Thoughts on regulatory and ethical issues relating to the use of technology in education and research
Looking at discussions of Regulating Artificial Intelligence it struck me that a lot isn’t new, and a lot isn’t specific to AI. Jisc already has a slightly formal Pathway document to help you identify issues with activities that might involve AI. But here are some topics that seem to often come up in those discussions. […]
Looking at the contents of the Government’s new Bill suggests it may be more about Digital Information than Data Protection: Personal Data Processing (1-23) National Security & Intelligence Services (24-6) Information Commissioner’s Role etc. (27-43) Miscellaneous (44-5) Digital Verification Services (46-60) Customer & Business Data (a general framework for services like Open Banking) (61-77) Privacy […]
In going through the new (2023) Data Protection and Digital Information (No.2) Bill I noticed that it does actually make a change to UK law on cookies: according to clause 79(2A), consent will no longer be needed to store or access information in the user’s terminal equipment if this is done by the person who […]
Whether you refer to your technology as “data-driven”, “machine learning” or “artificial intelligence”, questions about “algorithmic transparency” are likely to come up. The finest example is perhaps the ICO’s heroic analysis of different statistical techniques. But it seems to me that there’s a more fruitful aspect of transparency earlier in the adoption process: why was […]
The Home Office consultation on Computer Misuse Act (CMA) reform raises the possibility of a new offence of “possessing or using illegally obtained data”. This is presumably in response to the growing complexity of cyber-crime supply chains. It’s good to see immediate recognition that this will need “appropriate safeguards”. This post looks at why someone […]
When the Internet first came to legislators’ notice, there was a tendency to propose all-encompassing “laws of internet” for this apparently new domain. A celebrated paper by Frank Easterbrook argued that (my summary) there wasn’t a separate body of new harms to address and that existing laws might well prove sufficiently flexible to deal with […]
The recent rash of ransomware incidents has been linked to the availability of crypto-currencies – as a way that victims can pay ransoms to anonymous attackers – so Trend Micro reviewed the economic models for ransomware and, among many other aspects, whether changes in the crypto-currency world might have knock-on effects. Their conclusions are mixed: […]
Over the past few months there has been a lot of discussion of the impact of the Government’s Online Safety Bill on large providers. Ofcom’s July 2022 Implementation Roadmap (p5) estimates that there are 30-40 of those, to be covered by Categories 1, 2a and 2b. However the roadmap mentions a further 25000 UK services […]
The final text of the revised European Network and Information Security Directive (NIS 2 Directive) has now been published. This doesn’t formally apply in the UK, but does have some helpful comments on using data protection law to support network and information security. I’ve blogged about these previously but, since the final version significantly changes […]
The European legislative process on Artificial Intelligence has moved on one step with the Council of Ministers (representatives of national governments) agreeing on their response to the text proposed by the European Commission last year. The main focus of the proposed law is makers of products that use “AI”: where these are designed for a […]