The ICT Lawyers Guild of Sri Lanka convened a landmark conference at the OPA Auditorium last week bringing together judges, legal scholars, and technology experts to discuss the evolving landscape of data protection, cybersecurity, and intellectual property in the digital era.

Dr. Sunil Abeysinghe, President of the ICT Lawyers Guild, highlighted developments in personal data protection in Sri Lanka, focusing on the Personal Data Protection Act No. 9 of 2022. He detailed the law’s provisions, their effectiveness, and how they align with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which emphasizes principles such as lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimization, accuracy, storage limitation, integrity, confidentiality, and accountability. Dr. Abeysinghe also referenced the Colombo Declaration, adopted at the LawAsia AI and Data Conference in 2022, to underscore Sri Lanka’s commitment to harmonizing data privacy standards with global best practices.

The conference emphasized that the legal profession is undergoing profound digital transformation. Courts and law firms increasingly rely on electronic filing systems, virtual hearings, cloud-based document management, AI-assisted legal research, and digital evidence repositories. While these innovations improve efficiency and access to justice, they also expose legal institutions to cyber threats including data breaches, ransomware attacks, IoT vulnerabilities, and AI manipulation. Speakers stressed that lawyers must adopt comprehensive frameworks for cyber resilience that integrate technological, ethical, behavioural, and global considerations.

Supreme Court Justice A.H.M.D. Nawaz highlighted the importance of digital content in civil and criminal matters and discussed the admissibility of electronic evidence in dispute resolution. Justice Pradeep Hettiarachchi addressed new developments in intellectual property rights in cyberspace, while Justice Yasantha Kodagoda, Indian AI expert Prabhakaran Ramachandran, and Prof. Sampath Punchihewa, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Colombo, explored the emerging era of intellectual property cases.

The event also featured remarks from legal luminaries including Prashantha Lal De Alwis PC, Principal of Sri Lanka Law College, retired Supreme Court Justice Shirani Thilakawardene, Prof. Sanath Sameera, Dr. Thusith Abeysekera, Heshan Karunaratne, President of the Computer Society of Sri Lanka, Dr. Ruwan Fernando, Retired Appeal Court Judge, Pradeepa Ganehiarachchi AAL, Senior DIG Ajith Rohana, Priyani Ratnayake, Anupama Muhandiram AAL, and Dr. Aparajitha Ariyadasa.

Organized by the ICT Lawyers Guild of Sri Lanka, the conference underscored the urgent need for legal professionals to adapt to emerging digital threats while upholding professional ethics, client confidentiality, and judicial integrity in an increasingly technology-driven environment.