From influential scholarship on data brokers and online platforms to workshops for federal defenders, Professor Thomas Kadri is advancing discussions on how technological change is reshaping criminal law and privacy protections.
Kadri’s recent paper, “Brokering Safety”—co-authored with Chinmayi Sharma and Sam Adler—was published in the California Law Review. The article critically examines how current privacy law enables data brokers to profit from and exacerbate interpersonal abuse and harassment. The work generated significant academic conversation, prompting three response essays published in California Law Review Online.
Kadri also recently published “Safe Sex in the Age of Big Tech Feminism” in the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, co-authored with Brenda Dvoskin. The article addresses how digital platforms shape and regulate intimacy, sexual autonomy and online safety. Writing for Jotwell, Professor Aya Gruber of the USC Gould School of Law reviewed the piece in an essay, praising its insight into the complex dynamics between technology platforms, feminist theory and legal regulation.
Beyond his scholarship, Kadri works closely with legal practitioners navigating technological change. In September, he led an interactive workshop titled “Cybercrime Scenarios: Unsettled and Unsettling Cases of Criminal Law and Emerging Technologies” at the Federal Public Defender, Middle District of Florida, Defender Summit in Daytona Beach. The session gave federal public defenders practical tools to navigate complex modern doctrines, focusing on unresolved developments surrounding artificial intelligence, First Amendment protections and the legal standards governing "true threats".
Kadri’s research examines how governments and technology companies regulate digital life, with a particular focus on privacy, sexuality, speech and abuse. He teaches Criminal Law, Cybercrime, Torts and a seminar on digital harms at the School of Law.
