Emma Wright

Co-Chair of Data, Cyber and Technology, Crowell & Moring

Companies and investors of all sizes rely on Emma as a strategic advisor on issues at the intersection of data, regulation, and emerging technologies. A former policy adviser in the UK government with extensive private practice experience on both sides of the Atlantic, she is widely regarded as one of the foremost lawyers for clients seeking to translate complex regulatory frameworks — spanning global privacy, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), telecommunications, the cloud, and convergence — into commercial and practical reality.

Emma has been ranked as a leading partner by Chambers UK for over a decade, with particular accolades for her work in telecommunications, information technology, and outsourcing. She is also ranked in The Legal500 and has been named a stand-out lawyer by Thomson Reuters since 2024.

Emma advises clients on complex technology procurements and supply chain challenges involving critical infrastructure, payments, manufacturing, and defense. Her compliance work spans global privacy, cybersecurity, and resilience frameworks, including breach response and associated global regulatory filings relating to data protection, cyber and resilience, and broader national security and defense. She counsels on the commercialization and adoption of data, AI and emerging technologies, the impact of AI on cybersecurity, as well as all regulatory and commercial aspects of British and European procurement processes. She also regularly advises on appropriate governance frameworks to support the implementation of AI and other emerging technologies.

Beyond her client work, Emma is co-founder and director of the Interparliamentary Forum on Emerging Technologies, a not-for-profit organization that has built a global network of legislators sharing regulatory best practices regarding AI and other technologies. She is also a founding member of UNESCO Women4EthicalAI, a collaborator with the University of Oxford in its AI in Education Hub, and a UNESCO Global Expert Without Borders in AI regulation. In 2026, she was added to the Computer Weekly Women in Tech Hall of Fame for her work supporting the technology sector.

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Cybersecurity considerations in the aviation sector

Practice Notes

This Practice Note examines cybersecurity risks and legal obligations affecting organisations in the UK aviation sector. It explains the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) oversight framework, including the Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF) and ASSURE Cyber Audit Scheme, and the application of Assimilated Regulation (EU) 2016/679, UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018 (NIS Regulations), SI 2018/506.Aviation is more vulnerable than some other sectors to cyberattacks, owing in part to a reliance on legacy systems, a low tolerance for system downtime, and dependence on third-party suppliers coupled with the high profile nature of any such attacks. For example, hackers extorted data relating to 8.7 million passengers from the Manchester Airports Group after breaching a third-party hosted database in an incident disclosed in mid-2026.Commercial aircraft often remain in service for 20 to 30 years, and many older onboard systems use legacy software that cannot be easily updated to accommodate modern cybersecurity requirements. Updates, especially for heavily regulated aircraft components, are slow and costly and are

Information Law