Professor Marion Oswald

Marion's research focuses on the interaction between law and digital technology, and involves multi-disciplinary collaboration and doctrinal, empirical and conceptual methodologies.  Building on her background as a practising lawyer within Government and technology companies, she has developed a particular specialism in the use of digital technologies and big data within policing, national security and the wider public sector.  

She is PI of the 4-year UKRI-funded Responsible AI UK Keystone project 'PROBabLE Futures - Probabilistic AI in Law Enforcement Futures' and was PI of the AHRC-funded BRAID scoping project: Ethical review to support Responsible AI in Policing – A Preliminary Study of West Midlands Police's specialist data ethics review committee. Marion is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (Alan Turing Institute). 

In 2025, Marion was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Marion was awarded an MBE in The Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours list 2022 for services to digital innovation.

Marion is Chair of the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner and West Midlands Police Data Ethics Committee, and a member of the Home Office-sponsored Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group. She is an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a member of the AHRC's peer review college. 

From July 2021 - March 2022, Marion was Specialist Adviser to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee advising the Lords Committee on its inquiry into technologies and the application of the law: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/1272/new-technologies-and-the-application-of-the-law/

From Sep 2021-Sep 23, Marion was appointed to the independent Advisory Board of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, a government expert body focused upon the trustworthy use of data and AI.

Marion was PI and Director of the AHRC-funded 'Observatory for the Monitoring of Data-Driven Approaches to Covid-19' (https://hosting.northumbria.ac.uk/omddac/).

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• AI and Biodata in Policing and Criminal Justice: Lessons from the Use of DNA and the Polygraph in the UK and Australia, Lawal, T., Paul, A., Oswald, M. 3 Apr 2025, Biodata, Surveillance and Society
• Bias, Oswald, M., Paul, A. 17 Mar 2025, De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Criminology, Berlin, Germany, De Gruyter
• Consultation Reponse to Sir Brian Leveson’s Independent Review of the Criminal Courts, Lawal, T., Oswald, M. 22 Jan 2025
• Falling behind the PACE: Lie-Detectors, Policing and Lack of Foreseeability - An FOI based Study, Kotsoglou, K., Oswald, M. 1 Mar 2025, In: Legal Studies
• PROBabLE Futures response to the Public Consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Lawal, T., Oswald, M. 25 Feb 2025
• PROBabLE Futures Submission in response to Call for Evidence on the Use of Evidence Generated by Software in Criminal Proceedings, Lawal, T., Paul, A., Kotsoglou, K., Oswald, M., McCartney, C. 14 Apr 2025
• UK Public Attitudes to National Security Data Processing: Assessing Human and Machine Intrusion, Powell, R., Oswald, M., Janjeva, A. 29 Apr 2025
• Written evidence submitted by Melanie Kay McLaughlan, Usame Altuntas and Professor Marion Oswald MBE (corresponding author) (Northumbria University) , to the House of Commons Committee on the Crime and Policing Bill (CPB67), McLaughlan, M., Altuntas, U., Oswald, M. 24 Apr 2025
• Assurance of Third-Party AI Systems for UK National Security: Research Report, Powell, R., Oswald, M. 17 Jan 2024
• College of Policing Data Ethics and Data-Driven Technologies APP Consultation: Response from Marion Oswald, Muffy Calder, Kyriakos N. Kotsoglou, Michael Maher, Carole McCartney, Kyle Montague, Claire Paterson-Young and Elizabeth Tiarks on behalf of ‘PROBabLE Futures: Probabilistic AI Systems in Law Enforcement Futures’ Responsible AI UK Keystone Project and Rosamund Powell, Research Associate on behalf of the Centre for Emerging Technology and Security, The Alan Turing Institute, Oswald, M., Calder, M., Kotsoglou, K., Maher, M., McCartney, C., Montague, K., Paterson-Young, C., Tiarks, E., Powell, R. 3 Oct 2024

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• COVID-19: Observatory for Monitoring Data-Driven Approaches to COVID-19, Oswald, M. (Principal Investigator), UK Research and Innovation, 04/11/20 - 03/11/21, £406,656.00

• Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
• Invited talk: 2024 Highlights and 2025 Vision: Reflections and Roadmaps for AI, Skills and Procurement 2024
• Membership of committee: Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group (External organisation) 2024
• Invited talk: Ethics, law and social implications 2023
• Invited talk: AI: clever, clumsy or clueless? 2023
• Invited talk: AI-NEW DEVELOPMENTS AND CHALLENGES FOR THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM 2023
• Organising a conference, workshop, ...: The Use of AI in Sentencing and the Management of Offenders 2023
• Organising a conference, workshop, ...: Progressing the UK Government’s Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard: Police Perspectives 2023
• Invited talk: Oversight of Police-Use of Surveillance Technology: Workshop hosted by the VUB Chair in Surveillance Studies 2022
• Invited talk: Using Artificial Intelligence in National Security 2022
• Invited talk: Keynote address at 'Responsible AI in Law Enforcement' organised by Oxford University and UNICRI 2022

• Nneoma Ogbonna Start Date: 01/03/2025
• James Winters Governance strategies for compliant Artificial Intelligence in high-risk industrial contexts: To what extent can internal AI governance frameworks ensure legal and trustworthy AI? Start Date: 01/10/2023 End Date: 30/01/2025
• Luke Chambers AI and Machine Learning Nascent Visual Biometrics in Police Intelligence and Criminal Evidence – Impacts on Reliability and Fairness Start Date: 01/10/2021

• Law PhD December 17 2020
• Law BA June 26 1991
• Solicitor (non-practising) 1994
• Member Law Society 1992
• Cert(Mang)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. FHEA