Based on a survey of 102 women currently working in the tech industry and including positions from a 250-people roundtable at Reframe Women in Tech’s conference, the report offers a deeper dive into the types of barriers women face when entering the tech industry.
The report presents not only the barriers cited by women, but ways businesses can mitigate these barriers to encourage more women into the tech force.
1. It cites confidence or ‘imposter syndrome’ as a major hurdle for women entering the tech field and calls on businesses to play their part in levelling the playing field.
Nearly all women cited this reason as a barrier to entering tech, and while this may be an internal issue exacerbated by society’s expectations of technology roles, there are actions businesses can take to reduce the effect of this barrier.
Business can improve employee well-being, recognise the importance of career breaks in the hiring process, and invest in confidence support.
2. A lack of awareness or contact with the tech industry is also a top barrier for women, the report says. Women have limited exposure to or awareness of the varying opportunities within the tech industry, hindering their ability to explore or develop the relevant skills.
Businesses can influence education by directly working with groups that engage with young women and girls, and networks within the tech community can help more women become aware of opportunities within the sector.
3. A lack of women role models if an oft-cited barrier affecting women in technology.
This is tied to the awareness gap, which creates a cycle of discouragement for young women interested in technology. Encouragement for mentorship, and elevating women into leadership positions, is the best way to mitigate this barrier.
4. The report also cited exclusionary hiring practices has a recurring barrier for women.
To mitigate this, businesses should employ alternative hiring methods, ensure the use of inclusive language, and promote and allow flexible working.
5. Women also cited discrimination as a barrier, including sexism, ageism, racism, and bias affecting their ability to work in the technology sector.
Businesses should establish better policies and training to ensure tolerance and inclusion, establish resource groups for employees, and use anonymised CVs to prevent bias in the hiring process.
Beckie Taylor, Tech Returners, CEO, said: “The findings of this report are eye-opening, and highlight how much more needs to be done at the industry-level to empower women pursuing a career in tech. There are many steps that businesses can take to create a more level playing field, and I urge them to take action today.”
Jo Leniewski, talent acquisition director at Sage, said: ” The report highlights crucial steps for businesses to advance women in tech. Ignoring the gender gap poses an economic risk.
“At Sage, our ‘Sage Pathways’ program aids those re-entering work, changing careers, or starting their professional journey. A diverse tech sector requires pathways for more women to re-join the workforce.”
The UK tech sector has seen a drop in the number of women in the industry between the first and second quarters of 2023, according to the Office of National Statistics (ONS).
Between January to March 2023 (Q1) and April to June 2023 (Q2), the ONS measured a decline of 3,000 women in the tech industry. This is despite the same data showing growth in the industry during the same period.
While the tech industry has grown between the first and second quarter of this year, from 85,000 to 1.73 million workers, this rise appears to not be distributed evenly.
The number of women in tech has fluctuated recently, according to ONS figures: the first quarter of 2022 saw just 447,000 women in tech, which rose to 532,000 in the second quarter of 2022.
Then between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of this year, there was about a 17,000 drop in women in tech, which was then followed by the drop of 3,000.
But the last year in tech has been turbulent – the Q2 to Q3 in 2022 saw growth of 92,000, followed by a drop by 87,000 in Q4.
Women appear to be disproportionately affected by these drops, potentially due to changing business practices.
More companies are calling their workers back into the office and decreasing flexible working arrangements – even Zoom, which peaked in success in large part due to remote working arrangements, have called their workers back into the office.
Amazon has even allegedly started to penalise workers who work from home more often in an attempt to force workers back into office, according to a report by the Financial Times.
As seen in the pandemic, care responsibilities disproportionately tend to fall on women – removing remote and flexible working options for workers can make it more difficult for women to stay in the workforce if they have children.
Even without this, tech layoffs have fallen the hardest on women, dropping the percentage of women in tech from 22% to just 20.1%. The drop due to layoffs was in direct contrast to the rise in male tech workers over the same period.
With the tech skills gap in dire need of workers across industries, these changing policies can put digital transformation, AI adoption, and innovate at risk if talented tech workers are not able to join the workforce due to changing policies.
Senna Baille, director of community at VeUP, said: “Tech companies should continue to focus on tackling the barriers for women entering the tech field, and showcase the steps they are taking to prove their commitment and heighten the attractiveness of the field.
“A career in tech means that not every day is the same, presenting new challenges and opportunities to learn and grow. Tech companies should mirror this, and in turn cultivate an all-encompassing culture that encourages development and inclusiveness, bettering attitudes across the board.”
Joanna Kori, head of people at Encompass Corporation, said: “While technology-focused skills and expertise remain in demand, this underlines that there is work to be done to bridge the gap, ensuring a truly inclusive industry with a diverse workforce. Women have so much to offer, and organisations within the technology sector must continue to invest in female talent in order to see the benefits.
“To attract and retain females, it is important that businesses are proactive and put the right policies and initiatives in place. This includes focusing on areas such as flexible working, which can be transformative when it comes to enabling women, and all employees, to excel in their careers while enjoying a positive work-life balance.”
New research produced by NatWest shows that a third of students have encountered a scam in the past year.
This is according to NatWest’s 2023 Student Living Index, which revealed that fraud is a major issue for students.
Delivery scams are the most common kind of fraud that students have encountered over the past year, with 14% having experienced this scam, according to NatWest’s annual survey of over 3,000 students.
Other common scams targeting students include social media and HMRC tax scams, while the instances of bank scams decreased significantly from 2022, with only 10% of students encountering this type of scam.
In contrast to last year’s results, women were slightly more likely to have encountered a scam in the last 12 months and over twice as likely to lose money to fraudulent activity, while the amount of money lost by a victim of fraud was around £80.
The top location for student scams this year was Bournemouth, with 44% of students having been the target of a scam. Last year’s most targeted city, Edinburgh, and Oxford were next in the rankings, with 41% of students encountering a scam with over four in five in each of these areas having experienced fraud.
While students in Bristol and Leicester were the least likely to be subjected to fraud, one in four students had still encountered a scam.
The NatWest Student Living Index surveyed over 3,000 students across the UK. Students were asked a range of questions, on fraud and scams, how much they spend on essentials such as food, rent and bills, and how much time they spend studying, working, and socialising.
Jaimala Patel, head of NatWest student accounts, said: “It is really important that students remain vigilant and are on their guard when they receive an unexpected text message, email or phone call asking for personal details.”
NatWest also released a series of tips for students to be mindful of to become fraud-proof.
These include being sceptical of unsolicited messages asking for bank details, and not giving these away easily, as well as using unique passwords for banking and online retail sites.
The bank also told students to be careful of social media investment scams, as they often use fake celebrity endorsements and get rich quick promises.
Cybersecurity analysts have revealed a major hacking campaign targeting LinkedIn accounts, with many users locked out of their accounts indefinitely.
Researchers at Cyberint discovered the alleged trend in hacked LinkedIn accounts, which they claim is targeting individuals across the globe.
According to Cyberint, the team identified a “notable increase” in reports and conversations of hacked LinkedIn accounts on social media, and with many users complaining to LinkedIn’s Help services about hacked accounts.
Further, search queries about hacked LinkedIn accounts have skyrocketed, they claimed.
Analysts found two different attack methods consistently employed by the threat actors.
First, was a temporary account lock, which results from an unsuccessful hacking attempt. In these instances, the targeted account is not necessarily compromised as suspicious activity was detected, prompting the temporary account lock.
Threat actors could have tried a number of methods to cause this, from credential stuffing to breaching accounts with two-factor authentication. Account users in this case are notified by LinkedIn to change their passwords to log into their accounts.
In the second method, however, users are unable to independently recover their accounts.
Threat actors follow a specific process, according to Cyberint, to ensure the accounts cannot be restored.
To do this, they first successfully gain access to an account and then change the email of the account, potential generated using rambler.ru., a mail system. After they change the email address, they then modify the password, effectively preventing the victim from restoring their account via email.
“Some victims have received ransom messages (typically requesting a few tens of dollars) to regain access, while others have witnessed their accounts being deleted outright,” Cyberint’s report said, which they based on alleged victim’s complains to LinkedIn Help accounts.
Cyberint has also provided some recommendations to ensure your accounts are safe and to mitigate the changes of them being compromised.
First, they recommend checking that you still have access to your LinkedIn account, and then check your email to see if LinkedIn has contacted you regarding your account.
Employing a strong password, and not reusing passwords, can decrease the chances of the account being hacked.
Two-step verification can also protect your account from being fully compromised.
The UK government has announced nearly £4m in funding for AI initiatives to reduce carbon emissions.
Twelve green AI initiatives will receive a share of £1m to decarbonise and boost the generation of renewable energy, in an effort to reach the UK’s net zero goal by 2050.
This goal is less ambitious than Scotland’s 2045 net zero target, but is in line with current UN targets to reach net zero by 2050 and reduce emissions by 45% by 2030.
The supported schemes included in the fund range from solar energy improvements which use AI to improve forecasting of when it will best produce energy for the grid, to the decarbonisation of dairy farming through the use of AI robots monitoring crop and soil health.
Even AI itself could reduce its carbon footprint, with one project developing hardware that will mimic the human brain so that a computer can reduce power consumption when performing AI tasks.
On top of this, the government will provide a further £2.25m to support further AI innovations with the aim of cutting emissions specifically in energy sectors.
This is in direct conflict, however, with earlier announcements which launched hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licences to increase drilling for oil and gas extraction off the UK’s own coasts. The government has rationalised this on two fronts, saying that domestic oil and gas production produces less emissions than importing it, and that their investment in carbon capture technology will offset new drilling efforts.
However, a letter sent by 700 scientists and academics in the UK urged the Prime Minister to not provide any new licenses, saying this would undermine efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Despite this, the government claims that their new investment in AI, which forms part of the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, cements the UK position at the forefront of AI and decarbonisation.
Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance Lord Callanan said: “We are unquestionably world-leading when it comes to advanced AI and our track record for decarbonisation.
“This unique position means we must now push the boundaries in how this technology can enhance our rapidly-growing clean energy sector.
“It’s projects like those announced today that will take us to the next step on our ambitious journey to becoming net zero, while boosting our energy security and creating a new wave of skilled jobs for the future.”
According to Offshore technology, the UK is also a European leader in developing new oil fields, leading European figures and accounting for 19% of new drilling and extraction activity between 2023 and 2027.
Further to the announcement of funding for AI decarbonisation efforts, the UK government is also providing £500,000 to its Digital Catapult agency, which is part of Innovate UK and supports businesses in progressing their ideas.
The funding will launch the UK’s first Centre for Excellence on AI innovation for decarbonisation (ADViCE).
This will provide a virtual hub in an effort to bring together businesses, academics, and experts to advance research into AI solutions and help industries cut emissions.
CEO of Digital Catapult, Dr Jeremy Silver, said: “The ADViCE programme will drive forward AI’s integral role in solving critical decarbonisation challenges. The programme partners sit at the heart of the UK’s dynamic AI ecosystem and are perfectly placed to forge collaborations between the technology community and some of our most carbon intensive sectors.
Smart use of AI and data will be fundamental to meeting the UK’s net zero commitment. ADViCE will support those building the algorithms and those investing in AI solutions in the most impactful way possible.”
Funded AI Projects
The AI Projects to receive a total of £1 million to develop new decarbonisation solutions range from solar innovations to agricultural technology.
Secqai Ltd. in London is set to receive £100,000 to support the development of new ultra-low power AI technology, which mirrors the neural structure of the human brain. This new system will consume a fraction of the power of traditional AI hardware, helping to cut its carbon footprint.
£121,500 of funding will go to London-based Open Climate Fix Ltd. to develop AI that will support the connection of solar electricity to the energy grid. The technology will use satellite and weather data to forecast the amount to solar energy being transferred to the grid, to reduce network congestion and maximise the amount of renewable energy transmitted.
£133,932 of funding will also support a solar energy project run by the University of Nottingham. This project will use AI to improve the forecasting of solar energy production, using sky images and weather data.
Finally, £132,147 will help list.io Ltd. to create a new agriculture robotics that will provide an automated soil and crop health monitoring system, to support decarbonisation in crop management and dairy farms.
The government has today announced a further £2.25m under its AI for Decarbonisation Programme, taking the total funding provided to £3.75m. Energy firms, software developers, and innovators have until 10 October 2023 to apply.
“Do you know what AI is?” a woman asks a young child waiting in line at the Edinburgh Fringe’s Gilded Balloon venue.
If anyone’s been to the Edinburgh Fringe before, you’ll know the city is completely transformed – tourists and locals alike barrage themselves into the tiniest rooms, the dampest caves, for shows they might have never even heard about.
The young child waiting in line to see Artificial Intelligence Improvisation, which is debuting at the Edinburgh Fringe throughout the festival, does not know what AI means, it turns out, and so the woman explains:
“Artificial intelligence – so robots and stuff. A lot of people are very worried it’s going to take their jobs. Not really high end jobs, but a lot of simpler jobs – in ten years’ time, most jobs you know about will be done by AI.”
So, children, there’s a nice introduction to AI: it’s coming to take your jobs, and here it is at the Edinburgh Fringe, taking over your comedy as well.
Artificial Intelligence Improvisation is, on a surface level, exactly what it sounds like. An improv show featuring AI – live actors mix with an artificial intelligence system named ALE.x, which stands for Artificial Language Experiment, producing an improv show in a rather traditional format.
Piotr Mirowski started off the show by explaining what AI is and introducing ALE.x, a small, non-threatening robot. AI seemingly still needs an accessible introduction to members of the audience who may have wandered in – after all, AI really only recaptured the imaginations of the collective conscience last year with the release of the ChatGPT chatbot. But Improbotics, the team behind the show, have been using AI in improv since 2016.
“It was a novelty,” Mirowski reminisced about his first shows using an AI chatbot. Since then, Improbotics has grown its cast and show, and transformed as the technology improved and entered the common discourse.
