Legal informatics spans several traditional areas of law, including law of contract, commercial law, copyright and administrative law. The subject is usually divided into a matrix-oriented part and a methodology-oriented part. The first part - usually referred to as IT law - covers legal issues that arise in connection with the use of IT. This includes everything from the use of computers and the Internet in handling information, to telecommunications and various forms of media. IT law also covers issues such as information security, processing of personal data, trade secrets, publicity and confidentiality, etc.
The method-oriented part of legal informatics in turn deals with regulations and methodological issues that arise in the development of digitised systems and applications. The importance of a legal approach to digitisation has become increasingly important in the context of society's growing use of digital systems and artificial intelligence (AI), both in the automation of legal proceedings and in the use of various forms of apps. The rapid developments in this field are constantly raising new questions about how laws, rules and ethical guidelines can and should be applied, making legal informatics an extremely dynamic area of research.
