Since its creation in 2003, the interdisciplinary Research Group on Law, Science, Technology & Society (LSTS) has focused upon the articulations of law, science, technology, ethics and society, taking technological developments and their consequences as a starting point.  Although LSTS’s core expertise is legal, it also has a strong track record in legal theory, philosophy (of law, of sciences and of technology) and it notably engages in criminological (surveillance and security), science and society studies (STS). LSTS’s challenges include studying and (re)thinking the constitutive and legal framework of democracies in relation to contemporary scientific and technological developments that seem to confront individuals with irreversible decision-making processes with a major impact on their lives.

LSTS nurtures a bottom-up interdisciplinary approach, whereby disciplinary scientific (legal, criminological, sociological, technological, etc.) practices and research meet, seek mutual interest and understanding, and build up articulations that remain respectful of the different constraints of the disciplines involved, their own way of constructing questions and issues and their mutual impacts.

LSTS, initially led by Serge Gutwirth and Paul De Hert, and currently under the direction of Gloria González Fuster and Mireille Hildebrandt, has grown to become an internationally recognonised centre of excellence on issues such as privacy, data protection law, and well beyond. It brings together an impressive group of reseachers and affiliated researchers, contributes to numerous research projects, and is robustly committed to education. LSTS is also very proud to be the main organiser of the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) International Conference, and supports a variety of internal and external events. LSTS is part of the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies (BCUS).

Over the years, LSTS has witnessed the emergence of the Brussels Privacy Hub (BPH), the Brussels Laboratory for Data Protection & Privacy Impact Assessments (d.pia.lab), the Privacy Salon, the Cyber and Data Security Lab (CDSL) and the Health and Ageing Law Lab (HALL). The ERC project COHUBICOL is also located at LSTS. LSTS further hosts the Chair in Fundamental Rights and the Digital Transformation and the Chair in Surveillance Studies.