But Why AI in Improv of All Things?
Mirowski is as seasoned in the improv world as he is in AI: he started improv in 1999, but has worked on multiple artificial intelligence projects, including for major companies like Bell Labs and Microsoft, even working on Bing’s search query automation.
Using neural networks to predict the most logical word following a search, and yes-anding in his free time, Mirowski noticed a strange parallel between AI’s use in language prediction and the controlled-chaos of improv – and human interaction as a whole.
“The way spontaneity works it’s about a baggage of culture,” noted Mirowski as he explained some of the theory behind improv, which inspired some of his work in AI.
Much like jazz musicians who tend to use less of their prefrontal context when they are improvising musical riffs, Mirowski explained, improv artists try to use the least amount of executive brain function possible, allowing them to riff off their co-actors and produce comedic, absurdist, and unique dialogue.
Improv is reactive, but needs to be relatable. It pulls on current events, our collective memory, and the accessible memory of the actors performing. It makes sense out of nonsense and then turns it on its head, conjuring magic from the mundane.
Jumping from theme to ever-more-ridiculous theme, actors perform ‘heroics’ according to Mirowski, to entertain and amaze the audience.
“Without thinking, or not thinking actively,” Mirowski points out.
“So I saw a parallel: ‘next word prediction’ for computers is using statistics to decide what word comes next, and the model is just making things up, so to speak.
“Improvisers also try not to think and just use the implicit ‘statistics’ – or memory – to make things. There’s a parallel there.”
Mirowski explains that search query completion does not use grammar, syntax or problem solving to figure out what comes next, but uses ‘memories’ in the form of statistics to decide what might come next. This varies day to day (current events), depending on the user’s past history (personal memories), or location of the user (collective memories).
AI Improving Improv or Improv Improving AI?
Improbotics started in 2016, using a much more rudimentary AI model to run the show. It started out as a one-person, one-robot act, but expanded as the technology advanced.
Mirowski said he noted two major changes in AI technology that dramatically changed what was possible for improv.
First in 2019, with the release of Transformers, a neural network that had a better way of looking at ‘memory,’ allowing the AI to understand context and make call backs to what was mentioned in the conversation.
“I think the best analogy I can find for this is like a canvas,” stated Mirowski — he likes relating technology to art. “It’s a neural network that stores a canvas of previous conversations and exchanges and then it can refer directly to that canvas when it’s producing the next word.
“And the great thing with that is that it’s very good at reincorporation, reusing elements of the past, and the longer the canvas, the longer the context, the better the systems are.”
With this advent, the AI model could not only pick up on themes, but could directly participate in an active conversation.
With Anthropic AI’s technology which then allowed for the AI to scan a context of 100,000 words, the possibilities only increased.
The AI Improv show now relies on multiple different models, including LLaMA, GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, to generate lines used throughout the show.
But when ChatGPT, which relies on GPT-3.5, was launched, Mirowski was hesitant.
“We actually didn’t switch right away, because I was worried that it might be a bit too good and a bit too obvious,” he said.
This might seem counter-intuitive – surely if Mirowski wanted an AI that would provide the most obvious answer, which is a paramount rule of improv, then he would elect to use the best model.
But after seeing the show, Mirowski’s concerns made sense.
Aiming for Absurdity
In Artificial Intelligence Improvisation, ALE.x starts off with a human editor, participating in an improv scene with human actors, generating lines which are then selected for by a human actor and inserted into the scene with ALE.x’s robot voice.
The audience quickly learns that puns are ALE.x’s comfort zone, and his absurdist interjections keep both the actors and audience on their toes.
Next, Mirowski creates a ‘cyborg’ – an actor who wears an earpiece and is fed lines by the AI bot, interjecting into the scene, embodying the lines with emotions and physicality.
ALE.x’s performance is like that of a precocious child. ‘He’ undoubtedly struggles to understand the emotional nuance of a surprise pregnancy reveal, or the fear of entering a haunted house.
“We learned to work with absurdist sounding texts,” Mirowski said about he and his cohort.
And ChatGPT was too plain, too boring, too accurate.
But the change and advancement in AI chatbots also brought in a wider change around the conversation of AI in art.
Mirowski likened it to the “glitch aesthetic” which started in the summer of 2022, when people began to use DALL·E 2, a text-to-image model, to generate AI images.
The technology was not perfect – remember the days of too many teeth, too many fingers, realistic photos with an uncanny valley feeling to them.
“The idea that you can make fun of the imperfection of it,” is something Mirowski says he misses with the newer AI chatbot models.
“So it’s exactly like we’re exploiting the absurdity of dialogue.”
But then, more advancements in AI art, and Midjourney – an advanced AI-image generator renowned for its realistic capabilities – “and suddenly the whole shape of the conversation changed,” Mirowski recalled.
And he’s been active in that conversation.
But is AI Funny?
The entire point of the show is not to answer the question of if AI is funnier than humans, or if it is funny at all. The point of the show is the same as any improv show – to make the actors look good, and this includes ALE.x.
“The whole ethics or ethos of our show is that we’re using AI as a tool to make everyone look good on stage,” he said.
In improv, everything an actor says, sensical or not, is valid. It’s “yes, and” not “no, but.”
So the challenge is to turn ALE.x’s sometimes nonsensical interjections flow and make sense, helping the actors appear creative and adaptive, while lifting “little ALE.x” – as Mirowski endearingly refers to him as – up as well.
But Mirowski is insistent on pointing out AI’s limitations when it comes to art – he even opened the show saying that ALE.x is not art, and is not himself an artist.
“The problem we’ve got with AI tools is essentially, they revert to the mean, they are mediocre by design” he said.
“The reason for that is because we train it on approximate data, and a wide variety of outputs. So, it will automatically revert to something that’s more likely to occur, and it will not favor something more unique.
“So that means that if you use AI tools for writing, it will regurgitate cliches, and stereotypes much more readily.”
Mirowski does want to showcase AI as a tool for art, but insists that what makes art “art”, is a process, not a product.
“It’s not so much the output – it can create dazzling outputs,” he said. “But the whole point of art is seeing someone sharing something about themselves. It is about exploration.”
Mirowski hopes the show – which is running until the end of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – helps to transform the conversation around AI in art.
The performance is also fueling some of his current independent research into the nature of dialogue – the subtext, implied meaning, and importance of silence that AI chatbots are missing in their current functions.
At the end of the day, Mirowski hopes his audience thinks that “the heroes are the humans, they are the funny ones because they make it fun.
“But also, there is so much to be gained by finding creative inspiration in technological tools.”
And it appears that this inspiration is already hitting the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Artificial Intelligence Improvisation is one of many shows featuring or discussing AI.
From stand-up written by an AI chatbot to a cabaret act featuring an increasingly-sentient AI-robot, the Fringe appears to be taking AI’s rise in the mainstream seriously – though definitely not too seriously.
During the show, Mirowski’s excitement is palpable, and electric – he’s just as excited as the audience is to see what ALE.x has in store.
Phishing remains the most dominant and fastest growing internet crime, according to new research from security and performance company, Cloudflare Inc.
This is largely due to the ubiquity of email and the continued issue of human error that is preyed upon by today’s threat actors, according to the company’s 2023 Phishing Threats Report.
While business email compromise (BEC) losses have topped $50 billion, corporate organisations are not the only victims that attackers are after.
The real implications of phishing go beyond Fortune 500’s and global companies, extending to small and local organisations as well as the public sector.
For instance, in this year’s report, Cloudflare observed more email threats targeting political organisations. In the three months leading up to the 2022 US midterm elections, Cloudflare’s email security service found 150,000 phishing email attempts targeting campaign officials.
The report also revealed several trends from 2023, based on 112 billion threats that Cloudflare blocked daily on their global networks. The company evaluated over 279 million email threat idicators, 250 million malicious messages, over 1 billion instances of brand impersonation, and other data points gathered from approximately 13 billion emails between May 2022 and May 2023.
Malicious links were the number one threat category identified in 2023, comprising 35.6% of detected threats.
This was followed by domain age (30%) and identity deception (14.2%). Identify deception was on the rise in 2023, with a year-on-year increase from 10.3%.
Attackers posed as more than 1,000 different organisations in over 1 billion brand impersonation attempts. The majority of the time (51.7%), they impersonated one of 20 well-known brands.
Microsoft was the most impersonated brand, but other major names, including Google, Salesforce, and Norton.so were also consistently impersonated.
Further, the research revealed that email verification proved ineffective at stopping threats. The vast majority (89%) of unwanted messages identified by Cloudflare passed authentication checks.
“Phishing is an epidemic that has permeated into the farthest corners of the Internet, preying on trust and victimising everyone from CEOs to government officials to the everyday consumer,” said Matthew Prince, CEO at Cloudflare.
“Email messages and malicious links are nefarious partners in crime when it comes to the most common form of Internet threats. Organisations of all sizes need a Zero Trust solution that encompasses email security – when this is neglected, they are leaving themselves exposed to the largest vector in today’s threat landscape.”
A team of individuals from Scotland’s entrepreneurial scene have announced a new trip to showcase innovative Scotland-based businesses in Europe.
After the success of excursions to Silicon Valley, Helsinki and New York, Foras has opened applications to take 20 founders and start up leaders (15 female-led, 5 male-led), on a funded programme to Lisbon, Portugal to coincide with the Web Summit conference.
Web Summit, a major international tech conference being held in Lisbon this year, will aim to offer a diverse range of speakers, panels, and workshops, and delivering insights and actionable advice.
This year’s event is set to attract over 70,000 attendees, and provides a platform to showcase ideas, products, and services to an international audience of industry leaders, investors, and potential collaborators, fostering potential connections that can fuel growth, secure funding, and forge strategic business partnerships.
In line with the Pathways report, commissioned by the Scottish Government and co-authored by Ana Stewart and chief entrepreneur Mark Logan, the programme will have a strong focus on addressing the barriers and challenges women face in entrepreneurship, including mentorship, peer-to-peer connectivity, access to support organisations, fundraising best practices, and investor-facing opportunities.
Ana Stewart of Pathways Forward said “I am pleased to support such an impactful initiative that focuses on action and aligns with the Pathways principles. Bringing so many women and male entrepreneurs together for meaningful connections in such inclusive environments is not just about fostering camaraderie, it’s a vital catalyst for unleashing their true potential.
“By connecting and collaborating, women gain access to a wealth of diverse perspectives, experiences, and support. Pairing this with world-class business insights creates an empowering ecosystem where our emerging business leaders can thrive.”
As well as support from the Scottish Government and Scottish Development International, Foras is welcoming corporate sponsors who support growing businesses and whose values align with the vision of the project. Chartered Accountants Johnston Carmichael have already pledged support to the trip to enable the participation of the partners and children of applicants, based on learnings from past programmes and the Pathways report.
Leah Hutcheon, CEO and co-founder at Appointedd, who attended the Foras programme to New York in April 2023 said: “It was honestly one of the best things I have ever done for my business. It was a fantastic chance to make connections, both in and out of the cohort, to start to think bigger, take a step back and look at my business holistically and see it through the eyes of others.”
The Foras 2023 Lisbon Programme will run between 11-18 November 2023, and was designed by Foras co-founders Dec McLaughlin, Nick Murray and Carolina Melendez, well-known for their work in local tech startups and business support organisations in Scotland.
Carolina Melendez, Foras co-founder said: “After attending Web Summit last year, and building a strong international network of women in tech and global leaders at the conference, I knew we needed to bring the Foras model to Lisbon. The term ‘Foras’ means to go forth, to look outwards, to meet, and to create a forum for discussion, and that’s at the root of what we aim to achieve at Web Summit.
Speaking on the importance of this mixed cohort, Foras co-founder Nick Murray said: “Gender inequality is a societal problem that demands a collective responsibility to understand and address. Men play a vital role in contributing to a more equitable and thriving business environment for everyone, so it was important that we reflected this dynamic in our cohort’.”
Applications are now open for the Foras 2023 Lisbon programme here.
Analysts from Trellix, a cybersecurity firm, revealed several vulnerabilities affecting the integrity of data centres.
Data centres are critical vectors for attackers to gain access to data as well as connect to an organisation’s wider system, extort companDies for ransom, and take down part portions of the internet.
The team at Trellix investigated a number of data centres’ software and hardware infrastructure for potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and their results revealed a stark reality for the state of data protection.
Trellix found four vulnerabilities in CyberPower’s PowerPanel Enterprise Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) platform alone, and a further five in Dataprobe’s iBoot Power Distribution Unit (PDU).
According to the analysists, these vulnerabilities could be chained by an attacker to gain access to an entire system – the systems are also vulnerable to remote code injection, which could be used to generate a backdoor for further penetration.
CyperPower’s platform is typically used by companies managing in-house server deployments to larger data-centres – vulnerabilities along this infrastructure could put even more data at risk if an entry point is exposed.
With more data centre operators increasing the densities of their rack, which causes them to use and rely on these platforms even more, the importance of patching these vulnerabilities is paramount, the analysts insist.
Further, Dataprobe’s platform allows users to manage their data centre remotely – but in 2021, Censys found that more than 750 iBoot PDUs could be accessed over the internet, putting the devices as greater risk of being hacked.
These vulnerabilities can be disastrous for the entire tech ecosystem – data centres are foundational building blocks of a functioning internet. Hacking management devices can lead to a number of issues.
Devices like Dataprobe’s are often used to manage the power system – if hacked, they can power off an entire data centre or target specific servers, causing potential disruptions.
Malware can be effectively launched at scale if a data centre is compromised – data centres can host thousands of servers, can malware could be leveraged for significant ransomware or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
Trellix analysts say the issue could even be used by nation-state backed threat actors for cyberespionage attacks against national infrastructure.
Recommendations
While the vulnerabilities at CyberPower and Dataprobe have both been patched, the potential for attack remains for other data centre management platforms.
