David Townend

Biography

Prof. David Townend, LLB, MPhil, PhD, FRSA

City Law School in City St George’s, University of London, UK
- Professor of Health and Life Sciences Law
- Associate Dean (Research and Innovation)


Townend is a specialist in the governance and regulation of personal data, privacy and confidentiality. He takes a socio-legal approach, and primarily studies issues in the areas of AI, health and the life sciences. His work brings together doctrinal legal study, theoretical work in ethics and legal philosophy, and practical, qualitative public engagement work with different stakeholders in relation to creating and evaluating governance structures.

Before his current appointment, he was a Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in the Law School at the University of Sheffield, UK. There he was Sub-Dean (Postgraduate Studies) and Deputy Director of the Sheffield Institute for Biotechnological Law and Ethics (SIBLE). Townend moved to Maastricht University and was an Associate Professor of the Law of Public Health and Care from 2008-2014, and Professor of Health and Life Sciences Jurisprudence from 2014 to 2024. Since joining City Law School in 2022, Townend has contributed to the Health Law and Governance Group at Maastricht on a 0.1FTE basis.

Townend gained his LLB (1988) and MPhil (1995) from the University of Sheffield, and his PhD (2012) from Maastricht University. His PhD, awarded cum laude, defended the thesis, "The Politeness of Data Protection: Exploring a Legal Instrument to Regulate Medical Research Using Genetic Information and Biobanking".

Townend's theoretical (jurisprudence) work is in questions around the authority of law in modern cultures, and the balance between autonomy and solidarity in society and governance. He is particularly interested in the relationship between law, ethics and manners, and in Shaftesbury's theory of politeness (late 17th and early 18th centuries).

His current work concerns the creation and usefulness of the concepts of property and the public interest. The practical issues on which he currently focuses this theoretical work are in international, European, and national contexts of information and personal data governance (particularly in international health and life science research), and issues relating to personal data use in artificial intelligence.