This weeks discussion with @tjmcintyre.com & @adrianweckler.bsky.social is really worth a listen if you're in Ireland and interested in tech policy or privacy. podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/t...

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

I'm very happy to have published a chapter in this excellent, open-access collection, "Being Human in the Digital World:" www.cambridge.org/core/service... Kudos to expert editors Beate Roessler and Valerie Steeves, as well as fellow authors Julie Cohen, David Lyon, Helen Nissenbaum, & more!

Delighted to announce that we are the REVEL Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence @maynoothuniversity.ie. We will be organising a host of activities over the next 3 years on "Realising European Values and European Law" (REVEL). Stay tuned (follow us) for more. www.maynoothuniversity.ie/news-events/...

It's great to see #PROPHECY gathering friends. Thank you so much for everyone who has pre-ordered. It matters. It gets noticed. It's part of being in the conversation. THANK YOU! #Book www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/759692...

Delighted to be a part of this Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence focused on Realising European Values and European Law @maynoothlaw.bsky.social! Excited to lead the work package on digital enforcement! 🇪🇺

Delighted to be part of a wonderful team and leading the new @reveljmce.bsky.social. Lots to come in terms of activities (please follow us!) - for now: thanks to our wonderful colleagues @maynoothlaw.bsky.social; @muresearch.bsky.social for their invaluable support!

And a bit shout out to our wonderful team (who will be doing all the substantive work): Dr Derek Barter, Dr Ollie Bartlett; Dr David Mangan; @orlakelleher.bsky.social; @mariamurphy.bsky.social; @hubertsmekal.bsky.social; @oscharles.bsky.social.

In a similar vein, the Orkney Islands produce an excess of electricity from wind, wave and tide power.

📣 I am hiring a postdoc! aial.ie/hiring/postd... applications from suitable candidates that are passionate about investigating the use of genAI in public service operations with the aim of keeping governments transparent and accountable are welcome pls share with your networks

The "don't worry about facial recognition tech" arguments are not faring well...

EU Big Tech law EU Commission - preliminary finding that Meta and TikTok have breached the Digital Services Act ec.europa.eu/commission/p... concerns content moderation appeals, notice of illegal material, researchers' access to data NB not a final decision (possibly with fines) yet

It was great to be back at the Irish Parliament yesterday at the Joint Committee on AI. Joe O'Brien and I @iccl.bsky.social are grateful for the invitation from the Committee. Video: IHREC at minute 20 and ICCL from 1 hr 40 min. www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachta...

Tory MP reports deepfake video to police www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Infrastructure x Democracy — what could be more interesting? I'm very excited to be moderating this panel!

This event looks incredible. Really sad I can’t make it to London that evening. Congrats @nniloideain.bsky.social on the book-it’s next in my to read pile!

🚨🚨 #Denmark aims to ban #socialmedia for children under 15. PM Mette Frederiksen says "We have unleashed a monster" to Danish lawmakers. 🧵https://www.politico.eu/article/denmark-mette-frederiksen-partially-ban-social-media-children-under-15/

"Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved." "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make." Jane Goodall was the best of us.

"You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” Rest in power, Dr. Jane Goodall

🕊️ The world has lost a revered conservationist -- a colossal power for what is truly good. 🕊️ Jane Goodall is a legend who helped open the door to science to the best humans among us: woman. 🕊️ She was brave, brilliant and introduced us to the best things among us: animals. 🕊️ I grieve her passing.

New article out with Katie Nolan (@katieanolan.bsky.social) and Orla Lynskey in the Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies: 'Digital Empire or Digital Fiefdoms? Institutional Tensions and the EU Right to Data Protection'. Open access at: doi.org/10.1017/cel.... @cambup-law.cambridge.org

Hobbyhorse: at university, lectures remain an incredible format. They introduce & explore a huge amount of content in a short period of time. They scaffold further reading, with a personal twist. Workshops, etc, do their own thing, but don't replace effective lectures: share.google/AyFxBwYh5BYM...