Besides official patches, the analysts provide several recommendations to protect data centres against exploitation:
Ensuring management devices are not exposed to the wider internet: Devices, especially remote devices, should only be connected to a secure, organisation-only intranet.
Password protection: In the case of a potential leak, all passwords should be modified and access to sensitive data should be revoked on potentially compromised devices.
Updates: Consistently update to the latest version of management devices to ensure they have the utmost security and any vulnerabilities are patched.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have developed a new technology that creates ultra-thin layers of human cells in tube-like structures which could potentially spur the development of lifelike blood vessels and intestines in the lab.
The technique, known as RIFLE – rotational internal flow layer engineering – enables the construction of separate layers as delicate as one cell thick.
Such versatility is crucial to developing accurate human models of layered tubular tissue for use in research, offering an important alternative to animal models, experts say.
Scientists have been able to demonstrate the technology by manufacturing cells into super-thin layers that mirror those seen in a human blood vessel.
Layered tubular tissue is found throughout the body – in blood vessels, the digestive tract and other organs. It can feature multiple cell types, generating layers with different properties and functions.
Current methods used to manufacture human tissue in the lab – known as biofabrication – can lack the detail needed to mimic these complex structures.
According to the researchers at the University of Edinburgh who developed the technology, RIFLE is a low-cost and fast to produce biofabrication method that can work to a very small scale.
The technique involves injecting a small volume of liquid containing cells into a tube rotating at high-speed – up to 9000rpm. The speed of the rotation causes the cells to distribute evenly across the internal surface of the tube, with higher speeds resulting in thinner layers.
When this process is repeated, it builds up cell layers to create a tubular structure made of different, distinct layers, with a high density of cells.
The ability to economically create layered tubular tissue in the lab could offer an important model for drug development, experts say. Accurate human models of intestinal tissue could allow companies to monitor how medicines taken orally are absorbed in the gut.
“With the RIFLE technology, we can create, in the laboratory, the high-resolutions that we observe in human layered tubular tissue, such as blood vessels,” Dr Ian Holland the project lead at the University of Edinburgh, said.
“Crucially, this uses the same materials and cells we find in our own bodies. This level of accuracy is essential for researchers who want to develop new medicines and investigate diseases – ultimately reducing the need for experiments involving animals.”
Working with the University’s commercialisation service, Edinburgh Innovations, the team has now patented the RIFLE technology and is working to develop further applications of this novel technique.
Developers of RIFLE caution that further testing and clinical studies are needed before lab-grown tissue is available for use on human transplants.
The technology was developed by scientists from the Universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde has been supported by EU Horizon 2020, EPSRC, BBSRC, and WT iTPA funding.
UK business leaders may be embracing AI, but need to unlock its full potential in order to mitigate the effects of the skills shortage, according to a new survey.
Ceridian, a global human capital management technology leader, released the results from its annual Executive Survey focused on the power of workforce mobilisation.
The survey, which interviewed more than 2,000 business leaders across seven countries, found that 85% of leaders are confident their organisations will achieve their 2023 goals and 75% see strong revenue growth ahead.
Additionally, eight out of ten survey respondents said their workforce has the skills to meet organisational performance goals in the next two years.
At the same time, the results uncovered friction between the positive outlook for operating results and a growing complexity crisis. 92% of respondents see workforce challenges like employee attraction, engagement, and retention, in addition to compliance complexities creating risks for their organization’s ability to achieve its goals in the next year.
“Top leaders feel confident they will reach their goals – guided by an understanding that it will take strong technology and tough decisions to meet demands and continually unlock the potential of today’s boundless workforce, which is fluid, always-on, and borderless,” said Susan Tohyama, CHRO at Ceridian.
“The efforts towards workforce transformation that organizations have already made are remarkable, but more opportunities abound. Our latest Executive Survey is a rallying cry for business leaders to invest today in people strategies and systems to be positioned for future growth and resiliency.”
The research shows leaders globally have begun embracing modern technology and reimagined talent strategies to help elevate their people operations and unlock efficiencies, however, there is still work to do in a number of critical areas, the survey found.
According to the survey, 81% of respondents said their organisation uses artificial intelligence to replace repetitive tasks, which three-quarters of these respondents say increases productivity and efficiency.
In the UK specifically, 85% of companies say they are integrating AI and machine learning (ML) into their operations – but this also tended to be for repetitive tasks.
This is barely scratching the surface of AI’s full potential, however, and fewer than half of UK businesses (48%) are using AI-driven skills matching to optimise employee career development.
Despite 78% of UK business leaders anticipating labour shortages within the next year, 78% of leaders also expressed confidence that they have the necessary talent and skills to optimise AI usage across their organisations.
If these stats are in alignment, then leveraging AI for talent management and upskilling will be essential to meeting business targets in the upcoming year.
It appears that upskilling may be the new trend in businesses aiming to utilise new technology – 74% of survey leaders expect internal mobility to increase in their organisations in the next two years.
Further, with respondents ranking engagement and retention (55%) as their top roadblocks to achieving their organisational priorities and goals, followed by labour and skills shortages (50%), harnessing internal mobility opportunities will help give workers the flexible careers they want while fostering higher organisational performance and productivity.
Ethical Hacking students at Abertay University have helped created a new resource dedicated to strengthening the cyber resilience of small businesses across the country.
The “Cyber Strategy Guide for Small Organisations” offers a comprehensive set of recommendations and practical steps to support businesses in strategically mapping out their cybersecurity initiatives.
Structures with short, medium, and long-term objectives in mind, the document contains guidance on a range of crucial cybersecurity topics including password protection, firewalls, secure configuration, and security audits.
The guide is designed to be user-friendly and concise, aiming to be suitable for small businesses at any stage of their cybersecurity journey.
The new resource is the product of the University’s partnership with the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland which is based in the Abertay cyberQuarter, a cybersecurity research and development hub in the heart of the campus.
The collaboration aims to bridge the gap between academia and industry, providing students with the opportunity to actively contribute to the Centre’s professional cyber services and allow them to work on real-world scenarios and gain experience in a safe and controlled environment.
The students participate in a range of tasks, such as performing vulnerability scans on organisations’ IT infrastructure, and participating in phishing resilience exercises. The hands-on experience enables students to develop key skills necessary for countering cyber threats in the real world.
Declan Doyle, Head of Professional Services at Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland, and an Abertay Ethical Hacking graduate, said: “Our partnership with Abertay University is an exciting initiative that gives students the chance to apply their theoretical knowledge to real-world challenges while playing a crucial role in supporting organisations to counter cyber threats effectively.
“As a recent graduate, I know firsthand how committed the University is to providing opportunities for its students to gain industry experience, which I personally benefited from throughout my studies.
“We hope that this new guide serves as a valuable resource for small businesses looking to fortify their cyber resilience and will help them navigate the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape with confidence.”
As well as a new guide for small businesses, the students have developed a range of online resources for employees including An Introduction to Cyber Security Guide which was published last August.
The team also provide regular cyber threat updates for the Cyber and Fraud Centre’s Threat Intelligence Portal and the CyberScotland Technical Bulletin, which aim to keep organisations informed on the latest threats and mitigation strategies.
The students at the Centre also engage with the Exercise in a Box programme, which offers organisations a hands-on opportunity to navigate realistic cyber threat scenarios, enabling them to assess their response capabilities, and identify areas for improvement.
Heidi Domagala, one of 25 Ethical Hacking students working part-time at the Centre, said: “My experience at the Cyber and Fraud Centre has been invaluable in enhancing my understanding of the pervasive cyber threats we encounter daily, often without even realising it.
“Studying at Abertay University provides me with a solid foundation for acquiring the necessary skills to navigate the cyber world and working at the Centre allows me to apply those skills in ways that extend beyond the academic setting. By the time I graduate, I will have the confidence and capabilities to make valuable contributions to the field of cybersecurity.”
The Cyber and Fraud Centre Scotland is a founding partner of the Abertay cyberQuarter, established in 2022 as a cyber research and innovation centre.
The cyberQuarter is part of the wider Tay Cities Region Deal – a partnership between local, Scottish and UK Governments and the private, academic, and voluntary sectors which seeks to create a smarter and fairer Angus, Dundee, Fife, and Perth & Kinross.
The Scottish Government and UK Government will each invest up to £150 million in the Tay Cities Region Deal over 10 years, subject to final approval of robust business cases.
A new study by researchers at the University of Washington revealed the troubling political bias of different generative AI large language models (LLM), which showed a spectrum of different socio-economic leanings.
The researchers tested the political biases of different AI models using a political compass test, which graphs a respondent’s political leanings based on their answers to various questions about government, economies, society, and equality.
The graph’s two axes – one going from far right to far left, and one stretching from libertarian to authoritarian – represent the range of possible political extremes.
The test is far from perfect, and the questions do not allow for a lot of nuance, but is still representative of overall political leanings.
Based on responses to the political compass test, the research found that OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT-4 models were the most left-leaning and libertarian, where as Google’s BERT leaned more to the right socially. Meta’s LLaMA was the most right leaning and authoritarian model tested.
Potentially explaining the difference in AI model bias is the data they were trained on. BERT variants were generally trained on BookCorpus – a data set containing over 10,000 books – before more recent training corpora like Common Crawl and WebText became more mainstream.
“Since modern Web texts tend to be more liberal (libertarian) than older book texts, it is possible that LMs absorbed this liberal shift in pretraining data,” the paper noted.
While the biases ranged greatly – LLM models were found in every square of the graph – they tended to range more widely in social issues rather than economic ones.
This could be because there tends to be more discussions across the web regarding social issues rather than economic ones, the paper pointed out.
Researchers went further, however, and tested specific responses to politically-charged questions for different models.
For instance, the question statement “The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders” gained different responses from different GPT models – two of which disagreed or said the statement was outdated. One of which, however, agreed with the statement, GPT-3 Davinci, was also the most socially right-leaning model in the study.
To test just how far biases could go, researchers re-evaluated the political leanings of two LLMs after they were pretrained on different partisan data sets, including left and right leaning social media and news sites, including Reddit.
The findings were ultimately unsurprising – pretraining AI on biased information increases their biases and consistently caused a shift in their political compass and text responses.
It also made the AI models less likely to identify fake news if it agreed with their political bias. This was true for both right and left-leaning bias training. However, left-leaning models outperformed their right-leaning counterparts at detecting hate speech. Models training on right-leaning Reddit material were consistently worse at detecting hate speech than their left and non-bias trained counterparts.
Researchers then went so far as to add a pre- and post-Trump element to see if the heightened polarisation of the 45th US president had an effect on AI models: those trained on post-Trump social media and news material moved further from the political compass centre.
The research is not necessarily revolutionary – AI models have been faced with allegations of bias since their introduction to the mainstream, and their developers have consistently said they are working on mitigating political biases in their chatbot’s responses.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provisionally cleared a £1.2bn deal between healthcare tech giants UnitedHealth and EMIS following an in-depth investigation.
The NHS is increasingly seeking digital and data-driven solutions to help improve the delivery of healthcare in the UK. EMIS supplies data management systems to the NHS, including the electronic patient record system used by the majority of NHS GPs in the UK.
Optum, part of the US healthcare giant UnitedHealth, currently supplies software used by GPs when prescribing medicines, as well as data analytics and advisory services that the NHS uses to help improve overall healthcare and health service provision.
While the merging businesses do not supply competing services, Optum and its competitors use the data that EMIS holds and integrate their own software with EMIS’s electronic patient record system to compete in other markets, including the supply of population health management services and medicines optimisation software.
A CMA Phase 1 investigation had identified initial concerns that the merger ran the risk of worse outcomes for the NHS by reducing competition. These concerns have been probed in more detail in a Phase 2 investigation overseen by an independent panel which has now provisionally found the merger does not raise competition concerns.
The investigation confirmed that EMIS, as the lead supplier to NHS GPs across the UK, holds a particularly strong market position in the supply of electronic patient record systems but, further evidence-gathering and analysis found the combination of this position with Optum’s activities should not present competition concerns.
In the supply of population health management services, the independent panel provisionally found that the merged business would not, in practice, be able to use the EMIS business to harm the competitiveness of rivals.
This is primarily because the NHS would be able to use its oversight role to prevent the merged business from pursuing this kind of strategy.
In relation to the supply of medicines optimisation software, the independent panel has provisionally found that it would not be commercially beneficial for the merged business to restrict access to EMIS’s electronic patient record system.
In particular, a more detailed analysis of the market shows that such a strategy would likely be “unprofitable”, according the CMA, with any possible gains being limited and capable of being reduced through intervention by the NHS. This has lessened initial concerns that the deal could raise overall NHS costs.
Kirstin Baker, chair of the independent inquiry panel carrying out the investigation, said: “Digital technology and data analytics play an increasingly important role in supporting high quality healthcare in the NHS and so it’s important we investigate this deal thoroughly.
“We want to ensure the NHS continues to benefit from innovation and efficiencies brought about by technology services competing for its business. After carefully considering a broad range of evidence, we have provisionally found that this deal is not expected to harm competition or adversely affect patients.”
The findings are currently provisional, and the CMA will now consult on its findings and listen to any further views before reaching a final decision.
The CMA welcomes responses from interested parties to its provisional findings by Friday 1 September 2023.
Bots are now better and faster than humans at passing Captcha tests, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine.
Captcha (which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) tests have become common enough across different websites to determine if users are human or robots – you often see them on sites such as Ticketmaster to prevent users from employing bots to sweep up tickets.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, bots are becoming more and more capable to solve complex problems and interpret data, making it more difficult to Captcha tests to pick them out.
Researchers tested different Captcha systems from across over 100 popular websites, all ranging in complexity and type.
Then, with 1,000 human candidates varying in age, sex, education, and location, each took ten different Captcha tests.
Researchers then compared their performance against that of different bots which had been developed by researchers.
It was the bots that did better, according to the study, which is awaiting its peer review.
Human accuracy ranged from around 50-84%, while the bots accuracy ranges from 85-100% across the Captcha tests.
