Data Policy Digest
Hello, and welcome to our 21st Data Policy Digest, bringing you all the latest data and AI policy developments.
I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded, but today is a very special day.
Yes, it’s Independence Day! Best wishes to any readers in the US, where the Supreme Court has decided to mark the occasion by enabling a reenactment of the reign of King George III.
And of course, here in the UK, it’s election day! Make sure you take the time to vote, whoever it is you’re voting for.
Reporting restrictions are in place so there’s no news about the election until polls close - how will you fill the time before 10pm? You could listen to the BBC’s Arthur election theme on loop, or listen to how they remixed it for tonight. You could scroll through #dogsatpollingstations.
Or you could, you know, get stuck into all the links below.
If you work on or are interested in how government should engage the public on data and AI, then you should sign up to the first event of our new community of practice on 18 July with some ace speakers. More details on the sign up page, and below.
If there’s something we’ve missed, something you’re up to that you’d like us to include next time or you have any thoughts on how useful the Digest is or could be, please get in touch via gavin@connectedbydata.org. We’re on Twitter @ConnectedByData and @DataReform. You can also catch up on previous Digests.
To receive the next edition of the Data Policy Digest direct to your inbox sign up here.
Contents
- Never mind the ballots
- Manifesto destiny
- Events, dear boy, events
- News Tory
- Labour movement
- Everything else
What everyone else has been up to
Data policy developments
Never mind the ballots
If you’ve not already bookmarked it/made it your homepage/pledged to vote for it on 4 July, we’ve set up a Data and AI Civil Society Network Election Hub. We’ll be updating with resources throughout the campaign - and you can add to it, too! (And if you’d like to find out more about the network, visit our dedicated website.)
Manifesto destiny
Digital election: party manifestos assessed (Law Society Gazette, which includes a reference to Count Binface’s manifesto - there are a few tech-related pledges)…
techUK co-signs a letter urging the next government to modernise the UK’s data protection framework (techUK and others)… Open Letter to political parties: Recommit to moving forward with Digital Verification in the UK (techUK and others)… Startup Manifesto 2024 - an Open Letter (Startup Coalition)… The Open Manifesto 2024 - released a few months back but with a big launch day yesterday (OpenUK)…
Events, dear boy, events
So what happens tonight - and what happens next?
2200 The exit poll drops as polls close… 2330 The first results are expected from the North East…
And into Friday, in terms of data/AI-related frontbenchers… 0115 Chi Onwurah (Lab, Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West)… 0145 Jon Ashworth (Lab, Leicester South)… 0230 Chris Evans (Lab, Caerphilly)… some chap called Keir Starmer (Lab, Holborn and St Pancras)… 0300 Saqib Bhatti (Con, Meriden and Solihull East)… Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda and Ogmore)… Alex Davies-Jones (Lab, Pontypridd)… Matt Rodda (Lab, Reading Central)… 0315 Ed Davey (Lib Dem, Kingston and Surbiton)… Thangham Debbonaire (Lab) faces a tough battle with Carla Denyer (Green co-leader, Bristol Central)… 0330 Pat McFadden (Lab, Wolverhampton South East)… 0345 Oliver Dowden (Con, Hertsmere)… Darren Jones (Lab, Bristol North West)… 0400 John Glen (Con, Salisbury)… one Rishi Sunak (Con, Richmond and Northallerton)… DSIT Sec of State Michelle Donelan (Con, Melksham and Devizes)… Julia Lopez (Con, Hornchurch and Upminster)… 0430 Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar)… 0445 shadow DSIT Sec, Peter Kyle (Lab, Hove and Portslade)… 0500 Daisy Cooper (Lib Dem, St Albans)… Lucy Frazer (Con, Ely and East Cambridgeshire)… 0530 Andrew Griffith (Con, Arundel and South Downs)… 0600 Layla Moran (Lib Dem, Oxford West and Abingdon).
Someone holding a relevant brief now is no guarantee they will hold the same brief if they’re in government post-election. Politico reports that Labour shadows are expected to stay in post should they win - the Guardian notes Starmer’s commitment to greater ministerial stability this parliament - though Labour’s frontbench is currently bigger than the ministerial maximum, and should shadow DCMS Sec, Thangam Debbonaire, lose her seat, there would be some movement.
