journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #sociology

There’s so much I have to say about this, much of which is in my book. But the lack of critical questioning and the last two sentences of this article encapsulate everything wrong with tech journalism: “Like it or not, however, we’re strapped in for the ride. At least Anthropic has a plan”

Why is AI governance so often ineffective at preventing AI from harming people and the planet? My new paper Transfeminist AI Governance addresses this question, now out in this month's issue of First Monday: firstmonday.org/ojs/index.ph...

As everyone knows, the only thing more viscerally exciting than a 3rd sector consultation response is a consultation response to a regulator's annual plan of work. But FIPR's response to Ofcom's recent consultation is worth a read - we cover some of the biggest policy issues facing the UK today.

You can read our consultation response at fipr.org

We recommend that Ofcom commission further research work on currently proposed technological approaches to regulating platform-based public communication. 7/7

It is these groups who, in the context of a global resurgence of far right politics, face both the most acute harms in online spaces and the most immediate potential for negative consequences from intensified digital surveillance. 6/7

It is particularly important to consider the challenges -- differing technical consequences, effects on rights, and harms -- posed for marginalised groups 5/7

We emphasise the importance of policymakers and regulators' engagement with technical stakeholders and expertise from outside the platform and 'big tech' industries, and of renewed consideration of the negative consequences of potential technical designs and restrictions. 4/7

We suggest that Ofcom engage in further consultation with technical expert groups, including FIPR, on the benefits and negative consequences of potential technical designs, and what is possible -- in technical terms -- for the implementation of desired government policy 3/7

We outline key challenges for 2026-27 in relation to AI and communications services, emerging cross-jurisdictional flashpoints and 'digital sovereignty', age checks with regard to user-to-user regulated services, and debate and policy on social media and children. 2/7

FIPR has submitted a response to the Ofcom consultation on its work plan for 2026, arguing that the UK needs an ambitious programme of technically-informed work on the digital rights, privacy, and information policy issues that we currently face. 1/7

As everyone knows, the only thing more viscerally exciting than a 3rd sector consultation response is a consultation response to a regulator's annual plan of work. But FIPR's response to Ofcom's recent consultation is worth a read - we cover some of the biggest policy issues facing the UK today.

The government’s suggestion that rolling out 20 minute courses on writing “AI“ prompts, sponsored by Google, Microsoft and Amazon, is somehow comparable to the founding of the Open University (the Wilson government‘s, & Jennie Lee’s, proudest achievement), is an insult to our human intelligence.

If Ofcom did decide to ban the social media platform X, how would such a ban work? Some thoughts drawn from Internet history... iptegrity.com/online-safet... @fipr-policy.bsky.social

New research maps the campaign to erase trans people from UK data 🔢 This peer-reviewed article offers the first detailed account of how UK campaign groups have sought to define sex as strictly biological across the census, policing, healthcare and digital ID. doi.org/10.1080/0958...

These tactics – which mirror the anti-trans politics of the Trump administration – is about changing something within trans people rather than changing the signage on toilets and changing rooms. Read here (open access): doi.org/10.1080/0958... #data #trans #gender #queer #research #LGBTQ #UK

"Virgin Active’s decision to abandon trans people is a shocking failure for a company that claims to be a proud supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. It’s time to hold them to account."

Starmer set to drop plans to make digital ID mandatory for UK workers ft.trib.al/VqcAnBf

Dr @dianamiranda.bsky.social is a co-author of a new journal article in Surveillance & Society: 'The Ontological Shift in Surveillance: Revisiting the “Surveillant Assemblage” in the Age of Facial Recognition' #Surveillance #Biometrics #Criminology #CrimSky ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...