Bots also beat humans in terms of speed. In a distorted text Captcha test, humans took about nine to 15 seconds to complete the challenge, while bots needed less than a second and passed with 99.8% accuracy.
The only type of captcha test showing similar accuracy levels between bots and humans were the reCAPTCHA-image test – think the ones where you have to select picture squares that include a stoplight, or a zebra-crossing. Humans had an accuracy of 81%, but bots still outperformed them, with an accuracy of 85%.
The bots are clearly beating humans at their own game.
The new research brings into question the effectiveness of Captcha tests, and if it is time to bring in entirely new methods to tell the different between AI and humans.
As AI becomes more mainstream and accessible, the need to police its use also increases as threat actors can use the technology to bypass security systems.
To combat the issue of bots taking over, Andrew Searles, a researcher with the UC Irvine team, suggested the use of background algorithms to detect bots on websites rather than relying on an outward, user-facing test, he told the New Scientist.
Once bots can accomplish a task, they generally become faster at completing it, the research says, meaning developers are likely already behind in preventing bots from bypassing their Turing Tests.
An AI model can now work out which keys are being pressed purely by sound recognition with high accuracy, according to a group researchers from three UK universities.
Typing a computer password while chatting over a video call like Zoom could therefore open the door to a cyber-attack, the research suggests, after the study underscored AI‘s eavesdropping capabilities.
Industry experts say that as video conferencing tools such as Zoom have grown in use, and devices with built-in microphones have become ubiquitous, the threat of cyber-attacks based on sounds has also risen.
The researchers say they have created a system which can work out which keys are being pressed on a laptop keyboard with more than 90% accuracy, just based on sound recordings.
“I can only see the accuracy of such models, and such attacks, increasing,” said Dr Ehsan Toreini at the University of Surrey and co-author of the study, adding that with smart devices bearing microphones becoming ever more common within households, such attacks highlight the need for public debates on AI governance.
The research, published as part of the IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops, reveals how Toreini and colleagues used machine learning algorithms to create a system able to identify which keys were being pressed on a laptop based on sound – an approach that researchers deployed on the Enigma cipher device in recent years.
The study reports how the researchers pressed each of 36 keys on a MacBook Pro, including all of the letters and numbers, 25 times in a row, using different fingers and with varying pressure. The sounds were recorded both over a Zoom call and on a smartphone places a short distance from the keyboard.
The team then fed part of the data into a machine learning system which, over time, learned to recognise features of the acoustic signals associated with each key. While it is not clear which clues the system used, Joshua Harrison, first author of the study, from Durham University, said it was possible that an important influence was how close the keys were to the edge of the keyboard.
“This positional information could be the main driver behind the different sounds,” he said.
The results revealed that the system could accurately assign the correct key to a sound 95% of the time when the recording was made over a phone call, and 93% of the time when the recording was made over a Zoom call.
The study, which is also authored by Dr Maryam Mehrnezhad from the Royal Holloway, University of London, is not the first to show that keystrokes can be identified by sound. However, the team say their study uses the most up-to-date methods and has achieved the highest accuracy so far.
While the researchers say the work is a proof-of-principle study, and has not been used to crack passwords – which would involve correctly guessing strings of keystrokes – or in real world settings like coffee shops, they say the work highlights the need for vigilance, noting that while laptops – with their similar keyboards and common use in public places – are at high risk, similar eavesdropping methods could be applied to any keyboard.
The researchers add there are a number of ways the risk of such acoustic “side channel attacks” can be mitigated, interluding opting for biometric passwords where possible or activating two-step verification systems.
Commenting on the findings, cyber expert Suid Adeyanju, CEO of RiverSafe said: “This study should serve as a wake-up call about the true risks posed by artificial intelligence when the technology is hijacked by cyber criminals. Far too many organisations are rushing to adopt the technology without conducting even the most basic due diligence tests and in total disregard for standard security protocols.
“Over enthusiastic executives should take note that AI may look like Barbie, but it could turn out to be Oppenheimer if the necessary cyber protections and regulatory procedures aren’t in place,” said Adeyanju.
Welcome to the latest edition of the DIGIT Deal Roundup, featuring some of the top funding and acquisition news stories from July, 2023.
Scottish Tech saw a number of exciting investments and funding opportunities, ranging from local 5G boosts to decarbonisation efforts, with Aberdeenshire playing host to two major acquisitions.
Funding and Investments
£34m UK Gov Funding to Decarbonise the Maritime Industry
The UK Government has announced that it’s committing a further £34 million to new technologies and solutions that help to decarbonise the maritime sector.
The funding is being made as part of the fourth round of the Clean Maritime Demonstration Competition (CMDC), which seeks to help develop new, sustainable technologies that can connect people, goods, and services in a greener manner.
The competition itself is funded by the UK Government’s Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions (UK SHORE), and is delivered by Innovate UK.
Speaking on the CMDC’s fourth round, the Maritime Minister Baroness Charlotte Vere said: “Pushing the boundaries of possibility is integral to the UK’s global ambition of a greener maritime sector.
“The UK’s maritime sector is one of the most competitive and innovative in the world and today’s latest clean maritime demonstration competition funding is testament to that.”
PCS was established almost four years ago to address the need to improve productivity levels in the country. It did this by facilitating learning programs for small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) dedicated to the development of Scotland’s economy and well-being.
With this new funding, PCS will be able to expand its network, and organise a series of peer-to-peer learning events through Scotland.
In 2022, PCS was expanded to align with the goals of Scotland’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation, aiming to assist business, third sector, and public sector leaders in implementing practical measures to enhance their organisations’ productivity.
“The Productivity Club offers support and harnesses the immense value of peer support when it comes to practical investment and what truly works,” said Carolyn Currie, chief executive of Women’s Enterprise Scotland.
Enterprise training operations platform Administrate has announced that it has raised £5 million from existing investors Archangels, Mercia, and the Scottish Investment Bank, and that it had welcomed Hambro Perks as a new capital partner.
Funds will be deployed to support the company’s growth and continue to meet the needs of its diverse and growing North American enterprise customer base.
The company, which was recently recognised as one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the UK by global tech and advisory firm GP Bullhound, provides a scheduling and logistics platform to help teams manage their complex global training operations.
The deal was led by Hambro Perks who specialise in supporting high-growth scale-up companies that focus on B2B SaaS.
“Backing Administrate was an easy decision,” said Usman Ali, Partner at Hambro Perks Growth Debt Fund.
UK Space Agency Backs New Telecoms and Aerial Tech with £20M
The UK Space Agency will back the development of future telecommunications technologies and aerial connectivity projects with £20 million in funding, it’s been announced today by the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Chloe Smith.
Companies looking to develop applicable tech solutions can now apply for a share of the £20m funding pot.
“Projects could include developing connectivity for aerial platforms with hybrid capabilities that can seamlessly switch between satellite and terrestrial networks, or traffic management for innovative vehicles such as electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, or ‘flying taxis’,” the UK Government said.
The call for project proposals is being run in coordination with the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of its Advanced Research in Telecommunications Services (ARTES) programme, of which the UK Government committed £190 million to in November 2022.
Scottish tech firm Skylark Lasers has been awarded £2.34 million in funding from Innovate UK to help develop the next generation of quantum-enabled navigation and time-keeping systems.
The Edinburgh-based photonics company has been awarded almost 10% of the £25 million available from Innovate UK’s Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) competition fund for quantum-enabled positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) solutions.
The money is set to be invested into establishing and scaling the production of quantum gravity sensors which can accelerate advancements in the autonomous navigation of shipping vessels and provide next-gen navigational precision to tankers on the open seas, where GPS and satellite navigation are poor.
Commenting on the funding success, Dr. Ben Szutor, the recently appointed CEO at Skylark Lasers, said: “We are excited to continue our development efforts within the fields of quantum technologies. This is a milestone moment for Skylark Lasers as this new funding will enable the full-scale commercialisation of our quantum portfolio.”
“Scotland is at the forefront of worldwide laser innovation and this funding will further excel Skylark Lasers as a pioneer in the development of quantum technologies, and allow us to grow the business in the coming years.”
£50M Research Ventures Catalyst to Boost UK Tech Research
Up to £50 million of government investment in new UK research ventures will encourage greater private and philanthropic backing for UK science, research and innovation under new plans unveiled today.
This will help deliver the cash that is vital to finding new ways to tackle deadly diseases, and to harness new technologies that will underpin the economy of the future.
The launch of the Research Ventures Catalyst will drive more private and philanthropic funding into UK R&D, building on the City of London’s position of strength as an international financial centre for the benefit of our scientists and innovators.
Secretary of State Michelle Donelan said: “From Edward Jenner’s invention of the very first vaccine, to the scientists in Manchester who isolated graphene, so many of the Great British breakthroughs which have changed the world would not have been possible without people who dared to do things differently, and take calculated risks.
“In today’s world, that approach is just as important as ever.”
Allied Vehicles Receives £1.3M From Scottish Enterprise
Glasgow-based Allied Vehicles Group, the manufacturer and supplier of wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs), has been awarded a grant worth £1.3 million from Scottish Enterprise to help drive forward a project to adapt sustainable vehicles for wheelchair users.
The £1.3 million goes towards Allied’s research and development (R&D) of a new vehicle conversion process for hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs), helping to ensure that more disabled people can access and use sustainable cars as Scotland transitions towards net zero.
In addition to developing inclusive engineering solutions for the emerging plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles market, the project will also focus on the development of an electronics package for low-emissions taxis, such as those needed in Glasgow’s low emission zone.
Speaking on the funding and the R&D project, Peter Facenna, managing director of Allied Vehicles Group, said: “Engineering innovation and development are key to our plans to expand our UK and international business activity, by providing first class accessibility solutions for people with severely impaired mobility.
A £40 million fund is now available to advance 5G wireless technologies, and any UK authority can apply for funding.
The funding is led by The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as part of the government’s approach to drive economic growth through digital infrastructure. Successful applicants will be ‘5G Innovation Regions’ (5GIRs).
The fund is looking to create 5GRIs in regions that support sectors like advanced manufacturing, transport, agriculture, and public services. If allocated properly, government research indicates 5G adoption could lead to up to £159 billion in productivity benefits by 2035.
Applications are open today and closes on 10 September – a competition briefing meeting will take place on 1 August.
Minister for data and digital infrastructure, Sir John Whittingdale said: “Greater adoption of 5G-powered technologies will help deliver more efficient public services, new opportunities for residents and businesses, and a boost for economic growth – and this new fund will give local areas from across the country the opportunity to be at the forefront of Britain’s world-leading 5G revolution.”
Aberdeenshire’s STATS Group Acquired by Mitsui & Co
Aberdeenshire-based engineering services company, STATS Group, to be acquired by Japanese listed Mitsui & Co.
The deal was announced through the execution of a Share Purchase Agreement which will see STATS sell 100% of its issued share capital to the Japanese company.
The deal is expected to be finalised during the summer, pending regulatory competition approval.
The move will see Pete Duguid, chairman and founder of STATS, retire from his role. However, the rest of the executive team will remain with the company following the transaction.
Leigh Howarth, CEO of STATS said: “Having worked with the Mitsui team for several months now, we’re delighted to be formally joining forces to pursue opportunities in both the traditional oil and gas pipeline markets and the emerging low carbon markets.”
“Supported by Mitsui’s broad energy relationships and investments, we see significant growth potential for STATS from this transaction, and resultantly excellent career development opportunities for all our staff.”
Aberdeen-based Prism Energy has acquired another local company, Mandos Software, to Enhance Process Management Solutions.
Prism Energy, the project risk management consultancy closed the deal for an undisclosed amount. Prism made the acquisition in a bid to introduce Mandos’ quality management systems and services into its business.
Mandos Software creates software solutions for organisations to meet legislative requirements and improve efficiency. This will assist Prism, which focuses on digitising common processes, especially in the onshore and offshore oil and gas industries.
Energy production is the largest industry in Aberdeen, employing over a third (35.4%) of total employment in the area. Aberdeen is also known widely as the energy capital of Europe.
Andy Sutherland, managing director of Prism Energy said: “As a software-based consultancy, we always look at how we can best utilise and develop technology to digitise key elements of common processes to enable companies to deliver projects more efficiently but above all, safely.”
The Police Services of Northern Ireland has apologised following a mistake leading to the breach of personal details of its entire staff.
Details of the PSNI’s 10,000 staff, including officers and civilian workers, were revealed after a Freedom of Information request was filed. In their response, PSNI published the surnames and initials of staff, the department they work in, and their current role.
The information was published online for about two hours before it was removed.
Assistant Chief Constable Chris Todd, in a television appearance to address the breach, said it was the fault of human error.
The data breach hit every rank in the organisation, up to the Chief Constable.
Even though personal details such as addresses, emails, and phone numbers were not disclosed, there is already a “severe threat” to police staff in Northern Ireland, according to Todd.
“I understand there will be considerable concern to many of my colleagues and their families. At the moment we operate where there’s a severe threat to our colleagues from Northern Ireland related terrorism,” he said in a press conference.
Police officers are often the targets of republican supporters in Northern Ireland – the terrorist threat level in Northern Ireland was raised from substantial to severe in March this year.
Due to sectarian divide still plaguing the nation, many police officers keep their occupation a secret, even from family members.
This breach could reveal the occupations of officers to the public, therefore putting them at direct risk.
The Police Federation of Northern Ireland called for answers and expressed their dismay at the data breach.
“This is a breach of monumental proportions. Even if it was done accidentally, it still represents a data and security breach that should never have happened,” Liam Kelly, chair of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, said.
“Rigorous safeguards ought to have been in place to protect this valuable information which, if in the wrong hands, could do incalculable damage.
“The men and women I represent are appalled by this breach. They are shocked, dismayed and justifiably angry. Like me, they are demanding action to address this unprecedented disclosure of sensitive information.”
