Most middle class strayan moment so far: a parent telling a child not to touch fitness equipment because of 'health and safety'.

Happy 2026! I fulfilled none of my 2025 resolutions, my excuse is that the year took some very unexpected turns. Hope this is a better year for all of us.

Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions and jail his enemies. To carry out that agenda, his administration will exploit America’s digital surveillance machine. Here are steps you can take to evade it.

UK police forces knew they were using biased facial recognition technology for the last year. This is because forces were unhappy that the more accurate version produced fewer potential suspects. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Should you wear a mask if you've got symptomatic flu? YES. If you wear it at home *from the onset of your symptoms*, your family members are much less likely to catch flu from you (but you must avoid unmasked co-sleeping and eating around same table - have your meals alone). 1/

DCPC a.k.a. the digital #commons policy council is finally on #Bluesky Please support our work by following us and spreading the good word! :-) @grazulis.bsky.social @ramyachandra.bsky.social @nidhalaigh.bsky.social

Meet our Fellow @nidhalaigh.bsky.social, who is recognised as an international leader in the regulation & governance of data & digital technologies – including AI, the internet & 3D printing. Find out more about Angela and her work➡️ acss.org.uk/professor-an...

Sure, let’s collate every member of the public’s personal and private information into one giant database right before handing whole swathes of the state over to multinational corporations using an emergent technology with numerous security issues

Doing interdisciplinary comparative law

No surprise that a hidden meeting (i.e. not on official record) between Thiel and Johnson/Cummings in 2019, just before Palantir captured NHS data, is to me the most interesting find in Boris files so far. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

New Fellow @nidhalaigh.bsky.social is Professor of Law & Technology at @dundee.ac.uk! Angela’s research explores the interaction between legal frameworks and new digital technologies, in areas such as evidence, sector specific regulation and human rights. ➡️ acss.org.uk/news/the-aca...

Very honoured to be among them.

So nice to get some more Institute of Network Culture goodies today, book aesthetics always on point.

Visit our website, and read about our strong opposition to the recently rejected University Recovery Plan: a plan created by the short-term team in charge at University of Dundee. sites.dundee.ac.uk/ducu/ #SaveHE #SaveDundeeUni

In our new paper, we identify the limits of the UK's AI health policy: 1️⃣ Disproportionate focus on growth 2️⃣ Sidelining of regulation, ethics & public trust 3️⃣ Underestimationg true scale & cost of NHS digital transformation 4️⃣ Scant consideration of environmental impact bjgp.org/content/75/7...

“Although Microsoft is used up and down the UK by police and law enforcement bodies, so far only SPA – and now Police Scotland – have asked the important questions: Where does our data go? Do you have a map or data flow model? What assurances can you give us around our regulatory DPA Part 3 needs?"

In @uofglasgow.bsky.social today and fitting that I come across Ruth Ewan's Silent Agitator IWW sculpture.

Police Scotland have been urged to 'immediately abandon' plans to introduce facial recognition software for public surveillance by Amnesty International and 13 other advocacy groups

Agree 100% with this motion to @snp.org national conference calling for Police Scotland not to invest in live facial recognition and its use should not be allowed in Scotland without new primary legislation which is compatible with human rights law & EU AI Act. www.thenational.scot/news/2541206...

Carnival vibes for those of us elsewhere with Barrington Levy on KEXP - more dancing, less intrusive and racist facial recognition cameras! www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfgZ...

You said there would be no redundancies on national television. Then confirmed on 1st July to 1000 staff and @thecourier.co.uk there is no Plan ‘B’ for redundancies. Then six weeks later it’s revealed your failed “recovery plan” wanted 190 compulsory redundancies. m.youtube.com/watch?v=X3hF...

How about we replace Chancellors, VCs and senior managers with chatbots? (They've already replaced themselves with AI but continue to collect the salary and make awful decisions) share.google/xLXvRgJsFPIz...

‘Too hungry to think, too weak to sit upright. Concentration slips away’: the struggle to stay focussed as an academic in Gaza

'This was the way the North coast of Caithness was militarised and not one single political voice was raised in opposition. No democratically elected representative of the people voiced concern. They still don’t.' George Gunn, via @bellacaledonia.bsky.social

UK gov: we want to build vast new data centres because something something AI and never mind the environmental cost. Also UK gov: oh no! Water shortages! Quick, everyone delete a few emails! Who put these chuds in charge? 🙄

The University of Dundee has announced it will defer the 1.4% national pay rise for staff in higher education. With inflation above 3% this means hard working staff at the University will be getting at least a 3% real terms pay cut this year.