Oh this is BAD. The new TOC from academia dot edu. You grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness…

Conor Gearty was, without hesitation, the best academic writer I’ve read. He was also a thoroughly decent and kind human being who fearlessly used his position speak truth to power. Conor did law, politics and academia the right way and he will be sorely missed. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.

Very sad to hear of the untimely death of Conor Gearty, a lovely individual, one of our finest legal academics, and a central figure in promoting human rights worldwide.

📣AI propaganda factories🏭 are now operational. My study shows how small, open-weight models can run as fully automatic generators in influence campaigns. mechanising personas, engagement, cadence. Possible for State, non-state, and micro-actors, including and bedroom ones.

'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 [led by Sam Rickman, LSE] has found.' 1/2

Short op-ed by me explaining the importance of ambitious 2031-2040 carbon budgets and EU 2040 targets for intergenerational climate justice. These are critical moments to level with the public about the scale of the emission reduction challenge. @maynoothlaw.bsky.social @ejni.bsky.social

Forthcoming March 2026

NO. AI. FOR. WAR. CRIMES!!!

New from 404 Media: ICE is using a new facial recognition app to identify people, leaked emails show. Point camera at person, reveal their identity. It uses the CBP system that records peoples' faces as they enter or exit the U.S. Now, turned inwards to be used by ICE www.404media.co/ice-is-using...

Neurotechnologies are being used in increasingly to make claims on the neural correlates of learning - here's our paper featuring the brain glasses example up top of the thread and we have another on the neuro-informationalization of the learning brain out shortly icyi doi.org/10.1080/1750...

Not a mega fan of AI in education as my past work will show, but nor is the neuro-informationalization of its effects on learning brains a form of critique that should be so easily accepted and disseminated.

Excellent research @rdbinns.bsky.social

‘We become the ones tasked with “doing ethics” or “engaging stakeholders”, tasks that are expected to produce measurable, reportable outcomes. ​​This can lead to a performative mode of participation…’ www.helsinki.fi/en/researchg...

NEW from me: China's CO2 emissions fell ~1.6% in the first quarter and have now been flat or down for more than a year. This is the first time on record that emissions are falling due to clean energy growth, not slow power demand.

If you use TikTok, don’t be surprised if your information was sent to China. TikTok gets fined €530 million by the Irish Data Protection Commission for unlawfully sending the personal information of EEA citizens to China & ordered to put corrective measures in place. TikTok: “You’re picking on us.”

This is highly misleading as presented. Spain has lots of gas-fired power stations and it was only using a fraction of them when the outage happened. There may not have been much spinning reserve, which is a separate question. 1/

New CETaS report 'UK Public Attitudes to National Security Data Processing: Assessing Human and Machine Intrusion' (Powell, Oswald & Janjeva) published today. Based on a nationally representative survey and a citizens panel cetas.turing.ac.uk/publications... 1/3

"We are, in effect, guinea pigs in an information experiment in which the resilience of our societies is being put to the test. It now costs next to nothing to quickly and easily create a flood of convincing lies and hate, with minor human intervention." medium.com/we-the-peopl...

This is precisely what I wanted to highlight in my piece earlier this year. The conflict of interest is already declaring itself in the very language with which the plan was presented www.justsecurity.org/106837/uk-ai...

There is a PR narrative quickly emerging about “entitlement” of elite universities, as if this $ is some sort of subsidy Harvard & others must counter this quickly The $ doesn’t flow into Harvard’s coffers - this is grant money, most of which goes to research the govt has agreed has social value

Once again, this is what ChatGPT *admits* it's collecting from your iPhone:

Should the EU shift to a more deregulatory approach to privacy? Short answer: Hell no! For more, see my new book www.amazon.com/gp/product/0...

For an argument that searching a U.S. citizen's cell phone at the border requires a warrant, and that the practice of warrantless searches is unlawful under Riley v. California, see my new book, "The Digital Fourth Amendment." www.amazon.com/Digital-Four...

A film that takes place where you’re from.

The weirdest thing about the Call for Evidence is that everyone has been asked to make submissions about a presumption that barely seems to exist outside breathalysers and radar guns.

all this exposes is that some people don't like writing, reading and thinking