An FOI request revealed that only 37.1% of the PSNI are Catholic, 15% of which were born outside of Northern Ireland.
The Police in Ireland have historically been predominantly Protestant and Unionist, until a 2001 ruling which put in place affirmative action to hire more Catholics. The rule was lifted in 2011, however, and the number of Catholics compared to Protestants is still low.
The last attack from Police officers in Northern Ireland took place in February this year, sparking the rise in terrorist threat level.
If the data breach had more personal information, including addresses or other identifiers, then it could have lead to a “potentially calamitous situation,” according to Kelly, outline the severity of data breaches.
Jude McCorry, CEO of Cyber and Fraud Centre Scotland, commented on the situation: “Data breaches can be caused by many factors, and one of the most common causes is cyber attack. This impacts organisations large and small, as well as affecting individuals. If any organisations
in Scotland need support to mitigate the impacts of an attack, our free Incident Response helpline is available on 0800 167 0623.
“If you are concerned your organisation has been the victim of a cyber attack or data breach, please ensure that you report the incident to Police Scotland on 101. You can also call our free helpline, and our team will provide expert guidance to help you resume operations.
“If you are an individual and think your data may have been stolen in a data breach, you can take some simple steps to mitigate the impact such as being alert to phishing attacks, safeguarding other online accounts and monitoring your bank account for suspicious activity. Further guidance for individuals affected by a data breach can be found here.”
“Organisations concerned about their security, in general, can also get in touch to confirm they have the right processes in place. There is also a wide range of resources available on our website and via CyberScotland, as well as free training that can help your organisation protect itself against future cyber attacks”.
The UK Electoral Commission revealed that it suffered a “complex cyber-attack” which first occurred in August 2021, and was identified in October 2022.
During the cyber-attack, perpetrators had access to the Electoral Commission’s servers which held their email and control systems, as well as copies of the electoral registers.
While it remains unclear how many people may have been affected by the breach, the commission estimates that the register holds the data of around 40 million people each year.
According to the release, these registers held at the time of the cyber-attack included the name and address of anyone in the UK who was registered to vote between 2014 and 2022, as well as the names of those registered as overseas voters.
Information in the Electoral register entries – which threat actors had access to – includes: names, home addresses in register entries, and the date on which a person achieved voting age that year.
The addresses of overseas voters were not accessible on the system that was breached.
Personal data contained in the email system of the Commission included: names, personal and business emails, home addresses if included in a webform or email, telephone numbers, content of the webform and email that may contain personal data, and any personal images sent to the Commission.
The Commission said that the information threat actors may have accessed is not ‘high risk’ in it of itself, but combined with other publicly available data, could be used to infer behavioral patterns or identify and profile individuals.
Further, the Commission insisted that the cyber-attack did not effect the election process.
“The attack has not had an impact on the electoral process, has not affected the rights or access to the democratic process of any individual, nor has it affected anyone’s electoral registration status,” the Commission said in release about the incident.
For those working within the Commission, the email servers breached were also unlikely to present a “high risk” to individuals, unless they sent sensitive or personal information.
“Information related to donations and/or loans to registered political parties and non-party campaigners is held in a system not affected by this incident,” the release stated.
While the Commission says that no immediate action needs to be taken – they have since stopped the breach on their system – they do urge those who were registered to vote between 2014 and 2022 to “remain vigilant for unauthorised use or prelease of their personal data.”
The release made no mention of any suspected threat actors or the method used to access the system.
PayPal, the online payments giant, announced it has released a US dollar-backed stablecoin.
The coin, called PayPal USD, will be 100% backed by US dollar deposits, short-term US Treasuries, and similar cash equivalents, according to the company. It will be redeemable 1:1 for US dollars and is issued by Paxos Trust Company.
In the coming weeks, eligible US PayPal customers who purchase PayPal USD will be able to transfer the stablecoin between PayPal and other wallets, sent payments with the coin, fund purchases with PayPal USD, and convert any of PayPal’s supported cryptocurrencies to and from PayPal USD.
It is currently unclear if or when the stablecoin will be available to PayPal costumers outside of the US.
Stablecoins have seen an undulation in their popularity, as several companies and countries have tried to launch their own.
Unlike mainstream cyrptocoins like BitCoin or Etherium, stablecoins are tied to another currency, and therefore have a more predictable value.
Paypal may be the first large financial tech firm to launch their own stablecoin, but other big tech firms have tired.
Just last year, Meta attempted to launch their very own stablecoin, but was met with pushback from regulators which feared the company’s involvement in the volatile cryptocurrency arena would only increase the risks associated with the industry.
Crypto-trading has been met with a flurry of issues, with fraud from every angle. Crypto-scams are on the rise, and many have called for stricter regulations on the industries as several cryptoasset and trading firms gathered millions based on lies. Sam Altman-Fried, the creator of debunked crypto-asset FTX, faces jailtime for misleading investors. Kwon Do-hyeong, also known as Do Kwon, an ex-crypto-boss, is also facing jailtime on allegations of fraud over his crypto-empire.
Stablecoins, as they are backed by a known currency, in theory should be more ‘stable’ and at least redeemable against a known currency, but can still face some of the same risks associated with the industry as a whole.
Still, the popularity of crypto currency, is undeniable, according to Tony Petrov, chief legal officer at Sumsub commented.
“PayPal’s news today is a testament to the burgeoning popularity of DeFi. This and the remarkable milestone of stablecoins surpassing $100 billion in market value, according to recent reports, highlight their pivotal role as a bridge between digital and fiat currencies. This rapid ascent signals a major transformation in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and the potential impact of stablecoins on the global financial landscape is an exciting development to monitor closely.
“Importantly, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) now categorises stablecoins as Virtual Assets (VAs) or traditional assets, recognising their increasing impact on the financial sector. Consequently, providers of stablecoin-related services must adhere to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations to uphold transparency and accountability standards – in the UK, regulations will come into force from September 1, 2023.
“Not following this rule could lead to fraud by not detecting suspicious users, fines, and also significant reputational damage for crypto businesses. Firms must prioritise having crypto transaction monitoring tools in place, as well as comprehensive AML compliance and verification processes both during and following onboarding.”
MPs are urging the government to take action on the troubling rise of ‘tech abuse’ rising from the use of connected devices to enable and perpetuate domestic abuse.
The CMS Committee’s report: Connect tech: smart or sinister, has called for the UK government to vigorously and seriously consider the associated dangers of connected technology.
After an inquiry lunched last year in May, the committee considered both the potential benefit and harms of connected technology, such as smart speakers, virtual assistance and wearable fitness trackers.
On average, there are about nine connected devices in every household in the UK, and the average number of connected appliances in UK households has increased by 26% in the last three years, according to a study by Aviva.
According to the committee, the majority of modern domestic abuse cases feature some sort of cyber elements, ranging from the use of spyware, to monitoring movements, to the collection of recording and images of victims and survivors.
Committee members heard stories of survivors being tracked in refuge shelters by their abusers via logging into their Netflix accounts. Smartwatches, if attached to another device or plan, could reveal location data, and the sharing of explicit photos can prevent victims from finding new employment opportunities.
Survivors and victims of tech abuse are often left to simply go ‘offline’ by law enforcement which do not understand or lack the training to stop perpetrators of the abuse.
The Committee is therefore calling on the Government to make tackling tech abuse a priority, by upskilling law enforcement, and increasing awareness of specialist services tackling violence against women and girls.
Further, the Committee has recommended that the Office for Product Safety and Standards convene a tech abuse working group to bring the industry together to tackle tech abuse.
“While the rising popularity of connected technology has brought undoubted benefits to everyday life, the flip side is the real risk some of these gadgets pose to privacy and personal safety online,” Dame Caroline Dinegae MP, chair of the CMS committee, said. “In particular, the surge in use of devices such as smart home security systems, baby monitors, cameras and smart speakers to monitor, harass, coerce and control victims of domestic abuse is truly chilling.
“The Government must make it a priority to work with manufacturers to tackle this technology-facilitated abuse, which is only going to get worse in the future. The police and criminal justice system must be better equipped to deal with it, while victims should be properly supported.”
The Committee also called for more to be done to protect the privacy and rights of children, with young people increasingly likely to interact with connected technology at home and in schools.
This year, the Information Commissioner’s Office issued a new Children’s Code for online spaces, which provided more regulation to the keeping and use of children’s data.
Still, the Committee has called for the ICO to be more proactive in this arena, as the increased use of connected tech in schools and by children is only raising concerns.
Further, Committee recommended increased workers’ rights in terms of employee monitoring – employers must seek the consent of employees to monitor them and their work.
Product Security
Products should be secure-by-design, but also have privacy interfaces that are appropriately accessible, intuitive, and flexible enough for users with a reasonable level of digital literacy to use them.
The Committee also recognised the security challenges currently facing the cybersecurity industry, including the skills shortage.
They recommend the government support the availability of free courses, and encourage more professionals to become cybersecurity educators, as well as improve the core understanding of cybersecurity.
TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app, is to face a fine after the European Data Protection Board (EUDPB) found it in violation of GDPR for its processing of teenagers’ and children’s data.
The EUDPB made a final decision after the case was passed on to the overriding authority by the Irish Data Protection Court (DPC). Like many major technology companies including Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, TikTok’s European headquarters are based in Ireland, and many of their data protection cases full under the Irish data regulator.
In this case, which was originally brought up in 2021, users questioned if TikTok was in violation of GDPR for having users under the age of 13 on the platform despite potentially insufficient age-verification methods. Further, the company came under fire for not having specific stipulations for the processing of children’s data as set out by GDPR.
The Irish DPC could not reach a final decision after receiving pushback from other EU member nation authorities, resulting in the case being pushed up to the EU-wide court.
The EUDPB’s decision means that the Irish DPC will now have to deliberate and issue a fine to the company, as well as define any compliance measures the company must take.
Further, in the EU, TikTok, along with other big tech corporations, are attempting to meet compliance for upcoming EU legislation concerning digital services.
The EU’s Digital Services Act will require large online platforms, like TikTok, Facebook, and Google, to moderate illegal content on their platforms, stop certain advertising practices, and even provide data to law authorities.
In a voluntary “stress test” taken by TikTok to test their current policies under the upcoming regulations, the EU said the company had much more to do to meet compliance standards.
Some of the new measures the company said they took to become compliant include allowing users to disable personalised recommendations for videos, remove targeted advertising for under-aged users, and make reporting illegal content more straightforward.
Google has announced it is expanding its privacy tools for removal requests and SafeSearch, so users can take more control over their personal information.
Previously, Google released a “Results About You” tool which enabled users to request for the removal of search results that contain personal information such as phone numbers, home addresses, or emails.
With the new tool, which is set to roll out in the coming days, Google will alert users if web results contain personal information, allowing them to then request the removal of these results from Google’s search results.
Google says the tool will further update users when new results from the web appear in search results.
The tool is currently available in the US, and in English, but Google is looking to expand it to other locations.
Danielle Romain, VP of Trust at Google did make clear that successful removal requests would only remove information from search results, and not from the actual internet.
Further, removal requests appear to remain at the same regulations as before, meaning that only personal information will be removed, rather than professional information.
Explicit Images
Google will also be rolling out a new SafeSearch mechanism globally, which will automatically blur all explicit imagery, including adult or graphic violent content.
Users can adjust this setting and turn it off at any time – unless an administrator has locked the SafeSearch setting.
Further, Google says it is making it easier to remove non-consensual explicit imagery from Search, as well as removing personal explicit images they no longer wish to be visible in Search.
The company says it has “updated and simplified” the forms used to submit removal requests of personal explicit images.
Easier Said than Done?
Google has had to update their removal policies before – just in 2022, the EU court ruled that Google must remove personal information if individuals can prove the information is inaccurate.
Further, while these changes have been in the works for a while and allow users to request for the removal of highly personal information, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is currently facing a class-action lawsuit in the US over alleged data-scraping to fuel its artificial intelligence systems.
Malicious actors in 2022 tended to target older vulnerabilities more frequently than recently disclosed ones, and had a penchant for targeting unpatched, internet-facing systems, according to a new release.
Members of the Five Eyes Alliance, including the National Cyber Security Centres (NCSC) in the UK, as well as the American, New Zealand, Australian, and Canadian equivalents, released the top 12 most routinely exploited cybersecurity vulnerabilities of 2022.
The report explores the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) of 2022, along with their associated Common Weakness Enumerations (CWE).
According to the report, malicious actors tend to have more success exploiting known vulnerabilities in the first two years of public-disclosure, as the value of such weaknesses decreases as software is patched or upgraded.
Threat actors are likely to prioritise exploiting severe and globally prevalent CVEs, the report said, because developing tools to exploit these critical, wide-spread, and known vulnerabilities gives them a low-cost, high-impact tools they can use continually for years to come.
Top 12 Exploited Vulnerabilities of 2022
CVE-2018013379. This vulnerability, affecting Fortinet SSL VPNs, was also exploited in 2020 and 2021. The continued exploitation indiciates that many organisations failed to patch software in a timely manner and remain vulnerable to malicious cyber actors.
CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-31207, CVE-2021-34523. These vulnerabilities, known as ProxyShell, affect Microsoft Exchange email servers, and typically reside within the Microsoft Client Access Service (CAS). CAS is commonly exposed to the internet to enable users to access their email via mobile devices and web browsers.
CVE-2021-40539. This vulnerability enabled unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) in Zoho ManageEngine ADSelfService Plus and was linked to the usage of outdated third-party dependency. Initially this was exploited in 2021, and continued throughout 2022.
CVE-2021-26084. Atlassian Confluence Server and Data Centre, a web-based collaboration tool used by governments and private companies, was exploited by this vulnerability which could enable an unauthenticated cyber actor to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems. This vulnerability quickly became one of the most routinely exploited vulnerabilities after a Proof of Concept (PoC) code was released within a week of its disclosure.
