Peter was a founding partner of Gilbert + Tobin and a partner for 28 years. He continues to assist G+T as a part-time consultant. Peter is also Principal of Data Synergies, a business consultancy focussed upon data and technology commercialisation, including terms for data sharing and data analytics, information governance, and risk management and regulation, including privacy, surveillance and protection of data and trade secrets. In addition, Peter is a Professor of Practice in the UNSW Business School (Information Systems and Business Law).
Peter was one of the first specialist TMT lawyers in Australia and the Asian region. He was closely involved in development of interconnection, customer portability and technical interoperability frameworks and standards in the telecommunications sector. He is the only lawyer to be recognised to date by Communications Alliance in its annual award of Australia’s Communications Ambassador for outstanding services to the communications sector (in 2012). He is contributing editor of Communications Law and Policy in Australia, the leading Australian loose-leaf service in communications and media law.
Peter recently wrote the Australian report for the Asian Business Law Institute’s study of cross border data transfers and authored Good Data Practice: A Guide for Business to Consumer IoT Services for the IOT (Internet of Things) Alliance Australia.
Peter chairs the IoTAA’s Data Access and Use workstream, the Law Society of New South Wales Privacy and Data Law Committee and the Australian Computer Society’s Artificial Intelligence and Ethics Technical Committee. He also serves on the Law Council of Australia’s Information Integrity Taskforce and often represents the Law Council before Parliamentary Committees addressing data, surveillance and technology references.
Peter serves on a number of relevant advisory boards, including of the NSW Data Analytics Centre and the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Technology and Human Rights Project, and a number of corporate boards.
He was voted by legal sector peers as Sydney Technology Lawyer of the Year 2016 and as one of the global top 35 communications lawyers. He is rated ‘top tier’ in all major legal directories, including the current edition of Best Lawyers in Australia in the fields of Commercial Law, Defamation and Media Law, Entertainment Law, Information Technology Law, Outsourcing Law, Privacy and Data Security Law and Telecommunications Law. He is also an author of many articles and chapters in books in his areas of practice.
