Digital Platforms, Professional Roles, and Data Governance in Canadian Courts.
Canadian courts are undergoing a profound digital transformation. Platforms, databases, and AI-enabled tools are reshaping how cases are filed, managed, and decided. Partnerships with private technology firms increasingly influence governance, data control, and public accountability. These are not mere technical upgrades. They redefine how legal authority is performed, how professional roles are structured, and how citizens experience access to justice.
Using a cross-jurisdictional design, we examine four sites where major reforms are underway: Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and the Federal Court of Canada. Each has received substantial investment in new platforms, case management systems, and AI-enabled tools. By tracing how digital infrastructures embed themselves in everyday legal practice, how professionals adapt to new systems, and how vendor partnerships shape governance, the project generates evidence to guide future policy and oversight.
Analyze how court systems, procedures, and institutional practices are transformed by digital infrastructures, platforms, and AI-informed tools.
Examine how digital platforms mediate the production and circulation of legal knowledge, shape professional roles, and transform juridical processes.
Assess how proprietary platforms, technology firms, and procurement decisions affect transparency, data protection, procedural fairness, and judicial independence.
Principal Investigator
University of Toronto
Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies
Professor at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies. Internationally recognized for research on punishment, risk algorithms, governance, and AI-informed decision-making in law and criminal justice.
Co-Investigator
University of Toronto
Department of Sociology
Professor in the Department of Sociology, cross-appointed at the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, and Faculty Fellow at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. Her work examines big data and AI in criminal justice and border security.
Co-Investigator
Brock University
Department of Sociology & Criminology
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Critical Criminology, and Vanier Scholar. A trained criminal lawyer working at the intersection of law, criminology, and science and technology studies to examine how platforms, data infrastructures, and AI are reshaping criminal justice.
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