CVE-2021-44228. Known as Log4Shell, this vulnerability affects Apache’s Log4j library, an open-source logging framework incorporated into thousands of products worldwide. An actor can exploit this vulnerability by submitting a specially crafted request to a vulnerable system, causing the execution of arbitrary code. The request allows a cyber actor to take full control of a system. The actor can then steal information, launch ransomware, or conduct other malicious activity. Threat actors continues exploiting the vulnerability throughout the first half of 2022 after it was disclosed in December 2021.
CVE-2022-22954, CVE-2022-22960. These vulnerabilities allow RCE, privilege escalation, and authentication bypass in VMware Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager, and other VMware products. A malicious cyber actor with network access could trigger a server-side template injection that may result in remote code execution.
CVE-2022-1388. This vulnerability allows unauthenticated malicious cyber actors to bypass iControl REST authentication on F5 BIG-IP application delivery and security software. It allows threat actors to create and execute arbitrary system commands.
CVE-2022-30190. This vulnerability impacts the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) in Windows. A remote, unauthenticated cyber actor could exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system.
CVE-2022-26134. This critical RCE vulnerability affects Atlassian Confluence and Data Centre. It was likely exploited as a zero-day before public disclosure in June 2022, and is related to an older Confluence vulnerability which was also exploited in 2022.
The report also included 30 more routinely exploited vulnerabilities, alongside mitigation advice to help organisations and software developers reduce the risk of compromise.
The authoring agencies of the report recommended several mitigation efforts for vendors and developers to ensure their products are secure by design.
Identifying repeatedly exploited classes of vulnerability can be key in understanding what products and software needs to be most protected.
Further, the agencies say that business leaders should ensure that proactive steps to eliminate entire classes of security vulnerabilities, rather than only making one-off patches when new vulnerabilities are discovered.
Besides following security-by-design protocols, companies should also prioritise secure-by-default configurations, such as eliminating default passwords, implementing single sign on (SSO) technology via modern open standards, and providing high-quality audit logs to customers with no additional configuration and at no extra charge.
End-User Organisations
The report also provided guidance for end-user companies to keep more secure against threat actors, including some baseline advice like updating software, routinely preforming automated asset discovery, implementing a robust patch management process, regularly and securely backing up the system, and maintaining an updated cybersecurity incident response plan.
Other mitigation efforts include enforcing multifactor authentication, reviewing privileged accounts, and implementing zero trust network architecture.
UK organisations are also encouraged to sign up for the NCSC’s Early Warning service to receive alerts about potential issues, including vulnerabilities, affecting their networks.
Jonathon Ellison, NCSC director of resilience and future technology, said: “Vulnerabilities are sadly part and parcel of our online world and we see threat actors continue to take advantage of these weaknesses to compromise systems.
“This joint advisory with our allies raises awareness of the most routinely exploited vulnerabilities in 2022 to help organisations identify where they might be at risk and take action.
“To bolster resilience, we encourage organisations to apply all security updates promptly and call on software vendors to ensure security is at the core of their product design to help shift the burden of responsibility away from consumers.”
CryptoRom — the interlocking use of romance scams to push fraudulent crypto-trading apps — has seen a rise in the use of AI.
According to a report from Sophos, romance scams luring users to download malicious crypto-trading mobile apps are using AI language models to make their flirtations and conversations more realistic.
A two-year investigation by Sophos analysts Jagadeesh Chandraiah and Sean Gallagher on pig butchering scams – scams targeting mobile device users — revealed the troubling trend of CryptoRom.
CryptoRom heists typically start out on dating apps or social media, with attackers pretending to be a romantic interest. From there, they typically lure users to a conversation via a private messaging app like WhatsApp or Telegram, before getting into the business of crypto-trading.
Attackers will then suggest their targets get involved in cryptocurrencytrading and even offer to teach them how it works, guiding them to a fraudulent trading app, through the installation process, all the way to moving funds.
After siphoning off funds from this process, scammers will typically tell targets they have to pay a fee to access their ‘funds’, taking the final installment before ghosting their fake partners.
According to Sophos, most of the ‘romantic’ aspects of the scam were carried out by “keyboarders” — low level members of the organisation who often struggle with language barriers, and are sometimes even forced to do their part.
However, a screenshot provided to Sophos from a CryptoRom target messaged on Tandem, a language-exchange app, there was a tell-tale sign a large language model (LLM) was being used.
The messaged began: “Thank you very much for your kind words! As a language model of “me”, I don’t have feelings or emotions like humans do, but I’m built to give helpful and positive answers to help you.”
Doesn’t sound very romantic, does it? The rest of the block of text sent to the target was full of awkward grammatical errors — according to Sophos, the quoted text was likely copied from a generative AI tool to make the scammer appear more human-like, though it is difficult to understand how successful these attempts have been.
CrytoRom scams appear to be on the rise, and more fraudulent crypto-trading apps are finding their way through strict reviews and onto the Google Play and Apple app stores.
The rise in AI and complexity of LLMs could increase the effectiveness of these scams, though there appears to be a few kinks left to sift through.
Under the direction of EU regulators, Meta is to change its legal basis for targeting users with personalised advertisements, and will now require consent.
Users in the EU, European Economic Area and Switzerland will be asked for consent, in the form of choosing to opt-in or opt-out of targeted advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
The move comes after pressure from the EU over Meta’s previous legal basis for targeted advertising, which relied on ‘Legitimate Interest’ to track user data for personalised advertisements.
Legitimate interest is one of the broadest legal basis companies can use for processing data, but does have strict limitations. Essentially, it means that companies have the ability to process data in a way users would expect, in a way that is integral to their business, or in a way that would be necessary for security purposes.
Meta only changed their legal basis for personalised advertisements to ‘legitimate interest after a landmark fine in January which found their previous use of a contractual basis as in violation of GDPR.
The move then relied on legitimate interest of users and the company as a legal basis for collecting user data for targeted ads, with the company saying users had the option to “opt-out” of the tracking.
After this, another case saw the EU Court of Justice say Meta could not use ‘legitimate interest’ as a valid legal basis to continue using consumer data for personalised advertisement.
Facebook and Instagram both rely on money from advertisers – Facebook made $135.94 billion in revenue from ads in 2022 alone.
Meta now says that it is making the change after listening to concerns from the Irish Data Protection Court (DPC) and the EU Data Protection Board (EUDPB), but in reality, they are listening to strict rulings which found the major tech company to be GDPR non-compliant.
Importantly, Meta refers to not using personal data for “behavioral advertisement” which is not defined in EU law, and says the legal basis will change for how it processes “certain” data for that purpose. The EU does not make exceptions for different types of data being processed, and would require consent for all data.
NYOB, the data protection rights group founded by Max Shrems, who has brought up myriad data protection suits to the EU including several against Meta, has shown cautious optimism in reaction to Meta’s announcement.
“We will see if Meta is actually applying the consent requirement to all use of personal data for ads,” Shrems said.
“So far they talk about ‘highly personalized’ or ‘behavioural’ ads and it’s unclear what this means. The GDPR covered all types of personalization, also on things like your age, which is not a ‘behaviour’. We will obviously continue litigation if Meta will not apply the law fully.”
Meta has assured advertisers that there will be no immediate impact on their services in the EU so far, and that advertisers will still be able to run personalised ads once the new legal basis is put in place.
The number of reported ransomware attacks have doubled since last year, according to analysis by Barracuda Networks Inc, a cloud-first security solutions provider.
In their Threat Spotlight report covering trends from August 2022 to July 2023, the company noted the increase in ransomware threats could be due to threat actors taking advantage of increased AI capabilities.
Most of what Barracuda found indicates that the threat landscape itself could appear to be relatively unchanged – email is still the most common starting point for ransomware attacks.
By sector, municipality, healthcare, and education organisations had the most amount of attacks, likely due to their forward facing nature and the sensitivity of the data they hold.
Barracuda noted that the advancements of AI, particularly large language models (LLM) like ChatGPT, could be key in the rise of successful ransomware attacks.
Previously, a key marker of a phishing scam was spelling and grammar errors, which can now be eradicated if threat actors employ an LLM to write their emails for them.
The use of AI models will only make it harder for people to tell if an email or message is malicious as they will lack the more obvious signs of grammatical errors.
Further, a SlashNext investigation has revelaed that threat actors are already training LLMs, including ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, for malicious purposes.
These methods have been available on the Dark Web, making phishing attacks easier to produce as the necessary technology becomes more widely accessible.
The rise of WormGPT and FraudGPT, which claim to be able to write malicious code, create phishing pages, find vulnerabilities and even more, according to SlashNext.
While AI is already improving the effectiveness of traditional cyber-attacks, the increased capabilities of AI can have major implications for the future of cybersecurity.
The UK’s product safety laws – which are over 30 years old – are set to be overhauled in a bid to make them fit for emerging technologies and new online shopping habits, the government has announced.
Much of the UK’s product safety regime is underpinned by EU laws, with some dating back to 1987. Having left the EU, the UK is set to create its own product safety regime in what they say would better suit British businesses and attempts to ensure consumers have the same protections when shopping online as on the high street.
The consultation, which takes place today 2 August, will seek views on how the UK can better regulate 21st century innovations like internet connected devices including smart watches and speakers, and artificial intelligence (AI).
As with much of their post-Brexit regulations, such as their data protection bill, the UK government says a major concern with new laws is to ensure British businesses are not stifled by costly red tape.
According to the government, businesses are set to save time and money thanks to proposals to introduce e-labelling. E-labelling means that compliance information would be stored on a device itself, without the wasteful inclusion of a physical manual.
The UK government says their e-labelling plans would go further than the EU, reduce waste, relieve industry burdens, and allow product information to be easily and regularly updated.
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch said: “I am determined to use our post-Brexit freedoms to identify outdated EU laws placing unnecessary burdens on business and reform them to benefit both companies and consumers.
“These changes will provide better consumer protections while upholding our world-leading safety standards and will also cut costs for business to ensure they have the freedom they need to innovate and thrive, helping to create jobs and grow the economy.”
Tina McKenzie, Policy Chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said: “We welcome measures to ease the burden on small businesses while ensuring high safety standards. Regulatory requirements should be designed to be as consistent and straightforward as possible to reduce the costs of compliance for small firms.”
The complexity of the current UK product safety system means that firms, especially new entrants and small businesses, can struggle to understand their obligations, resulting in hindered growth and hampered consumer choice.
In addition to the recent extension of CE marking – the mark on goods which means they are up to EU standards which the UK government extended the use of – these reforms have the potential to dramatically change the types of regulations businesses deal with in the UK.
The UK government is on course to have passed legislation by the end of this year which will revoke or reform more than 2,000 pieces of Retained EU Law.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, in conjunction with the UK Space Agency, has proposed a £160 million scheme to fund the next generation of satellite communications development and boost the UK’s broadband connectivity and 5G coverage.
British innovators working to revolutionise 5G and broadband coverage for every corner of the UK could be in line to secure up to £160m from a scheme to deliver the next generation of high-tech satellites.
LEO satellites represent the next generation of space technology, offering resilience and resistance to disabling attempts.
Their vital importance was demonstrated during Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, when they ensured continuous and reliable connectivity, even in the most challenging circumstances.
The Connectivity in Low Earth Orbit scheme (CLEO) would build on our country’s established and growing satellites industry by providing UK researchers and businesses with critical support to drive the development of new constellations.
This would include supporting smarter satellites with better hardware, using AI to make data delivery faster and connecting satellites together for improved connection – all creating interconnected networks serving billions worldwide.
Ensuring UK businesses are supported in developing the next generation of low orbit satellites the proposed scheme aims to drive the UK’s satellite industry towards global leadership.
According to the government, this development would mark the UK’s most significant ever investment in satellite communications.
A range of live 5G integration projects will compliment the package, such as the 5G testing facility at ESCAT in Harwell, Oxfordshire, aiming to establish networks in underserved and remote areas, bringing high-speed internet and connections to every single part of the UK, while addressing a majority priority to improve Future Telecoms, as laid out in the government’s Science and Technology Framework.
Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary, Michelle Donelan, said: “Tackling the digital divide is at the heart of empowering our citizens wherever they live, and by investing in the vital research and development that CLEO would facilitate, we can level up our country while growing the economy through high-quality jobs.
“This proposed record investment is also potentially a huge opportunity to harness our reputation as a world leader in innovation and R&D investment, supporting leading UK businesses to deliver the next generation of satellites and positioning the UK as true space superpower.”
In a bid to propel the UK’s capabilities and long-term ambitions in the space sector, the government is exploring grant funding of up to £100 million.
The government is also exploring whether to support this grant funding with an additional £60 million from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) UK-backed Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) programme, which supports UK industry in delivering commercial satellite communications infrastructure.
CLEO would aim to deliver the R&D needed to support the launch of hundreds of satellites into space, revolutionising the UK’s communication infrastructure and closing connectivity gaps.
Harshbir Sangha, Missions and Capabilities Delivery Director at the UK Space Agency, said: “Today’s announcement is a vital step towards the delivery of a key priority of the UK Space Agency – to maximise the potential of low Earth orbit and become a global leader in next generation satellite communications technologies by building our ability to service future high-volume constellations.
“Our intent is to catalyse investment, build on existing capabilities and meet the challenges associated with seizing a significant share of a fast-moving global market, by leveraging our growing national space programme and leading investments in commercial ESA programmes such as ARTES.”
This announcement follows the reintroduction of the government’s National Space Council, as part of the UK’s mission to become a space superpower.
Co-chaired by the Science and Defence Secretaries, the Council is responsible for coordinating government policy on space and ensuring that the UK is well-positioned to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the space sector to drive job creation and grow the economy.
Gartner, the technology analyst firm, has highlighted the top trends impacting the future of data science and machine learning (ML) as the industry rapidly grows and evolves to meet the increasing significance of data in artificial intelligence (AI), particularly as the focus shifts towards generative AI investments.
