Interesting speech from the Spanish PM at Davos: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/01/davos-2025-special-address-pedro-sanchez-prime-minister-spain/
"Now we know that far from bringing humanity together and “empowering the people”, these platforms have resulted in a concentration of power and wealth in the hands of just a few. All of this at the cost of our social cohesion, our mental health, and our democracies."
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Ofcom has releasd a "toolkit" to help people work their way through the nlinexsafety documentation.
Ofcom launches digital safety toolkit for online services - Ofcom
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/illegal-and-harmful-content/ofcom-launches-digital-safety-toolkit-for-online-services/
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Google has adopted a new platform policy recently which seems to drop the prohibition on using device fingerprinting - the new policy comes into force in February:
https://support.google.com/platformspolicy/answer/15738904?sjid=12216356673989428898-EU
Interestingly the ICO has a consultation out at the moment on storage and access technologies - including device fingerprinting. That closes March 14:
https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/ico-and-stakeholder-consultations/ico-consultation-on-the-draft-updated-guidance-on-storage-and-access-technologies/
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Cambridge leads governmental project to understand impact of smartphones and social media on young people | University of Cambridge
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/cambridge-leads-governmental-project-to-understand-impact-of-smartphones-and-social-media-on-young
This is the press release from Cambridge Uni about DSIT commissioned research following on from 2019 view of Chief Medical Officer that the evidence base on links between smart phones and children's mental health were insufficient to inform policy. So the Cambridge led consortium is going to look at understanding causality in this context.
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Here's Ofcom's Guidance on age checks - just published:
Age checks to protect children online - Ofcom
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/online-safety/protecting-children/age-checks-to-protect-children-online/
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[2/2] ... without meaningful consent and the use of publisher content without fair terms and conditions.
The press release specifically notes the role of online search in news distribution.
If Google is designated as SMS, then the CMA can impose conduct requirements eg requiring it to make the data it collects available to other businesses {potentially a data protection nightmare) or giving publishers more control over how their data.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-to-investigate-googles-search-services
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The CMA is taking action under the DMCCA, launching its first strategic market status (SMS) designation investigation and it's looking at Google.
According to the press release, there are three areas of concern:
exploitative conduct including scooping up large quantities of data .... [1/2].
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Some services (eg TikTok) say data protection rules prohibit them from giving parents access to the data of their deceased child; Snapchat discloses on a case-by-case basis. It remains to be seen how far the Government's Data (Use and Access) Bill will go in addressing the issue.
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Here is the Hansard transcript from the debate:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-01-13/debates/BE75FBD7-CA64-4944-AA56-913BD13AD2AC/Children%E2%80%99SSocialMediaAccounts
The petition covered parents' access to children's accounts (essentially 13-18 year olds), both those still alive as well as deceased children. Debate however noted teenagers' right to privacy and the UK's international obligations - though one proposed response to the concerns in this context seemed to be increased parental controls.
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There is a Westmnster Hall debate today on this petition:
Give parents/guardians a right to access social media accounts of their children - Petitions
https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/661407
It will be interesting to see if other issues are raised.
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The European Commission has decided to close its investigation into Apple over some of the terms it applies to competing e-book/audiobook app developers for use of its App Store. The decision follows the withdrawing of the complaint so is NOT a finding that Apple's behaviour complies with competition rules in the EU.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_5926
The press release also details the Commission's plans for review of tech transfer agreements. More detail here:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_6003
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[2/2] "... the NGO is pursuing Elon Musk’s company in the French courts for its complicity in disseminating false information, misrepresentation and identity theft."
https://rsf.org/en/rsf-presses-criminal-charges-against-x-formerly-twitter-its-participation-identity-theft-and
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I just notice this from last week - Reporters without Frontiers are bring a legal action against X in France. According to the press release:
"After discovering that it was the target of a disinformation campaign, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) filed ten reports of policy violations with the social media platform X, flagging the main accounts responsible for spreading the deceptive content. As none of the offending posts have been removed, ..."
[1/2]
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The UK Government is trialling a chatbot to help small businesses and give them advice - apparently they've been working on improving its accuracy:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/governments-experimental-ai-chatbot-to-help-people-set-up-small-businesses-and-find-support
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The Global Online Safety Regulators Network (GOSRN) last week published a comparative table of approaches to online safety and powers. It highlights similarities and differences across the remits of each regulator.
Here's the table
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/about-ofcom/international/other/global-online-safety-regulators-network-regulatory-index.pdf?v=383839
This is membership of GOSRN - it includes Ofcom: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/international-work/gosrn/
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The UK's #AI Safety Institute has a range of jobs, if anyone's interested. Here's the page:
https://www.aisi.gov.uk/careers#open-roles
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The CMA has announced it is to look into the Alphabet/Anthropic partnership: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/671a004867b3ef4856faf8a4/Commencement_notice.pdf
The deadline for the CMA to announce whether the investigation warrants going into Phase 2 is 19 December 2024.
This decision follows the CMA's call for views in July this year as to whether the partnership would result in the creation of a relevant merger situation Enterprise Act 2002 resulting in a substantial lessening of competition in any UK markets.
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Press release on AI Safety Institute scheme: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/research-programme-to-ensure-uk-economy-uses-ai-to-grow-safely
"Researchers focused on boosting society’s resilience against AI risks such as deepfakes, misinformation, and cyber-attacks, can now access government grants to drive forward their work which will help ensure the safety of AI, as the UK taps into its potential to spark economic growth and improvements to public services."
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DSIT's reponse to a FOI request about Participation in the conference on frontier AI safety frameworks:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foi2024-00441-participation-in-the-conference-on-frontier-ai-safety-frameworks/response-participation-in-the-conference-on-frontier-ai-safety-frameworks
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The House of Lords Select Committee on European Affairs has written to Peter Kyle (Secretary of State for DSIT) to want of the dangers of losing adequacy for data protection purposes on data flows:
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/516/european-affairs-committee/news/203387/british-businesses-and-nhs-face-huge-extra-costs-if-crucial-ukeu-data-agreement-is-not-reached/
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