After 8 years of inaction, the DPC now claims that RTB adtech does not provide location data to dodgy firms. Wrong. Meet "Patternz" for example: An Israeli surveillance tool built on RTB data that provides a targeted individual's coordinates and "driving path" www.iccl.ie/wp-content/u...

Unusually for the time of year about 15 red kites and a pair of buzzards are circled for food here today. Bad weather on its way 🦅🦅

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California Assembly Bill AB-566, passed in the State's Assembly and Senate 2 weeks ago has been given to Governor Newsom for signing, and, unless he caves to lobbying from the behavioral advertising industry and big tech, could soon become law.

Hey, neat www.irishnews.com/news/norther...

As we said many times over 15 years, the ePrivacy Directive didn't call for incessant "consent popups", only that people mustn't be tracked UNLESS they give informed consent. An unobtrusive button in a footer linking to a clear description & an agree/decline option suffices bsky.app/profile/poli...

Lina Khan points out especial risks when monopolies start to control mainstream media. www.msnbc.com/ali-velshi/w... h/t @douglasfarrar.bsky.social

We cooperated with RTE PrimeTime over the last year on this very significant story about RTB data exposing the movements of Irish people, including military and political personnel. Link to this morning's preview piece is here --> www.rte.ie/news/primeti...

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Forever young :)

Invoking "economic growth" & the vaguest of claims about #AdTech the UK Information Commissioner plans to explicitly “enable” non-complaint business models. Even partial Responses (by 7 Sept 25) pushing back on this erosion of rights & democratic processes encouraged. ico.org.uk/about-the-ic...

The UK Parliament had a full opportunity to recalibrate #dataprotection & #ePrivacy compliance for #AdTech in Data (Use and Access) Act & did so. In immediately eroding these rights, the ICO’s stance would seriously undermine both the rule of law and democratic processes. 3/3

It is against the ICO’s Growth Duty, the Statutory Guidance being that “[n]on-complaint activity…harms the interests of legitimate businesses that are working to comply with regulatory requirements, disrupting competition and acting as a disincentive to invest in compliance” 2/3

"I think there are a lot of cautionary tales about what happens when you try to hitch national sovereign goals to a private tech company, and what they do with that power.” www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

The current state of the AI ecosystem

How the N.Y.P.D.’s Facial Recognition Tool Landed the Wrong Man in Jail www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/n...

Drowning in a sea of racism open.substack.com/pub/htsf/p/d...

It's the trend now. They get filthy rich doing dirty jobs, publish a book 'exposing' how evil the evil job they've evil-y done was, and then get free media publicity to sell their book about how brave and/or sorry they are.

The EU must use the anti coercion instrument now, or be humiliated. Europe must be free to enforce its own law on its own soil.

The maximum penalty that can now be enforced under the UK's PEC regulations (including the requirement for valid user consent for cookies and other storage) is now £17,500,000 or 4% of turnover whichever is the higher. See para 1181 of the Explanatory Notes

No this is not the latest view of 3I/ATLAS! In fact its just an animation showing the scale of unconsented tracking cookies on the site just fined by the Spanish DPA.

A company with an ineffective consent tool fined €5,000 in Spain, for placing tracking cookies even if user declined. Most websites in UK use similarly deficient CMPs. gdprhub.eu/index.php?ti...

Well put! Overwhelmingly the assumption is that personal data is there to be exploited. This attitude shows how inadequate enforcement has been, and consequently, how little effort companies make to check whether the "consent tools" they use actually stop the tracking & ensure compliance.

‪From @jamesrball.com, a good potted history & explanation of why communications technology needs well constructed regulation, & well designed technical protocols, created by informed, open dialogue

What We Lost whatwelost.substack.com?r=2mk1s&utm_...

Why can't Infosys, like so many others, just use a consent platform that works? Here, cookies illegally in use without consent, after a page refresh, even after the Reject All button is clicked, cookies still there.

Musk, Tommy Robinson & far right don't like the Online Safety Act. h/t @paulmason.bsky.social x.com/paulmasonnew...

Last year, Emmanuel Macron reacted publicly for the first time, saying: “The worst thing is false information and fabricated scenarios, with people who end up believing them — including in ​the ​most private ​aspects of your life.”

My new blog exploring Information Commissioner's 2024/25 Annual Report shows that inaction on 2022 #Afghan UK #GDPR #databreach was sadly in line with poor & starkly declining track-record in formal monitoring & enforcement of UK #dataprotection & #ePrivacy: ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/22/d...

Here @daviderdos.bsky.social reflects upon the ICO's lack of enforcement of data protection rules, but his main thrust, on the hollowness of the UK's regulatory agencies, extends across public life (especially with no EU Commission oversight post-Brexit): ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/22/d...

Just the tip of the iceberg 👇🏽

"This is not someone trying to monetize AI slop under a new name, but assigning that slop to the name of dead artists without asking for permission" 🫣

"The partnership with OpenAI, whose tie-up with Microsoft once drew the scrutiny of Britain's competition regulator, will see the company possibly increase the size of its London office, and explore where it can deploy AI in areas such as justice, defence, security and education technology" 🪢

It is impossible to tell with these guys if they are credulous or increasingly unable to tell why they believe in anything anymore, to the point they'll start nodding and smiling as a guy says "vibe physics," a term that neither explains itself nor describes what the guy was actually saying he did

ChatGPT is Versailles 2, all the rich guys are all pretending that this stuff is cool or makes them smarter and with each aberration of that lie they thus have to start saying and believing fundamentally insane things, all so that the central financial insanity can be further rationalised

This is an insane time in the tech industry. Superintelligence is fictional! This is so much an egregious waste of money, Meta's Chief AI scientist said generative AI won't lead to it either! AhhhhhHhhhh

No woman should face harassment for doing her job. We stand with our Senior Legal Advisor @fluturakusari.bsky.social as she is taking legal action against Mentor Llugaliu for a 3-year campaign of online abuse: www.ecpmf.eu/kosovo-stead... Kosovo’s justice system must act swiftly and fairly.

Employers or colleges using such systems on the basis of consent must ensure that consent is freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous. Consent cannot be considered valid if there is no genuine choice. Read about this case in the DPC’s 2024 annual report: dataprotection.ie/annualreport...

UK Brings GDPR Level Fines For Using Cookies Without Consent baycloud.com/blog/PostDet...

Not entirely! It's just that if you do try to help customers do something big tech doesn't want, you will get vilified & personally slandered by their lobbyists, be a no go area for tech journalists & VCs, & generally ridiculed or ignored by the academics they have so generously funded. #eprivacy

Excellent news. Credit to @londoncentric.media for the initial reporting. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

This lawsuit is brutal. One of the exhibits is the letter Universal sent to Midjourney, including a quote from a 2022 Forbes interview that I bet midjourney regrets

Campaign to scarp "brutal" test that denies compensation to miscarriage of justice victims unless they prove innocence - launched by @justicehq.bsky.social & @we-are-appeal.bsky.social, backed by Lord Falconer & @daviddavismp.bsky.social in @thetimes.com . www.thetimes.com/uk/law/artic...