The #OnlineSafetyAct allows providers to mark their own homework. @ofcom.bsky.social told to kick X into gear, with little effective power. How likely will we see positive action? My take on the policy problem. iptegrity.com/ai/grok-ai-i... @fipr-policy.bsky.social

Open Access link: direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

December 10 is International Human Rights Day #HRD. Celebrate with us and the Tor Community! 💜Join our State of the Onion Day 2 broadcast in an hour: 📺https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZVk0kb7lhw 🧅http://xgsobitduxv7gcc5qlveigwiku7qcjn5exf4ayusw4mwq7kfrapmrjyd.onion/

Community contributions are what power Tor, tune in Wed, Dec 10 at 1700 UTC for day 2 of our State of the Onion to hear directly from @ooni.org, The Guardian Project, @freedom.press, HushLine and more. 📺 www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZVk... 🧅 xgsobitduxv7gcc5qlveigwiku7qcjn5exf4ayusw4mwq7kfrapmrjyd.onion

Excited to announce @leverhulmecal.bsky.social posts - we are looking for 7 interdisciplinary fellows to join our Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, closing date 30 January 2026 (1/3) durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

Striking for me as a physicist who also does social science work is the way these physicists were suddenly totally ok with autoethnography as data because they personally enjoyed using GPT-5. A case study in how values orient our empirical practices if there ever was one lol

I want to extend my full support to staff threatened with compulsory redundancy at the University of Edinburgh. I have today written to the Principal imploring him to change direction.

More technical report www.volexity.com/blog/2025/10... via the excellent @fipr-policy.bsky.social

In the latest episode of the @plutopia.io #podcast we interview @susansegfault.bsky.social Ben Collier about his new(ish) biograophy of the Tor Project: plutopia.io/ben-collier-...

A very good book on the history of an important privacy tool.

Had a lovely time on the Plutopia podcast talking about my book - Tor: From the Dark Web to the Future of Privacy. Listen here: plutopia.io/ben-collier-...

Honestly feel like Labour on immigration is a political and moral crisis with potentially scary consequences

While they’re at it, they could pay more attention to the human rights problems with their Additional Measures proactive technology proposals. @douwekorff.bsky.social’s consultation submission here, referencing my blogpost as ‘typical British understatement’ 😀. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

I actually don't really care if AI is useful/interesting/good for some things in education actually - it is besides these things clearly a big problem already that maybe need listing yet again:

Jamie Buchan, Sarah Anderson, and Katrina Morrison have published a 'Criminal Justice in Scotland' textbook 📚🍷📖👏 I had the joy of chairing their well attended book launch today. It has gone straight onto #Criminology Uni reading lists. 🔗 www.routledge.com/Criminal-Jus... @kmmorrison.bsky.social

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU. Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

Hey look www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Has this all be throught through. In short, this has all the makings of another fiasco like the Post Office scandal. People will be wrongly denied access to basic services, employment, and other aspects of day to day life when this all breaks down.

On the BritCard - in theory better government systems are a great idea, but implementing it requires very high levels of management competence to cope with the ambition and complexity; the costs will correspondingly be very high.

Systems like this need real institutional legitimacy to work.

netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/09/26/t... great overview of the history and evidence on ID cards by Wendy

The other countries where this kind of digital ID has been implemented are far smaller, and don’t have our appalling track record of expensive government IT disasters.

There are absolutely real cybersecurity risks as well - not least, from the people with legitimate access to the system. For example, every year more than half of the prosecutions under the Computer Misuse Act are of serving police officers caught misusing their access to police databases.

Linking together all these different government systems and databases and tying them to a single point of truth about you - the obsession of the Tony Blair Institute - is going to be incredibly complicated, and is a disaster waiting to happen.

This isn’t just about ID - most people have some form of ID, and digital ID systems can be designed well and preserve our privacy and basic rights. It’s about the particular design of this system and what they want to achieve with it.

Nominal popular support for SOME kind of digital ID v different to support for this specific system brought in by this specific government. Would be interesting to see if the polling being thrown around for ID card popularity is the same in a month once the policy irrevocably associated w/ Starmer.

When combined with the ‘sex-based’ papers please approach being trailed by Streeting for public institutions, this has the potential to be a massive further clampdown on access to public life for trans people in the UK

Also important to ask - how will trans people, ever the punching bag of this govt and the assembled UK press, be represented in this single point of truth about the data self?