Professor Matthew Rimmer (QUT) leads this discussion, in conversation with Dr Monique Mann (QUT), Associate Professor James Mullins (Deakin University) and Acting Superintendent Brad Wright (Queensland Police Services), to consider the implications of remote-controlled, fully autonomous and semi-autonomous robots as law enforcers, the types of considerations needed to ensure safe practices, and whether anxieties surrounding robotics in policing are grounded in truth or fiction.
Bios
Dr Monique Mann
Dr Monique Mann is a lecturer at the School of Justice, and a member of the Crime and Justice Research Centre (CJRC) and the Intellectual Property and Innovation Law (IPIL) Research Group, in the Faculty of Law at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Monique is advancing a program of socio-legal research on the intersecting topics of police technology, transnational policing and surveillance.
She holds a PhD from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security (CEPS), Griffith University node. Monique has interned with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna, was a visiting scholar at the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) at the Australian National University (ANU) and worked as a Research Analyst at the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC).
Professor Matthew Rimmer
Professor Matthew Rimmer is a Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the Faculty of Law, at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). He is a leader of the QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Law research program, and a member of the QUT Digital Media Research Centre (QUT DMRC) the QUT Australian Centre for Health Law Research (QUT ACHLR), and the QUT International Law and Global Governance Research Program. Rimmer has published widely on copyright law and information technology, patent law and biotechnology, access to medicines, plain packaging of tobacco products, intellectual property and climate change, and Indigenous Intellectual Property. He is currently working on research on intellectual property, the creative industries, and 3D printing; intellectual property and public health; and intellectual property and trade, looking at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the Trade in Services Agreement.
Associate Professor James Mullins
Associate Professor James Mullins is an applied robotics engineer with a background in medical, industrial and first responder robots. Working for Deakin University's Institute for Intelligent Systems Research and Innovation, James has been designing, building and supporting robots for Australia's law enforcement community for over 15 years. With a strong interest in using next generation technologies to solve real world problems, James works with a team of 75 engineers, scientists, mathematicians, programmers and machinists within IISRI, a team with the potential to rapidly bring technology to the end user. A strong believer of human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop, James is passionate about both providing technology solutions but also the ethical, social and personal implications of the introduction of new capabilities. Currently using virtual reality and augmented reality for fire fighter training, delivering robots and negotiator technologies to Queensland police and building advanced motion simulators for Australian Defence, James lives in Geelong Victoria and enjoys travelling and showcasing technology to the world.
Acting Superintendent Brad Wright
Acting Superintendent Brad Wright has been a police officer for over 31 years with a broad range of experience across general duties, tactical crime, significant projects including whole of service and across agencies, policy officer including representing the Queensland Police Service (QPS) on national fora in particular the Australia and New Zealand Counter Terrorism Committee and specialist policing and the management of high-risk policing at its most critical levels.
