CYNTHIA KHOO IS A TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER WHO CAN BE FOUND WORKING WHEREVER THE INTERNET AND (IN)EQUALITY COLLIDE. 

You love the Internet and want to protect human rights. I can help.

I’ve dedicated my legal career to making an impact at the intersection of technology law and policy, the Internet, human rights, and civil liberties. This has meant my practice is interdisciplinary and cuts across (tele)communications, privacy, intellectual property, copyright, technology, and human rights law. Much of my work involves legal and policy reform in addition to practicing law, so I spend as much time thinking about what our laws could or should be, as I do about what they currently are and how we can use them to solve problems unique to the digital age.

From June 2021 to March 2024, I worked full-time at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology in Washington, DC, where I was a Senior Associate. I am currently a Senior Fellow at the Citizen Lab (Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto). This website will continue to be updated and serve as a central record of my work and activities. I remain a member of the Ontario bar and accept new files on a case-by-case basis.

I have extensive experience representing clients in proceedings before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and have represented clients as interveners before the Supreme Court of Canada. I regularly research and write policy submissions to government consultations and advise on legal, policy, advocacy, and campaign strategies. I also speak at conferences and workshops; deliver presentations, seminars, and talks; meet with politicians and government officials on behalf of clients; and provide commentary in print and broadcast media on behalf of clients or as a subject matter expert.

Since 2018, I have been engaged as a Research Fellow at the Citizen Lab (Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto), an interdisciplinary research laboratory that focuses on the intersection of information and communications technologies, human rights, and global security. My research areas at the Lab have included consumer spyware or “stalkerware” and the human rights implications of algorithmic decision-making.

In April 2021, I completed a research grant by the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), resulting in the publication of the landmark report, Deplatforming Misogyny: Report on Platform Liability for Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (PDF). The report provides recommendations for legislative and other reforms, and will inform LEAF’s future litigation and legal reform strategy concerning technology-facilitate gender-based violence, abuse, and harassment (TFGBV). 

I am called to the Bar of Ontario and am a licensed member of the Law Society of Ontario, with a J.D. from the University of Victoria and B.A. (Honours English) from the University of British Columbia. This included exchange semesters at Université Jean-Moulin Lyon III and the National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law (NUS Law). I also hold an LL.M. (Concentration in Law and Technology) from the University of Ottawa, during which I specialized in online platform regulation and platform liability for harms to marginalized communities.  My paper based on this work was delivered at We Robot 2020, the leading international conference on law and policy relating to robotics and artificial intelligence, where I received the inaugural Ian R. Kerr Robotnik Memorial Award for the Best Paper by an Emerging Scholar.

I serve on the Board of Directors of Open Privacy, completed a technology law internship at the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), where I worked on cases as a research student and junior counsel, and completed the Annenberg-Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute (2017) at Oxford University. 

My job is to help you advance your cause, achieve impact on an issue you care about, or otherwise bring the world that much closer to your vision for it. If you have questions or would like to connect, then get in touch! I look forward to seeing what we can make happen.