Category Archives: Privacy

The agony and the ecstasy – all in the same day

Posted on July 24, 2020 by

Regular readers will recall last year I got very  engaged with discussions on the new e-Privacy Regulation being drawn up in Brussels. They were threatening to outlaw the use of PhotoDNA and similar tools by certain types of electronic communications … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, Default settings, Microsoft, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation | 1 Comment

Age verification marches on

Posted on July 21, 2020 by

This week saw the publication of  a report of a conference which I organized with the help of The Reward Foundation. What did we look at? With the enormous advances that have been made in recent years in the field … Continue reading →

Posted in Age verification, Pornography, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

UK Government in court over age verification

Posted on July 15, 2020 by

The Government is in court tomorrow over its failure to implement age verification for pornography sites. Fingers crossed.

Posted in Age verification, Pornography, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation, Uncategorized

Business goes where Governments fear to tread

Posted on June 28, 2020 by

It’s a funny old world. Governments bang on about the unacceptable nature of some of the stuff that regularly appears on social media. They call on the platforms to do something about it and, immediately, a whole army of predictable … Continue reading →

Posted in Facebook, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation, Uncategorized

Problems with the GDPR

Posted on June 7, 2020 by

The EU recently undertook a review of the first two years of the operation of the GDPR. If you missed it you are not alone. The existence of the review was not well publicised. It will report soon but the … Continue reading →

Posted in Age verification, Child abuse images, Consent, Default settings, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

President Trump gets it wrong

Posted on May 29, 2020 by

So it wasn’t an empty threat.  President Trump did it. He signed an Executive Order which, in essence, seeks to change the law on platform immunity, as conferred by s.230, Communications Decency Act 1996. It is doubtful the Executive Order … Continue reading →

Posted in Facebook, Google, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

Good but nowhere near good enough

Posted on May 27, 2020 by

Last Thursday Facebook made an announcement about its plans for Messenger. In truth the substance of the announcement concerned great stuff I thought they were already doing, at least on their main Facebook platform, so discovering they were now going … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, E-commerce, Facebook, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

Failures of contingency planning worsened by delay

Posted on May 18, 2020 by

UK Children’s organizations have written a letter of protest to the Government. The media have covered in some detail certain headline failures of contingency planning in relation to Covid-19 and lockdown. Less well remarked has been the failure of contingency … Continue reading →

Posted in Age verification, Consent, Default settings, E-commerce, Facebook, Google, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

Enfeebled enforcers

Posted on May 4, 2020 by

In yesterday’s “Observer” the ever-excellent John Naughton drew attention to a survey carried out by a new kid on the block, a company called “Brave”.  And they obviously are because Brave is trying to get going in the web browser … Continue reading →

Posted in Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation

After the war is over

Posted on April 13, 2020 by

It is impossible for anyone to say with any level of certainty what the post-pandemic world will look like. Some pundits believe everything will be completely different. Rather more seem to be saying nothing much will change or things could … Continue reading →

Posted in Default settings, Facebook, Google, ICANN, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation