In 2001, Professor Kerr was awarded the Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology. He has published writings in academic books and journals on ethical and legal aspects of digital copyright, automated electronic commerce, artificial intelligence, cybercrime, nanotechnology, internet regulation, ISP and intermediary liability, online defamation, pre-natal injuries and unwanted pregnancies. His current program of research includes two large projects: (i) On the Identity Trail, supported by one of the largest ever grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, focusing on the impact of information and authentication technologies on our identity and our right to be anonymous; and (ii) An Examination of Digital Copyright, supported by a large private sector grant from Bell Canada and the Ontario Research Network in Electronic Commerce, focusing on various aspects of the current effort to reform Canadian copyright legislation, including the implications of such reform on fundamental Canadian values including privacy and freedom of expression.

Dr. Kerr is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Academic Coordinating Committee of the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy, the Centre for Ethics and Values, the Canadian Association of Law Teachers, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Uniform Law Commission of Canada’s Special Working Group on Electronic Commerce. He is an associate editor of Kluwer’s Electronic Commerce Research Journal, a guest editor for Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments (MIT Press), and sits as a member on the Advisory Board of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic and on the Advisory Board of Butterworths’ Canadian Internet and E-Commerce Law Newsletter. He is also co-author of Managing the Law (Prentice Hall), a business law text used by thousands of students each year at universities across Canada.