If the result is clear, one would expect the new PM to go to the Palace and then go to speak on the steps (I mean, it’s never on the steps is it? It’s in the middle of the road, insert your own centrist joke should you wish) of Downing Street tomorrow, Friday 5 July, with at least the Cabinet confirmed by the end of the day and further ministerial appointments over the next few. We should also find out about any big machinery of government changes at that point - keep an eye on whether DSIT does indeed become the digital centre of government. Parliament will meet on Tuesday 9 July, when MPs will be sworn in and the speaker elected. The state opening and King’s Speech - which will outline the government’s legislative agenda - will take place on Wednesday 17 July.
Neither the Sunday Times’ nor the Guardian’s previews of the early weeks of a possible Labour government mention data or AI being among the King’s Speech bills, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
News Tory
In my haste to go for a funny one-liner last time round, I of course forgot to mention that one of the Tory officials being investigated for betting on the election date was… the party’s chief data officer. We regret the error. As, I suspect, do they.
Labour movement
I wondered aloud with the use of a library analogy, How should we think about a National Data Library? One of the authors of Onward’s report on the subject added their views; Emily pointed me towards the election asks of CILIP, which represents librarians; and my friend Dave happened to blog about his experience working on the highly-relevant GOV.UK Registers programme.
Additionally… Labour plans to force tech giants to compensate online fraud victims (FT)… Private sector lobbyists embedded into Labour’s shadow cabinet teams (Guardian)… Here’s four ways a new Labour government could use tech to boost Britain (Guardian).
Everything else
Exclusive: Top UK politicians victims of deepfake pornography (Channel 4)… 9 in 10 concerned about deepfakes affecting election results (Alan Turing Institute)… How AI chatbots responded to questions about the 2024 UK election (Reuters Institute)…
Tories ‘highly alarmed’ by network of pro-Russian Facebook pages interfering in UK election (ABC News)… ** **‘Gravely concerning’ claims of Russian interference in general election to spread support for Farage’s Reform (Sky News)… Rishi Sunak: Russian bots threaten our democracy (The Times)…
…and Could the WhatsApp election hurt Labour at the polls? (Guardian)
AI got ‘rithm
AI, data governance and privacy: Synergies and areas of international co-operation (OECD)… UN adopts Chinese resolution with US support on closing the gap in access to artificial intelligence (AP)… China eyes at least 50 sets of AI standards by 2026, from chips to applications and safety (South China Morning Post)… Microsoft and Google AI deals get EU antitrust scrutiny, Vestager says (Politico)… The European Union’s AI Act: beyond motherhood and apple pie? (Nathalie A. Smuha, Karen Yeung)… AI incident reporting: Addressing a gap in the UK’s regulation of AI (Centre for Long-Term Resilience, summarised by Public Technology)…
Generative AI Misuse: A Taxonomy of Tactics and Insights from Real-World Data (Google DeepMind, via the Ada newsletter)… summarised in Google Says AI Could Break Reality (404 Media)… AI drives 48% increase in Google emissions (BBC)… Amazon Is Investigating Perplexity Over Claims of Scraping Abuse (Wired)… AI drive brings Microsoft’s ‘green moonshot’ down to earth in west London (The Guardian)…
Priorities for an AI in health care strategy (Health Foundation)… Designing an AI Bond for Growth and Shared Prosperity in the UK (UKDayOne)… Wales partners with OpenAI to improve Welsh language tech (Computer Weekly)… Lyceum Project - AI Ethics with Aristotle White Paper (Oxford University Institute for Ethics in AI)…
…and ‘Deepfake’ Southgate videos viewed by millions (BBC).
Everything else
DSIT up and take notice ICO statement on its public sector approach trial (ICO)… Home Office reveals progress on police ‘national facial-matching service’ (Public Technology)… CDDO seeks workforce strategy head to ‘turbocharge’ digital recruitment (CSW).
