The South Wales Police department is preparing to resume its use of live facial recognition technology. The department first started trialing face-based surveillance tech in 2017, but pulled back in 2020 after the British Court of Appeal ruled that the South Wales system violated human rights laws on several fronts.

However, that has not deterred the South Wales Police. The department is essentially viewing its defeat as part of the learning process, and claims that it has been able to use the Court’s feedback to develop a surveillance system that will meet a stricter legal standard.

Defining Data Intermediaries - UK Govt DCMS - Q3 2021: An exploration of the role intermediaries could play in supporting responsible data sharing

Up to 44 million UK Facebook users could share £2.3bn in damages, according to a competition expert intending to sue parent company Meta.

Stated plainly, the UK Government is planning to end data protection rights for UK citizens. Reforms proposed in its paper Data: A New Direction would shift the core operating principle of data protection regulations from citizen protection (that personal data shall only be collected by organisations “for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes”) to a new principle that organisations should have the right to build and maintain databases about citizens without their consent.

The United States and the United Kingdom today announced plans to collaborate on bilateral innovation prize challenges focused on advancing privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs). This emerging group of technologies present an important opportunity to harness the power of data in a manner that protects privacy and intellectual property, enabling cross-border and cross-sector collaboration to solve shared challenges.
Announced during the Summit for Democracy, as part of a series of International Grand Challenges on Democracy-Affirming Technologies, the prize challenges will take place during the Summit’s “year of action,” accelerating work to overcome technical gaps and adoption challenges related to PETs. By bringing together top minds from both countries on building viable solutions, the prize challenges will aim to help mature and facilitate adoption of these promising technologies.

This article answers two questions from the perspective of United Kingdom law and policy: (i) is health information property? and (ii) should it be? We argue that special features of health information make it unsuitable for conferral of property rights without an extensive system of data-specific rules, like those that govern intellectual property.

The Age Appropriate Design Code – now the Children’s Code – has caused huge global changes. Not that tech platforms want to admit it.

For those interested in the evolution of UK data legislation, this report was published by the government today.

Last month, UK digital minister Oliver Dowden took aim at what he dubbed an "endless" parade of cookie pop-ups -- suggesting the government is eyeing watering down consent requirements around web tracking as ministers consider how to diverge from European Union data protection standards, post-Brexit. Today the UK's outgoing information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, stepped into the fray to urge her counterparts in G7 countries to knock heads together and coalesce around the idea of letting web users express generic privacy preferences at the browser/app/device level, rather than having to do it through pop-ups every time they visit a website.

Britain will attempt to move away from European data protection regulations as it overhauls its privacy rules after Brexit, the government has announced.

NHS patients in England will get greater control over their health and social care data under plans set out by the government. Critics fear data could be misused but the health secretary says a new strategy will make it more secure.

Disease surveillance schemes to catch the next rising virus already exist—they’re just not communicating with each other.

If you live in England, all your encounters with your GP – information about your physical, mental and sexual health – could be ‘sold’ to third parties.

The NHS app launched on Monday May 17th will be used to demonstrate COVID-19 vaccination status. However, guidance on the UK government website says: “There are not many countries that currently accept proof of vaccination. So for the time being, most people will still need to follow other rules when travelling abroad – like getting a negative pre-departure test.”

The Investigatory Powers Act, or Snooper’s Charter, was introduced in 2016. Now one of its most contentious surveillance tools is being secretly trialled by internet firms.

The NHS in 2030 project imagines a world where citizens are able to easily share their health data in a standardised format and in real-time with studies operating on a large or a small-scale.

The UK’s data watchdog is facing a legal challenge after it took the decision to quietly close a complaint against the adtech industry’s high velocity background trading of personal data. The legal challenge was reported earlier by Politico.

What is your personal connection with your healthcare service & the professionals that work within it?

The UK Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights published in the Third Report of Session 2019 'The Right to Privacy (Article 8) and the Digital Revolution'

The Liberal Democrats are profiling every voter in the country by scoring their political preferences out of 100 This includes which party they will vote for in the next election and whether they are a Remainer or Leaver.

Privacy campaigners question urgency of move and motives of PM and Dominic Cummings

This document is the final report on Data Mobility: the data portability growth opportunity for the UK economy, carried out for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) by Ctrl-Shift.

We are seeking views on proposals to allow the creation of innovative data-driven services, for the benefit of consumers.

An interesting development shared by the UK Information Commissioner.

The UK Parliament's Human Rights Committee on protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information.