The Latest from Natasha Lomas
EU’s top data protection supervisor urges ban on facial recognition in public
The European Union’s lead data protection supervisor has called for remote biometric surveillance in public places to be banned outright under incoming AI legislation. The European Data Protecti
Europe lays out plan for risk-based AI rules to boost trust and uptake
European Union lawmakers have presented their risk-based proposal for regulating high risk applications of artificial intelligence within the bloc’s single market. The plan includes prohibitions
UK’s IoT ‘security by design’ law will cover smartphones too
Smartphones will be included in the scope of a planned “security by design” U.K. law aimed at beefing up the security of consumer devices, the government said today. It made the announceme
UK drone startup sees.ai gets go ahead to trial beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flights
The U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has given the go ahead to local startup sees.ai, which is developing a beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) command & control solution to aid data ca
UK gov’t triggers national security scrutiny of Nvidia-Arm deal
The U.K. government has intervened to trigger public interest scrutiny of chipmaker’s Nvidia’s plan to buy Arm Holdings. The secretary of state for digital issues, Oliver Dowden, said toda
AI-driven audio cloning startup gives voice to Einstein chatbot
You’ll need to prick up your ears for this slice of deepfakery emerging from the wacky world of synthesized media: A digital version of Albert Einstein — with a synthesized voice that̵
Facebook’s decision-review body to take ‘weeks’ longer over Trump ban call
Facebook’s self-styled and handpicked “Oversight Board” will make a decision on whether or not to overturn an indefinite suspension of the account of former president Donald Trump wi
Google misled consumers over location data settings, Australia court finds
Google’s historical collection of location data has got it into hot water in Australia where a case brought by the country’s Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has led to a federal
Facebook faces ‘mass action’ lawsuit in Europe over 2019 breach
Facebook is to be sued in Europe over the major leak of user data that dates back to 2019 but which only came to light recently after information on more than 533 million accounts was found posted for
MEPs call for European AI rules to ban biometric surveillance in public
A cross-party group of 40 MEPs in the European parliament has called on the Commission to strengthen an incoming legislative proposal on artificial intelligence to include an outright ban on the use o
Yak Tack is a super simple app to boost vocabulary
Word nerds with a love for linguistic curiosities and novel nomenclature that’s more fulsome than their ability to make interesting new terms stick will be thrilled by Yak Tack: A neat little ai
Uber hit with default ‘robo-firing’ ruling after another EU labor rights GDPR challenge
Labor activists challenging Uber over what they allege are ‘robo-firings’ of drivers in Europe have trumpeted winning a default judgement in the Netherlands — where the Court of Amst
Ireland opens GDPR investigation into Facebook leak
Facebook’s lead data supervisor in the European Union has opened an investigation into whether the tech giant violated data protection rules vis-a-vis the leak of data reported earlier this mont
EU plan for risk-based AI rules to set fines as high as 4% of global turnover, per leaked draft
European Union lawmakers who are drawing up rules for applying artificial intelligence are considering fines of up to 4% of global annual turnover (or €20M, if greater) for a set of prohibited use-c
Facebook, Instagram users can now ask ‘oversight’ panel to review decisions not to remove content
Facebook’s self-styled “Oversight Board” (FOB) has announced an operational change that looks intended to respond to criticism of the limits of the self-regulatory content-moderation
Facebook takes down 16,000 groups trading fake reviews after another poke by UK’s CMA
Facebook has removed 16,000 groups that were trading fake reviews on its platform after another intervention by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the regulator said today. The CM
NLPCloud.io helps devs add language processing smarts to their apps
While visual ‘no code‘ tools are helping businesses get more out of computing without the need for armies of in-house techies to configure software on behalf of other staff, access to the
YC-backed Abacum nets $7M to empower finance teams with real-time data and collaboration tools
SaaS to support mid-sized companies’ financial planning with real-time data and native collaboration isn’t the sexiest startup pitch under the sun but it’s one that’s swiftly n
Facebook’s tardy disclosure of breach timing raises GDPR compliance questions
The question of whether Facebook will face any regulatory sanction over the latest massive historical platform privacy fail to come to light remains unclear. But the timeline of the incident looks inc
UK’s Digital Markets Unit starts work on pro-competition reforms
A new UK public body that will be tasked with helping regulate the most powerful companies in the digital sector to ensure competition thrives online and consumers of digital services have more choice