Buried in The Observer yesterday was this: UK police knocking on doors demanding details of social media accounts of people, to pass to a foreign government, simply because they happen to live near where a US politician wanted to have a holiday observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Breaking: the court ruling in Wikipedia's legal challenge to the Online Safety Act categorisation regime has just been handed down. The court dismissed Wikipedia's challenge. This is bad. This is very bad. wikimediafoundation.org/news/2025/08...

'The scandal reveals – again – how ineffective SEPA is as a regulator, and how blase the MOD is in its treatment of public safety and environmental justice. The lack of transparency would not be tolerated anywhere else in the UK.' Mike Small via @bellacaledonia.bsky.social bellacaledonia.org.u...

Ask them why UVF flags and murals are all over Belfast when they are proscribed organisation

Surprise surprise AI tools used by English councils downplay women’s health issues, study finds www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Israel, which does not allow foreign journalists into Gaza…has killed 237 journalists since the war started, according to Gaza’s government media office. The Committee to Protect Journalists said at least 186 journalists have been killed in the Gaza conflict. apple.news/At7CSM72NQWe...

Reading the @dundee.ac.uk taskforce report & it's good to see research mentioned: 'The University should...protect existing strengths in research and innovation, recognising the importance..' I fear this will be too little, too late, however. www.gov.scot/publications...

Austerity Orwellianism in Brexit England - doubling LFR use to compensate for less human bobbies on the beat, targeting probably the biggest Black cultural event in the UK, and thereby doing things that are not legal in the EU nor permitted in Scotland.

Today, we remember and celebrate Janey Godley.

The EFF is 35 years old but the battle to defend internet freedom is far from over, Cindy Cohn tells @theregister.com – omniscient government databases, shadowy data brokers, and judicial overreach still abound.

Bringing the CrAIC - @andreamedrado.bsky.social on the Critical AI Centre 🇮🇪

Unmistakably Paolozzi - Faraday at Birmingham Uni. Here today for the contentious politics of AI and its alternatives organised by @digigirlz.bsky.social David Bailey & Masoumeh Iran Mansouri.

Make our voice heard at the Apple encryption hearing! On the sly, the UK government tried to force a backdoor into the firewall that protects your privacy. We made the hearing public. Now we need to win ✊ Donate now to fund legal representation ⬇️ #e2ee action.openrightsgroup.org/make-our-voi...

Thieves have been stealing laptops from the flagship Glasgow NHS hospital containing confidential patient data. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2532297...

We are delighted to share that the threat of redundancy has now been removed from two areas that had been targeted - Leverhulme Centre for Forensic Science and Education Assistive Technology. Congrats to our colleagues! We will continue to fight for all staff and the future of University of Dundee.

Our redundancies will not now go ahead. Thanks to all who gave us their support and solidarity. @ducuuo.bsky.social will fight and will win no compulsory redundancies for staff who are not at fault for the financial collapse of the University.

I'm attending the @okfn.bsky.social #techwewant summit today and tomorrow. First up is the launch of the report 'Towards a Sustainable Data Commons Ecosystem'.

The academic’s mid-summer crisis is a mid-life crisis in miniature: You realize summer is half gone, & not only that: you see that the longest & least burdened days came early, & they are well past. You compare all you thought you’d do against the days remaining & grieve for what never will be

Excellent nourishmemt for body and mind from @veggiesnottm.bsky.social arrived today! ☕️📚✊🏻

Universities are not about the accumulation of knowledge, hoarded like gold ducats in a locked vault. Humanity’s collective knowledge is a living thing; it circulates through society like blood; it must constantly be transmitted and renewed. That is what we do.

Revealed: spies for hire used ‘Big Brother’ tactics on salmon farm activists

The University of Dundee has a women problem “In our view this culture of sexism runs deeper than the sidelining of women speaking up and out and persists beyond the ignominious end of Iain Gillespie’s tenure as Principal of the university.” www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/opinion/c...