Peter Church

Peter is an experienced technology lawyer. He originally studied Computer Science at Cambridge and has nearly 25 years’ experience advising clients on the challenges raised by new technology. 

He is recognised as an expert in technology regulation in Chambers & Partners and Legal 500, and in the data section of Who’s Who Legal. Clients say he “has great experience and insights” and is “excellent on the analysis side of big cases” (Chambers 2024). 

Work highlights

• advising a number of large technology companies on a variety of significant UK and Irish regulatory investigations into issues such as ad personalisation, international transfers and subject access rights.
• seconded to the Information Commissioner’s Office to work in the Technology Policy team on Adtech and as part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• leading the high-profile audit into the Royal Free’s use of an App developed by DeepMind, part of the Google group of companies. The audit report is available here. 
• advising on the effect of data protection laws on litigation and regulatory investigations, including provided testimony in the SDNY Bankruptcy Court on the effect of the GDPR in the chapter 15 case of LBIE (in administration), Case No. 18-11470.
• advising on a wide variety of freedom of information issues including acting in a variety of Tribunal cases such as Financial Conduct Authority (EA/2013/0098) and Hertfordshire County Council (EA/2020/0187).
• working with British Telecoms to produce their first law enforcement report, Privacy and Free Expression in UK Communications.
• advising on data and regulatory  matters as part of very large corporate transactions. This includes CKH on the €10bn sale of its towers assets to Cellnex, Visa, Europe Limited in connection with its €16bn acquisition by Visa Inc. and Novartis as part of its $20bn asset swap with GlaxoSmithKline.

He is the co-author of Linklaters’ AI Toolkit, LinksAI English law benchmark,  Guide to the GDPR, Cyber Security Handbook and is the editor of Data Protected, a review of data protection laws in 55 jurisdictions around the world.

He is also the author of the PLC practice notes on Good Faith and on Endeavours Clauses and was part of the Financial Markets Law Committee Working Group considering duties of good faith in wholesale financial contracts. He is co-author of the data protection chapter in Artificial Intelligence: Law and Regulation and the AI chapter of FinTech: Law and Regulation.

Peter is an expert in data privacy, ePrivacy and cyber security, speaking at industry panels, as well as leading on many Linklaters’ hosted client facing roundtables and panels. He is frequently quoted in the media and has appeared in interviews on BBC World News and CNN.

Most recently, Peter was on secondment to the Information Commission Office, working in the Technology Policy team on a range of topics including Adtech and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Peter studied Computer Science at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (First) and the Legal Practice Course at Nottingham Law School (Distinction).

Peter is author of the chapter on Data Protection & Privacy in Artificial Intelligence: Law and Regulation (2022) published by Edward Elgar

Peter's recent articles include:

• Covid-19 disputes - Good faith to the rescue? PLC Magazine, August 2020
• How do you Regulate an Algorithm? A Set of Strawman Remedies, Utilities Law Review, February 2020
• The GDPR one year on, Privacy Laws & Business, May 2019