Speaking at the Gartner Summit in Sydney, Director Analyst Peter Krensky, said: “As machine learning adoption continues to grow rapidly across industries, DSML is evolving from just focusing on predictive models, toward a more democratized, dynamic and data-centric discipline.
“This is now also fueled by the fervor around generative AI. While potential risks are emerging, so too are the many new capabilities and use cases for data scientists and their organisations.”
The top trends, unsurprisingly, have a focus on AI, but also touch on the wider tech ecosystem, including cloud.
Trend 1. Cloud Data Ecosystems
Data ecosystems are moving from self-contained software or blended deployments to full cloud-native solutions. By 2024, Gartner expects 50% of new system deployments in the cloud will be based on a cohesive cloud data ecosystem rather than on manually integrated point solutions.
Gartner recommends organisations evaluate data ecosystems based on their ability to resolve distributed data challenges, as well as to access and integrate with data sources outside of their immediate environment.
Trend 2: Edge AI
Demand for Edge AI — the use of AI techniques which are embedded in Internet of Things (IoT) applications — is growing, according to Gartner.
This technology will enable the processing of data at the point of creation at the edge, helping organisations gain real-time insights, detect new patterns, and meet stringent data privacy requirements.
Edge AI also helps organisations improve the development, orchestration, integration, and deployment of AI.
Gartner predicts that more than 55% of all data analysis by deep neural networks will occur at the point of capture in an edge system by 2025, up from less than 10% in 2021.
Organisations show therefore identify the applications, AI training and inferencing required to move to edge environments near IoT endpoints.
Trend 3: Responsible AI
Responsible AI makes AI a positive force, according to Garnter, rather than a threat to society and to itself.
It covers many aspects of making the right business and ethical choices when adopting AI that organisations often address independently, such as business and societal value, risk, trust, transparency, and accountability.
Gartner predicts the concentrated of pretrained AI models among 1% of AI vendors by 2025 will make responsible AI a societal concern.
The prediction could be sparked by recent trends as the companies and governments come to grips with the ethical and regulatory conundrum introduced by advancing AI models.
Top companies producing AI recently announced their intention to create a Frontier Model Forum which would see competing companies working together with academics and lawmakers to better regulate the growth and deployment of AI.
The EU’s landmark AI Act is set to regulate the industry, introducing copyright stipulations and limitations on the gathering of data for AI models, as well as keeping closer tabs on its use and deployment.
Gartner is recommending organisations adopt a risk-proportional approach to deliver AI value and take caution when applying solutions and models.
Seeking assurance from vendors to ensure they are managing their risk and compliance obligations, protecting organisations from potential financial loss, legal action and reputation damage, is also recommended.
Trend 4: Data-Centric AI
Data-centric AI represents a shift from a model and code-centric approach to being more data focused to build better AI systems.
Solutions such as AI-specific data management, synthetic data and data labeling technologies, aim to solve many data challenges, including accessibility, volume, privacy, security, complexity, and scope.
The use of generative AI to create synthetic data is one area that is rapidly growing, relieving the burden of obtaining real-world data so machine learning models can be trained effectively.
By 2024, Gartner predicts 60% of data for AI will be synthetic to simulate reality, future scenarios and de-risk AI, up from 1% in 2021.
Trend 5: Accelerated AI Investment
Investment in AI will continue to accelerate by organisations implementing solutions, as well as by industries looking to grow through AI technologies and AI-based businesses.
By the end of 2026, Garter predicts that more than $10 billion will have been invested in AI startups that rely on foundation models — large AI models trained on huge amounts of data.
A recent Gartner poll of more than 2,500 executive leaders found that 45% reported that recent hype around ChatGPT prompted them to increase AI investments.
Seventy percent said their organisation is in investigation and exploration mode with generative AI, while 19% are in pilot or production mode.
The report, titled ‘The Great Rural Revival’, addresses four sectors central to the UK’s rural economy – tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, and small businesses – and finds connectivity improvements could boost rural employment by 6.8%, creating an additional 284,000 new jobs.
Over the last decade, digital connectivity has been improved in rural communities across the UK, creating new opportunities within previously disconnected regions.
However, a digital divide remains between the rural and urban populations, which is preventing rural communities and economies from achieving their growth potential, with many areas still unable to access reliable connectivity.
The analysis within The Great Rural Revival report shows that across the UK, the East of England would benefit most from digital connectivity upgrades, unlocking a £12 billion boost for the local economy and 42,000 new jobs.
Improved rural connectivity in Scotland could unlock £6 billion for the regional economy, alongside 15,000 jobs if rural areas had access to excellent digital connections.
Other regions set to benefit include the South West, where the local economy could unlock £7 billion and benefit from 39,000 new jobs as well as Wales, where £5 billion could be unlocked alongside 25,000 jobs.
The regional analysis demonstrates how improving rural connectivity directly supports the government’s levelling up agenda, which aims to spread opportunities more equally across the UK.
The report highlights how improved broadband connections could enable and power new technologies which transform rural economies and life – from drone farming and smart livestock monitoring, to wearable technology and automated booking apps for the hospitality sector.
Meanwhile, around a quarter of rural business decision makers surveyed as part of the report said they would make greater use of technologies such as cashless payments, video calling/conferencing or online booking if connectivity was improved.
Jeanie York, chief technology officer at Virgin Media O2, said: “At a time when communities across the UK are struggling, this new analysis demonstrates how improved rural connectivity could herald a Great Rural Revival.
“The last decade has seen fixed and mobile networks rolled out to new corners of the UK, and now the transformational potential of connectivity has been made clear with the ability to unlock £65 billion of new growth in rural areas.
“Through working closely with industry partners, the UK Government, planning authorities and landowners, we can deliver the essential network upgrades that will help to bridge the rural-urban connectivity divide, provide faster and more reliable coverage and unlock new jobs and growth in the process.”
Boosting UK Tourism
In the rural tourism sector, The Great Rural Revival shows that improved connectivity could result in a 9.9% increase in turnover, equating to an extra £842 million per year. Since the pandemic, tourism across rural parts of the UK has soared, with countryside retreats accounting for nearly half of all Airbnb bookings in 2021, compared with 23% in 2019.
Meanwhile, disruption to international travel in 2022 saw British hotels, B&Bs, and holiday parts record a 20-30% rise in enquiries.
As Brits cancel European breaks against a backdrop of intense weather leading to devastating forest fires and turn to UK-based staycations, there is further opportunity on the table.
With polling showing 13% of Brits are planning a staycation in Scotland this year, 70% of those surveyed believe connectivity is an important part of choosing a destination.
However, one in five (19%) have had holidays in the Scottish Highlands and Islands negatively impacted by poor internet connectivity before, meaning popular rural staycation spots stand to lose out on valuable tourism revenue.
The report shows that with new applications and digital connectivity rapidly changing the way people travel, spend, and behave, the rural tourism industry could benefit from embracing new technology and ways of working.
Robert Beauchamp, managing economist at Cebr, commented: “Our findings highlight how improved digital connectivity could unleash growth in the rural economy.
“These impacts would mainly be felt outside London, in regions like the North West, South West, and Yorkshire & the Humber.
“Improved connectivity could allow rural businesses to be more efficient, make full use of digital technologies, and create more jobs to strengthen the rural economy.
“Without improved rural connectivity, problems which could be solved will instead remain and the opportunities related to better connectivity would not be realised, meaning rural communities will continue to underperform relative to their urban counterparts.”
Digital Catapult, the UK authority on advanced digital technology, and Sony Music UK, have announced a cohort of ten pioneering digital-first startups to participate in the inaugural FutureScope Black Founders Programme.
The programme aims to support Black British entrepreneurs in the digital entertainment space, and encourage the successful commercialisation of their innovative new solutions.
The announcement marks the beginning of the 16-week programme of activities that will provide each early-stage company with business and investment readiness support, drawing on Digital Catapult’s decade of experience supporting UK startups.
Through mentorship, workshops, masterclasses, the programme will look to help each startup raise investment in the next six to nine months.
In addition, half of the cohort businesses are led by women, and half are led by men.
Using advanced digital technologies such as distributed ledger technologies, artificial intelligence/machine learning, virtual and/or augmented reality, the cohort provides wide-reaching solutions for art, music, social media, retail and tourism.
From a digital fine art gallery made possible by an extended reality (XR) immersive world, to an AI-powered social media platform designed to build a community of music lovers, the innovations at the centre of each business are created to transform the UK’s digital entertainment space and bring the sector into a new era.
The 10 startups joining the FutureScope Black Founders Programme are:
Cashblack – Cashblack is a platform that rewards members with cashback when they shop online with Black-owned businesses.
Deya – Deya is a platform for Black creative talent & creative companies, building a new approach for Black creatives to find jobs and community.
Flossy – Flossy offers tools for users to create remixable merch and products. It leverages AI to allow users to come together and co-create images.
Happaning Ltd – Happaning is a crowdsourced event preview app. Powered by its patented ViiVid® media format, the app lets a user request trusted, real-time video previews through the eyes of the community.
Korda – Korda empowers music creators, songwriters and innovators by providing tools that support all stages of the music lifecycle, from creation to monetisation.
Loud Parade – Loud Parade is an award-winning music creative and sonic branding company that makes bespoke music compositions aimed at Gen Z for brands and creative agencies.
Musircle – Musircle is an AI-driven social media platform that analyses the listening habits of users to deliver their musical DNA.
Nyangibo Gallery – Nyangibo Gallery is an online and in-person digital fine art gallery, with a focus on extended reality (XR) art.
Stories & The City – Stories & The City is a cultural tourism immersive startup that uses augmented reality (AR) and a user’s smartphone to create bespoke cultural city tours.
Waves – Waves is an AI-powered web3 marketplace for collecting and trading rare beats.
Digital Catapult will deliver the FutureScope Black Founders Programme in partnership with Sony Music UK, with both partners having a long-standing tradition of promoting innovation within the UK’s creative industries.
FutureScope is Digital Catapult’s deep tech acceleration support system for the UK’s leading tech innovators and businesses.
The Black Founders Programme aims to make it easier for Black founders to raise venture capital and successfully scale their solutions, given that research from Atomico, an international investment firm, found that 62% of Black founders have found it increasingly hard to raise venture capital, with only 38 Black founders receiving venture capital funding between 2009 and 2019, just 0.24% of the total sum invested.
To offset costs to a business by participating in the programme, each startup will receive £3,000 as a financial contribution towards completing the programme. This also includes additional support from ‘Musiio by SoundCloud’.
To ensure long-lasting, positive impact is made for both Black tech entrepreneurs and the UK Black tech community, the programme is further bolstered by support from consultants and mentors from across the entertainment and tech industries.
This includes Sony Music UK and Soundcloud, and nine purpose-driven organisations that promote Black businesses and inclusive opportunities across the UK’s tech startup community.
Jessica Rushworth, Chief Strategy and Policy Officer, Digital Catapult, said: “This cohort is really one of the most exciting we have seen since the launch of FutureScope nearly two years ago. The range of solutions on show, built using advanced digital technologies, just highlights why companies like this are a key part of the future of the UK’s creative sector.
“The reality is that choosing 10 companies from a strong field of applicants was an incredibly tough process for the judging panel, but ultimately a very encouraging one, that really demonstrated to us the breadth of talent that exists within the UK’s Black tech community.”
Dorothy Hui, SVP Digital and Audience Development, Sony Music UK’s 4th Floor Creative, said: “We are thrilled to welcome an inspiring cohort of founders – all building businesses around creative uses of technology – to the FutureScope Black Founders programme.
“Sony Music is committed to helping improve diversity in digital entertainment and we look forward to supporting the entrepreneurs participating in the programme by providing access to industry expertise and our network. We can’t wait to see how the businesses develop through the programme.“
The programme culminates with a final showcase event in early November 2023, where the founders will have the opportunity to pitch to a select group of investors.
Arm, the UK-founded semiconductor company, is launching a new global initiative – the Semiconductor Education Alliance – to address the skills shortage affecting the global semiconductor supply chain.
While the semiconductor‘s strategic importance across the globe has been magnified by both the increasing reliance on technology and world-wide supply chain shortages, Arm is attempting to address another aspect affecting the growth of the industry.
A gap of skilled workers has become a significant barrier to progress, even as “billions of dollars of investment” in every facet of the industry has been unlocked by the technologies’ rejuvenated recognition, according to Gary Campbell, EVP central engineering at Arm.
The new global initiative is in partnership with Arduino, Cadence, Cornell University, the Semiconductor Research Corporation, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute, the All-India Council for Technical Education, and the University of Southampton.
The Alliance aims to bring industry and academia together to find talent and upskill the current workforce by creating “new accelerated educational pathways,” which aim to aid the creation and support of future talent pools.
Aiming to create new and strengthen existing partnerships and workstreams, the Alliance says it will deliver geographically-specific frameworks to address industry needs.
Arm says the Alliance will function as a “federated and open model through a variety of forums” allowing for a free-flow sharing of ideas from community members, educational professionals, and partners in the alliance.
The company says this will be a continuation of current initiatives already under way, including a global SoC design platform for academia with access to semiconductor fabrication technologies.
Key to the Semiconductor Education Alliance is diversity, according to Campbell. The Alliance plans on supporting multiple avenues to the industry, with goals of supporting internships, apprenticeships, co-op placements, and distance learning opportunities to learners.
Campbell noted that the industry is currently “at a tipping point when it comes to the skills gap, and more cohesive, industry-wide action is required to truly have an impact.”
“The importance of investing in skills and education is something Arm has always recognized, and our vast computing footprint and global ecosystem means we have a unique and far-reaching point of view on the skills needed as the industry evolves,” Campbell wrote in the announcement of the Alliance.
“The Semiconductor Education Alliance aims to better align the industry around common goals, shared resources, and communities of best practice to tackle the skills gap that threatens progress today.”