Bills, bills, bills No parliament. No legislative agenda. But not for much longer…
Parly-vous data? Parliament will meet after the election on 9 July, when MPs will be sworn in and the speaker elected. The state opening and King’s Speech - which will outline the government’s legislative agenda - will take place on 17 July.
In brief
- Computer Weekly were awarded a special Orwell Prize for their reporting on the Horizon scandal
- An Open Letter to the United Nations on Internet Governance
- Commission sends preliminary findings to Meta over its “Pay or Consent” model for breach of the Digital Markets Act (European Commission)
- Exclusive: Microsoft Bing’s censorship in China is even “more extreme” than Chinese companies’ (Rest of World)
- NHS data in cyber breach includes names and test details as patients warned recovery ‘will take some time’ (Public Technology)
- The Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision (AP)
- ‘Can I log into my partner’s device?’: Politicians, police, public servants spy on family’s phones, leak suggests (Crikey)
- UKtech50 2024: The most influential people in UK technology (Computer Weekly)
- Government secrecy still rife as departments consistently breach FOI deadlines (openDemocracy)… Tories lacking transparency: 14 years of undermining Freedom of Information (openDemocracy)
- It’s squeaky.bum.time for what3words (FT)
What we’ve been up to
- We published our Annual Report 2023–24!
- At 2pm on Thursday 18 July, we’ll be holding the first meeting of a community of practice as part of our project on Giving communities a powerful say in public sector data and AI projects. It’s designed to bring together people across the public sector working on (or interested in) engaging the public on data and AI, with those in civil society, the private sector and academia working in the field. It’ll be a safe space - Chatham House - to hear about what others are doing and work through common challenges. We’re delighted that one of the presentations will be from Robin Carpenter, Ethics and Governance Lead for the AI Centre for Value Based Healthcare at King’s College London, on Collaborating well with patients when developing healthcare AI. Sign up now!
- You can also shape how the community operates through our survey (this one for public sector, this one for other sectors). Thank you for all the responses so far - they’ve been extremely useful.
- We published a thread of clips from last week’s event on who Labour should listen to on data, AI and public services.
- On 9 July we have a workshop, Scoping training needs on AI for trade unionists in Wales, with Wales TUC
- On 18 July, Tim will be facilitating a workshop on ‘A permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly: Adding humankind’s voice to world politics - AI’, as part of a conference on the establishment of a permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly (GCA), organized by the University of Oxford and Iswe Foundation
- On 10 September, we have a Connected Conversation on ‘How can we ensure meaningful community and public participation in the governance and implementation of the EU’s AI Act?’
What everyone else has been up to
- I donned a gold jacket to present a gameshow about data for the Open Data Institute. Really. That was just part of the line-up for the ODI’s Data Time TV, and the overall programme for London Data Week.
- Ada wrote to The Times with concerns about the use of ‘emotion recognition’ technology in train stations (check out ‘in brief’ in a previous Digest for more on that). They also published a blogpost on Safe beyond sale: post-deployment monitoring of AI
- You can watch sessions from mySociety’s recent TICTeC conference.
- The AI Faith & Civil Society Commission published their latest newsletter
Events
- 9-11 July: Data for Policy 2024 conference
- 11 July: Data-centric AI webinar #2: the data scraping challenge (ODI)
- 15 July: The first year: what the new Government should do on data and AI (ODI)
- 16 July: Now the Work Begins: Lessons in a New Kind of Democracy with Audrey Tang (Demos)
- 16 July: Civic AI Unconference
- 18 July: AI in the NHS: Shaping the future of health care (Health Foundation)
- 4 September: The future for data protection in the UK (Westminster eForum)
Good reads
- Why therapy apps are all talk (New Statesman)
- Homesick for Another Internet (Kill Your Darlings)
- Earn trust by proving what you say (Sarah Gold)
And finally:
- ‘Boris to blame and Sunak’s legacy lacking’: What ChatGPT thinks of the election (the I)
- I simulated each UK party’s first years in government in a video game, and the results were awful (Guardian)
- Japan declares victory in ‘war’ on floppy disks (BBC)
- These new AI gymnasts are incredible! (werners_ai_art on Insta, via Daniel Feldman)