The latest report by a UK oversight body set up to evaluation Chinese networking giant Huawei’s approach to security has dialled up pressure on the company, giving a damning assessment of what it describes as “serious and systematic defects” in its software engineering and cyber security competence. Although the report falls short of calling for […]
View More UK report blasts Huawei for network security incompetenceCategory: UK government
Snap is under NDA with UK Home Office discussing how to centralize age checks online
Snap is under NDA with the UK’s Home Office as part of a working group tasked with coming up with more robust age verification technology that’s able to robustly identify children online. The detail emerged during a parliamentary committee hearing as MPs in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) questioned Stephen Collins, […]
View More Snap is under NDA with UK Home Office discussing how to centralize age checks onlineUK asks competition watchdog to put adtech market review top of its to-do list
The UK government has written to the country’s competition authority to ask the watchdog to respond to concerns about the lack of transparency in the digital advertising market and carry out a formal market study “as soon as possible”. In a letter to the Competition and Markets Authority, chancellor Philip Hammond writes that the online […]
View More UK asks competition watchdog to put adtech market review top of its to-do listCompetition policy must change to help startups fight ‘winner takes all’ platforms, says UK report
A independent report commissioned by the UK government to examine how competition policy needs to adapt itself for the digital age has concluded that tech giants don’t face adequate competition and the law needs updating to address what it dubs the “novel” challenges of ‘winner takes all’ platforms. The panel also recommends more policy interventions […]
View More Competition policy must change to help startups fight ‘winner takes all’ platforms, says UK reportOnline platforms need a super regulator and public interest tests for mergers, says UK parliament report
The latest policy recommendations for regulating powerful Internet platforms comes from a U.K. House of Lord committee that’s calling for an overarching digital regulator to be set up to plug gaps in domestic legislation and work through any overlaps of rules. “The digital world does not merely require more regulation but a different approach to […]
View More Online platforms need a super regulator and public interest tests for mergers, says UK parliament reportEurope is prepared to rule over 5G cybersecurity
The European Commission’s digital commissioner has warned the mobile industry to expect it to act over security concerns attached to Chinese network equipment makers. The Commission is considering a defacto ban on kit made by Chinese companies including Huawei in the face of security and espionage concerns, per Reuters. Appearing on stage at the Mobile […]
View More Europe is prepared to rule over 5G cybersecurityThe UK now has a law against upskirting
A law change that comes into force in the UK today makes the highly intrusive practice of ‘upskirting’ illegal. The government said it wants the new law to send a clear message that such behaviour is criminal and will not be tolerated. Perpetrators in England and Wales face up to two years in prison under the […]
View More The UK now has a law against upskirtingDating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse
The UK government has said it could legislate to require age verification checks on users of dating apps, following an investigation into underage use of dating apps published by the Sunday Times yesterday. The newspaper found more than 30 cases of child rape have been investigated by police related to use of dating apps including Grindr and Tinder […]
View More Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuseUK moves towards driverless car tests without safety drivers
The UK government has announced it’s working on a process to support so-called ‘advanced trials’ of autonomous vehicles — i.e. trials without human safety drivers. It also says it will be beefing up the existing Code of Practice for testing driverless cars to provide a framework to support the evolution of the tech, saying it’s on […]
View More UK moves towards driverless car tests without safety driversEurope’s highest human rights court to hear challenge to UK’s bulk surveillance regime
The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has agreed to hear a legal challenge to the use of bulk data collection surveillance powers by UK intelligence agencies. Last September a lower chamber of the ECHR ruled that UK surveillance practices violated human rights law but did not find bulk collection itself […]
View More Europe’s highest human rights court to hear challenge to UK’s bulk surveillance regimeInstagram’s Adam Mosseri to meet UK health secretary over suicide content concerns
The still fresh-in-post boss of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has been asked to meet the UK’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, to discuss the social media platform’s handling of content that promotes suicide and self harm, the BBC reports. Mosseri’s summons follows an outcry in the UK over disturbing content being recommended to vulnerable users of Instagram, following the suicide […]
View More Instagram’s Adam Mosseri to meet UK health secretary over suicide content concernsSocial media should have “duty of care” towards kids, UK MPs urge
Social media platforms are being urged to be far more transparent about how their services operate and to make “anonymised high-level data” available to researchers so the technology’s effects on users — and especially on children and teens — can be better understood. The calls have been made in a report by the UK parliament’s […]
View More Social media should have “duty of care” towards kids, UK MPs urge