Announcing the move, the law firm said it expected cyber security to be one of the fastest-growing sectors of the local economy in the next decade.

The partnership has been announced with less than a week to go before the 16th Annual International Conference on Privacy, Security & Trust, hosted by Queen’s University Belfast’s Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) in Titanic Belfast from 28-30 August.

Neasa Quigley, partner at Carson McDowell, said: “Our partnership with NI Cyber underlines the firm’s commitment to an industry in which Northern Ireland already has a world class reputation. Through the companies affiliated with NI Cyber and CSIT, the region has a cluster with unrivalled potential and we believe specialist legal advice will have an important role to play in its future evolution.

“There are growing tensions between the way that innovative companies want to use our personal data to improve their services and the rules that govern privacy, security and trust. A number of high profile scandals have undermined trust in how data is handled and highlighted that there is still work to be done around the ethics of data security.”

Judith Millar from the NI Cyber Cluster added: “We are delighted that Carson McDowell is partnering with us, championing NI Cyber and sharing its expertise in the legal questions facing the cyber security sector.

“Privacy and trust, the ethics of data use and the unknown liabilities around the roll out of technologies such as AI are huge questions for the companies in NI’s cyber security cluster and we look forward to working with Carson McDowell as we tackle those issues.”