Richard Bruce Austin

Richard’s areas of practice include outsourcing transactions, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, applications development projects, technology mergers and acquisitions, technology start-up support, access to information, privacy, security including cybersecurity and international data flows, IT governance and regulatory compliance, records retention and destruction policies (RRDP) and social media. Richard represents developers and users of information technology in the public and private sector as well as domestic and international service providers.

Before joining Deeth Williams Wall, Richard was General Counsel of EDS Canada, one of Canada’s largest information technology service providers, for 18 years. Richard’s responsibilities at EDS Canada included providing strategic legal advice and guidance to senior management with respect to the Canadian business and to business leaders on specific transactions. Richard provides his clients with expert, effective legal advice based on his deep knowledge of the technology sector, experience with complex technology transactions and appreciation of customer issues and supplier concerns.

Richard is a frequent speaker on technology law issues including on artificial intelligence, outsourcing, identity management, contract renegotiations, IT governance and regulatory compliance, privacy and security, cloud computing, social media and software development. He was for many years, a member of the Executive Education Faculty of the Centre for Outsourcing Research and Education (CORE).

He also joined a collaborative, multi-disciplinary, international group of 54 technology law and industry professionals to develop the first edition of Responsible AI : A Global Policy Framework , a publication by the International Technology Law Association (ITechLaw) . Responsible AI provides an essential introduction to artificial intelligence and proposes ethical guidelines to encourage the responsible development, deployment, and use of AI technology. Richard's involvement focussed on the topics of accountability, transparency and explainability, and privacy, as well as developing solutions to particular policy challenges. Richard was also a member of the ITechLaw working group that produced “The EU AIA: A Green Paper Policy Analysis”, which analyzed the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act against the Responsible AI Global Policy