic with a passion for the law of emerging technologies, Professor Guido Noto La Diega (they/he) is a Professor of Law, Technology and Innovation and Programme Leader of the LLM/MSc Law, Technology, and Innovation, as well as of the namesake research cluster. Appointed directly by the Principal of the University through the Global Talent Acquisition Programme (GTAP), Noto La Diega brings to Strathclyde an internationally recognised expertise is in the European, Italian, and British legal and regulatory approaches to Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, cloud computing, robotics, and blockchain. Their work is animated by the conviction that the law should steer innovation in a socially just, inclusive, and sustainable direction.
Holder of a PhD (Unipa), a postdoc (QMUL), and an HEA Fellowship, Noto La Diega is the author of the groundbreaking open-access book Internet of Things and the Law and of several articles in leading international journals such as the European Intellectual Property Review and European Journal of Law & Technology; they also appeared in mainstream popular press such as Vogue, Sky News, CNET, Il Sole 24 Ore, ABC, and Wired. Noto La Diega’s works – published in English and Italian, and translated into Chinese, Russian, and Korean – have been cited by the EU Court of Justice's Advocate General, the House of Lords, the UK Intellectual Property Office, the World Economic Forum, the European Parliament, and the Council of Europe, amongst others. As a member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on AI and Data in Education and Training, Noto La Diega contributed to the EU Guidelines on AI in Education.
Noto La Diega has a strong bidding record, having been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, Horizon Europe, the German Research Foundation, The Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Society of Legal Scholars, the British and Irish Law Education and Technology Association, the Modern Law Review, and Santander. They are currently leading the half-a-million-pound international project “From Smart Technologies to Smart Laws” (AHRC-DFG). They have 14 years’ academic experience in the UK, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Brazil, and the US, and they have delivered keynote speeches and presented their research in prestigious venues including the WTO Public Forum in Geneva, the Computers, Privacy & Data Protection Conference in Brussels, and the Intellectual Property Scholars Conference in New York.
Outside of Strathclyde, Noto La Diega is a Martin-Flynn Global Law Professor in the School of Law at the University of Connecticut; Fellow of the Nexa Center for Internet and Society; Expert of the European Data Protection Board; Research Associate at the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies; Scotland Advisory Council Member of the Open Rights Group; Advisory Board Member of the Gender Equality Special Interest Group at the European Law Institute; Steering Committee Member at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO – Academic Research Programme); and External Expert of the European Data Protection Board.
Alongside research, teaching, and consultancy, Noto La Diega is a qualified lawyer called to the Bar of Italy in 2013 (non-practising), an LGBTQ+ rights advocate, as well as a Trustee of the award-winning charity Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol & Drugs.
Publications
- Publishing contract
- Noto La Diega Guido
- Elgar Encyclopedia of Intellectual Property Law (2025) (2025)
- Idea (concept of)
- Noto La Diega Guido
- Elgar Encyclopedia of Intellectual Property Law (2025) (2025)
- General Court (Role in IP Cases)
- Noto La Diega Guido
- Elgar Encyclopedia of Intellectual Property Law (2025) (2025)
- Giving surveillance capitalism a makeover : wearable technology in the fashion industry and the challenges for privacy and Data Protection law
- Clubbs Coldron Benjamin, Noto La Diega Guido, Phipps-Rufus Tania, Stolte Tabea
- The Oxford Handbook of Fashion Law (2025) (2025)
- Ending smart data enclosures : the European approach to the regulation of the Internet of Things between access and Intellectual Property
- Noto La Diega Guido
- The Cambridge Handbook of Emerging Issues at the Intersection of Commercial Law and Technology (2024) (2024)
- Can there be responsible AI without AI liability? : Incentivising generative AI safety through ex-post tort liability under the EU Liability Directive (AILD)
- Noto La Diega Guido, Bezerra Leonardo CT
- International Journal of Law and Information Technology (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1093/ijlit/eaae021
Projects
- AHRC-DFG-funded project "From Smart Technologies to Smart Consumer Laws: Comparative Perspectives from Germany and the United Kingdom"
- Noto La Diega, Guido (Principal Investigator)
- The rapidly growing ‘Internet of Things’ – a network of connected objects such as cars, wearables, smart speakers, thermostats, and other household appliances – poses a range of issues for consumer laws that were drafted before hyperconnectivity became commonplace. Researchers from the University of Stirling – working with colleagues at the Universities of Warwick, Osnabrück and Bonn – will seek to identify emerging consumer issues in the UK and Germany related to smart technology and assess how their consumer laws cover these issues.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the German Research Foundation, 'From Smart Technologies to Smart Consumer Laws: Comparative Perspectives from Germany and the United Kingdom' will scope the potential for mutual learning between the two legal systems and recommend changes to the current regulations. Ultimately, the project will explore how consumers of smart technology can be empowered through law reform and legal design.
The UK Principal Investigator Prof. Guido Noto La Diega commented: “We are interested in the extent to which users are legally protected in this interconnected age under existing consumer laws, and whether legislation needs to be reviewed in line with technological developments. We argue that law reform needs to be paired with efforts from private stakeholders that should adopt novel legal design approaches to compliance. Our project is innovative – in terms of addressing a gap in existing literature and in its methods – and the collaboration with our counterparts in Germany is of the utmost importance, as both countries are leading the way in the regulation of the ‘internet of things’ and their approaches – although significantly different – constitute best practice. It is imperative that we share our knowledge to ensure consumer laws become as smart as the technologies that are shaping our lives.”
The study, which involves Professor Christoph Busch from the University of Osnabrück, Professor Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider of the University of Bonn and the University of Warwick's Professor Christian Twigg-Flesner, will consider four key themes, across three use cases – smart home, wearables and connected cars:
(1) THINGS AS A SERVICE
The emergence of smart technology challenges the traditional goods-services foundation on which consumer laws are built. The researchers will explore whether existing consumer laws are fit for purpose in today’s socio-technical setting, increasingly shaped by long-term contracts and data-drive monetisation models.
(2) REGULATION BY BRICKING
Smart products are often linked to sellers or suppliers who can remotely and automatically discontinue functionalities and downgrade or ‘brick’ a device – meaning that products become obsolete because tech companies no longer provide upgrades and fixes for older models. The contracts and number of actors involved can also add complexity to regulation.
(3) LIABILITY IN THE CLOUD OF THINGS
The automated interaction between multiple connected devices raises pressing issues around product liability. The study will consider whether existing liability rules provide protection for those using smart technology.
(4) INTERNET OF PERSONALISED THINGS
Smart technology empowers tech companies to enhance their profiling and targeting of consumers with precision and efficacy – resulting in the personalisation of products, prices and/or terms of service. At the same time, technology can be applied to enable a more targeted use of consumer protection technologies. The team will consider what personalisation of this kind means for the concept of the ‘average customer’.
Check out our blog: https://smartconsumerlaw.wordpress.com/
X: @ProjectStsl - 01-Apr-2022 - 31-Mar-2025