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  • Met chief rejects calls to scrap live facial recognition at Notting Hill carnival

    Mark Rowley says technology will be ‘non-discriminatory’ and ‘does not perform in a way which exhibits bias’ The Metropolitan police commissioner has hit back at demands to drop the use of live facial recognition cameras at this weekend’s Notting Hill carnival over concerns of racial bias and an impending legal challenge. Mark Rowley wrote in…

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  • ‘Shut it down and start again’: staff disquiet as Alan Turing Institute faces identity crisis

    Whistleblower warns UK’s top AI research body in danger of collapse due to threats over funding and new direction When the UK government announced the creation of the Alan Turing Institute in 2014 it promised a “fitting memorial” to the renowned computer scientist and artificial intelligence pioneer. More than a decade on, Britain’s leading AI…

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  • AI tool that speeds up patient discharges trialled by NHS

    Pilot at London trust aims to reduce paperwork and free up doctors, as UK brings AI to public services An artificial intelligence tool designed to speed up the discharge of patients is being trialled at a hospital trust in London. The platform completes documents needed to send fit patients home, potentially saving hours of delays…

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  • Rayner says Farage ‘failing young women’ with plan to scrap Online Safety Act

    Deputy PM says move would cause rise in ‘revenge porn’, as Labour launches attack ads against Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is “failing a generation of young women” with his plans to scrap the Online Safety Act, Angela Rayner has said, arguing the move would cause an increase in the prevalence of “revenge porn”. The…

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  • Facial recognition cameras too racially biased to use at Notting Hill carnival, say campaigners

    Exclusive: Letter to the Met says technology ‘unfairly targets community that carnival exists to celebrate’ The Met commissioner should scrap plans to deploy live facial recognition (LFR) at next weekend’s Notting Hill carnival because the technology is riven with “racial bias” and subject to a legal challenge, 11 civil liberty and anti-racist groups have demanded.…

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  • UK traffic to popular porn sites slumps after age checks introduced

    Figures from digital data company show effect of strict rules brought in last month under Online Safety Act British visits to popular pornography sites have slumped following the introduction of strict age checks last month, data shows. Daily visits to Pornhub, the UK’s most used porn site, fell from 3.6m on 24 July, the day…

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  • AI tools used by English councils downplay women’s health issues, study finds

    Exclusive: LSE research finds risk of gender bias in care decisions made based on AI summaries of case notes Artificial intelligence tools used by more than half of England’s councils are downplaying women’s physical and mental health issues and risk creating gender bias in care decisions, research has found. The study found that when using…

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  • Wikipedia can challenge Online Safety Act if strictest rules apply to it, says judge

    Wikimedia Foundation says it will be forced reduce access to site if it is classified as a category 1 provider The operator of Wikipedia has been given permission by a high court judge to challenge the Online Safety Act if it is categorised as a high-risk platform, which would impose the most stringent duties. The…

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  • FBI and NSPCC alarmed at ‘shocking’ rise in online sextortion of children

    Snapchat logged about 20,000 cases last year of adults grooming children online, more than other social media platforms combined Tech companies including Snapchat and Facebook reported more than 9,600 cases of adults grooming children online in the UK in just six months last year – the equivalent of about 400 a week. Law enforcement agencies,…

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  • I spoke to the AI avatar of a Leeds MP. How did it cope with my Yorkshire accent?

    Leeds MP Mark Sewards has launched a digital assistant, but the results of my chat show MPs’ aides have nowt to worry about As anyone with even a trace of a regional dialect who has had to pay a parking fine can attest, voice recognition services struggle with accents. Now, people in Mark Sewards’ constituency…

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