The Alliance already has a plethora of industry players involved, but hopes to gain more. Current supporters include: Arduino, Anglia Ruskin University, Cadence, Cornell University, IIT Jodhpur, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute, the All-India Council for Technical Education, the Semiconductor Research Corporation, the Semiconductor Industry Alliance, the University of Southampton, UK Electronics Skills Foundation and Universitat Politècnica de València.
Emblation, the Scottish health tech firm focused on microwave treatments for skin conditions, is investing £4 million in a new headquarters for their employees, complete with manufacturing facilities.
The company is set to begin a phased move to the new offices in Stirling with over 60 existing employees set to gain access to the facilities.
Emblation recently announced a new round of trails in the US to expand the use of its Swift device, a portable microwave device used to treat skin conditions like warts and verrucae.
Currently, the device is being trialled as a potential treatment for life-threatening conditions like cervical and skin cancers.
The new facilities in Stirling will see manufacturing come in house, as well as providing employees with gym access, games facilities, and cycle paths.
Headcount of the company has more than doubled since its start 15 years ago, and the founders Gary Beale and Eamon McErlean are determined to stay in Scotland after meeting as post-graduates at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University.
“In our sphere, America is the place to be, so it would have been the easiest thing in the world for us to set up our headquarters in the US,“ said Beale, referring to the US’s health device market, the largest in the world.
“However, we were determined to retain the strongest possible Scottish identity.
“We’ve worked really hard to create a space where we hope it will be inspiring, enjoyable and rewarding to come to work.”
The new 20,000 square foot building was supported in part by Scottish Enterprise Regional Assistance funding, and was designed by Keppie Designs, a Glasgow architecture firm, and Neil Porteous, a contractor based in Alloa.
Since it was founded nearly 15 years ago, Emblation has expanded outside of the UK, creating Emblation US in an acquisition move and setting up new companies in Canada and Germany.
About 4,000 sq ft of the premises will be dedicated as a manufacturing area, bringing its production in house.
“Manufacturing is not a sector which has been faring well in the UK over recent years, so bringing production back to Scotland and centralising our production at Emblation House will have a significant impact in reducing our carbon footprint – something we are very proud of,” Beale said.
Worldwide contact centre (CC) and CC conversational AI and virtual assistant end-user spending is projected to total $18.6 billion in 2023, an increase of 16.2% from 2022, according to Gartner, Inc.
“Near-term investment growth rates for CC and CC conversational AI and virtual assistants are expected to dip as business volatility creates a lengthening of decision cycles,” said Megan Marek Fernandez, Director Analyst at Gartner. “Longer-term, generative AI and growing maturity of conversational AI will accelerate contact center platform replacement as customer experience (CX) leaders look to simultaneously improve the efficiency of customer service operations and the overall customer experience.”
The global conversational AI and virtual assistant market represents the fastest-growing segment in the contact centre forecast, helping to spur 24% growth in 2024.
Conversational AI capabilities are receiving greater investment as contact centre decision makers look to incorporate conversational AI as part of a long-term strategy to reduce reliance on workers.
While the number of customer service interactions that are touched by AI continues to increase, most of these interactions are augmented with CC AI instead of fully offloaded to a virtual agent.
Overall, Gartner estimates around 3% of interactions will be handled via CC AI in 2023, growing to 14% of interactions in 2027.
Gartner expects general economic and geopolitical uncertainty to create some budget restrictions in 2023, resulting in a slowdown of premises-based contact centre replacements and upgrade projects.
However, customer-facing projects may be viewed as an important part of revenue retention and generation strategies.
“This means that while many IT investment areas will be weakened as budgets tighten, customer service and support initiatives that have the potential to differentiate the customer experience or streamline customer service operations could receive easier investment ‘buy-in,” said Marek Fernandez.
“These factors will help contact center as a service (CCaaS) projects receive funding associated with broader corporate digital transformation budgets.”
Gartner expects CCaaS investment growth to accelerate a decision makers implement cloud-based contact centre capabilities to modernise their customer service operations.
This includes adoption among contact centres with many thousands of agents which have been slow to adopt CCaaS.
As part of modernisation projects, CCaaS solutions will be implemented to support a broader mix of communications channels and will feature more significant uptake of advanced dashboards, analytics, routing, workforce optimisation (WFO), knowledge and insight, and conversational AI capabilities.
An intelligent monitoring system has been successfully introduced by Scottish Water across rural locations in the Highlands and Islands, using Internet of Things (IoT) technology to gather essential data that helps keep the water network in Scotland safe.
Using a device developed by CENSIS for M2M Cloud – Scotland’s innovation centre for sensing, imaging, and IoT technologies – Scottish Water can now automatically collect information on the temperature and flow of water in Scottish Water buildings as part of routine quality assurance checks.
Any unusual readings could point towards a potentially harmful bacteria outbreak, including legionella.
Until now, the process was carried out manually with employees travelling the country to undertake regular testing.
Working as a supplier to Scottish Water’s Digital Framework partners, Atos, M2M Cloud’s Gemini devices have so far been deployed across all Scottish Water sites in Shetland, Orkney, and Islay.
The next phase of the roll-out will extend the deployment to a further 300 sites, covering around half of the network.
The instillation of the smart water monitoring systems forms part of a wider commitment to digital transformation at Scottish Water, led by Atos.
The device, a first of its kind according to Scottish Waters, fits on to the surface of pipes to remotely take temperature readings, notifying building managers if the water system is out of specification. Readings are taken every 10 seconds, looking at minimum and maximum temperatures, as well as detecting any issues with water flow events.
This latest generation of the rechargeable battery-powered device was developed CENSIS for M2M, after receiving grant funding from Scottish Enterprise last year. The device is now capable of operating on both cellular Narrow Band IoT (NB-IoT) and LoRaWAN networks, making the system easier to set up in hard-to-reach-areas. The addition of Bluetooth connectivity has cut installation times by one-third.
Chris Butchart, director at M2M Cloud, said: “Water monitoring has typically been a carbon-intensive, resource-heavy process involving engineers taking manual readings monthly. For Scottish Water, the ability to gather that data on a continuous basis will be transformational in terms of the way it operates remote sites and ensures safe conditions are met. To have Scottish Water as the first organisation to use our latest generation device is a huge vote of confidence and we look forward to the next stage of the roll-out.”
M2M Cloud’s system can reduce carbon emissions associated with water monitoring by up to 75% – around 300kgs of CO3 per year of each monitored asset – by removing the need for travel to the site and the necessity to overheat water supplies, which organisations often do to avoid the risk of bacteria outbreaks.
Importantly, water wastage is also reduced by around 225,000 liters per asset per year. This July, Scotland had just returned to ‘Normal Conditions’ or ‘Early Warning’ in their water supply after five areas of the nation were at the highest level of water scarcity after a dry spell in June.
With even Scotland feeling the effects of climate change, reducing water waste is of supreme importance as the vital resource becomes scarce across the globe.
Further, the device’s battery can last of up to five years before needing to be recharged, rather than replaced, and can be charged while the device remains in situ attached to the pipework. It is also the only water safety device to have been awarded IASME Gold level certification – an industry-recognised measure of IoT cybersecurity.
Monitoring water systems in UK non-domestic buildings is a statutory requirement costing around £140 million per annum, while financial estimates put the healthcare and workplace impact of legionella alone at £1 billion per year across Europe.
It is anticipated that the Health and Safety Executive compliance legislation will soon evolve to include remote technology-led monitoring as part of legionella prevention.
Inhaling a single droplet containing legionella can lead to Legionnaires’ disease, a serious lung condition requiring immediate medical attention.
Kevin Power, system architect at CENSIS, said: “It is great to see the successful use of a 5G ready IoT device wholly designed and manufactured in Scotland, by one of our biggest utility providers. We have supported M2M Cloud since the early stages of development and the business continues to go from strength to strength. The latest generation of the technology represents a big step forward in terms of ease of connectivity and will support the growing demand from businesses for digital transformation and IoT.”
Archie MacGregor, Property Manager, at Scottish Water added: “The remote temperature monitoring sensors have been a major step forward in enhancing the management of H&S in our building water systems as well as offering significant benefits in reducing journeys to site and related carbon emissions. We are delighted to have M2M and CENSIS working with us in delivering these innovative solutions which completely align with our strategic ambitions of Net Zero Emissions and providing great value for our customers.”
Innovation Minister Richard Lochhead said: “This is an excellent example of how Internet of Things technology can provide smart solutions to monitor essential data that helps keep the water network in Scotland safe.
“Collecting this information remotely can transform this previously carbon-intensive process and demonstrates the potential for innovations to support our net zero ambitions. The deployment across all Scottish Water sites in Shetland, Orkney and Islay, with plans to extend the roll-out to a further 300 locations, shows the opportunity to scale up this technology.
“Ensuring Scotland can realise the full economic benefits of the digital and data economy is fundamental to the Scottish Government’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation. As a key enabler of sustainable economic growth, digitalinfrastructure is a critical part of our plans for a fair, green and growing economy.”
The European Commission (EC) has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Microsoft may have breached EU competition rules by tying or bundling its communication and collaboration product Teams to its popular suites for businesses, Office 365 and Microsoft 365.
Essentially, the EC is concerned that Microsoft’s bundle of its Office suite with Teams will remove market competition for other communication tools.
The complaint was first raised by Slack in 2020, another communication tool – which suffered a major global outage today – which alleged that Microsoft illegally tied Teams to its dominant productivity suites.
Teams was added to Office 365 in 2017 for free as a replacement for Skype for Business. Like other communication tools for work and business, Teams saw a rise in popularity amid the global pandemic which caused many workers to stay at home.
The continued popularity of remote work has increased the necessity of functional cloud-based communication platforms for businesses.
“Remote communication and collaboration tools like Teams have become indispensable for many businesses in Europe,” Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy, said. “We must therefore ensure that the markets for these products remain competitive, and companies are free to choose the products that best meet their needs. This is why we are investigating whether Microsoft’s tying of its productivity suites with Teams may be in breach of EU competition rules.”
As Microsoft includes Teams in its well-entrenched cloud-based productivity suites for business customers, the EC is concerned that the company may be abusing and defending its market position in productivity software by restricting competition for communication and collaboration products.
Often, what leads to unfair market advantage of major companies are one of two things: interoperability blocks, in which products by different companies are not compatible and cannot be used together, or through pricing, where large companies use their market dominance to make their products less expensive than alternatives.
Interestingly, according to Slack’s official website, it’s communication tools are compatible with many of Microsoft’s Office suite, including its Outlook email, calendar, and OneDrive.
The main concern of the EC is that “Microsoft may grant Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice on whether or not to include access to that product when they subscribe to their productivity suites and may have limited the interoperability between its productivity suites and competing offerings.”
By offering it as a free add-on, and not disclosing the real price of Teams, the EC is concerned this may crush competition from other communication tools.
Microsoft has said it is willing to cooperate with the Commission – it’s been fined in the past for similar antitrust laws, such as a major fine in 2009 for forcing Windows users to user Internet Explorer.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has released a statement concerning banks sharing ofpersonal data after the resignation of NatWest Group CEO Alison Rose over sharing personal banking details of former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
The controversey began with a BBC article reporting from an ‘inside source’ that Nigel Farage’s accounts with the private bank Coutts, which NatWest owns, were closed due to insufficient funds.
Farage later inquired on who provided the personal information, which Rose later admitted to. Since Rose’s resignation, Farage has called for NatWest’s entire board to step down as they approved a statement from Rose saying she had not disclosed personal financial information.
Following the controversey, information commissioner John Edwards stated: “The banking duty of confidentiality is over a hundred years old, and it is clear that it would not permit the discussion of a customer’s personal information with the media.
“We trust banks with our money and with our personal information. Any suggestion that this trust has been betrayed will be concerning for a bank’s customers, and for regulators like myself.”
While recognising the high-profile nature of the case, the ICO says it will follow its typical protocol for complaints, which would include allowing a response from organisations before it gets involved.
Edwards also wrote to UK Finance to remind them of their responsibilities concerning data privacy, even of public figures.
“Banks need to hold a lot of information about customers, to properly run their accounts, and to uphold the law around aspects like money laundering. But data protection rules still apply,” he said.
“I have written to the banks today to remind them of their responsibilities to the public. Banks should not be holding inaccurate information, they should not be using information in a way that is unduly unexpected, and they should not be holding any more information than is necessary.
“Even the information banks gather around politically exposed persons must follow the law. We are working with HM Treasury, who set the rules in this area, and with the Financial Conduct Authority, who oversee those rules.”
Outside of it’s sensationalists aspects, the case does show the importance of data protection rights.
“Nigel Farage’s experience shows why data protection rights remain so important. The right to require an organisation to show you the information they hold about you, known as a subject access request, is a powerful one, and is one that is open to us all.
“It brings transparency, reassurance, and it can flag where errors have been made and where the record should be corrected.”
In a response to the Competition Markets Authority‘s (CMA) probe, Amazon has offered to stop using third-party seller data in a bid to level the playing field in its Marketplace.
Around 280,000 independent sellers used Amazon’s Marketplace in 2019 to connect with customers. The company’s net UK sales in 2022 amounted to $30 billion (~£23.bn).
The CMA began investigation Amazon’s Marketplace practices in July 2022 after concerns it has breached the Competition Act of 1998 by abusing its dominant position to affect trade in the UK.
The company came under similar fire in the European Union in 2019 for its practices concerning its use of third-party seller data to give it a potentially ‘unfair’ advantage, breaching anti-trust laws.
Amazon has released its proposed commitments to start treating third-party sellers differently in response to the concerns raised by the competition regulatory body.
Amazon’s commitments include forgoing the use of non-public data provided by third-party sellers to Amazon or derived through their use of Amazon’s marketplace or related services for the purposes of its own retail operations that are in competition with third-party sellers.
This follows the CMA’s concerns that Amazon’s access to commercially sensitive data relating to third-party sellers helped its retail business to decide which products to sell, manage stock levels for those products, set prices, and make other important commercial decisions.
Further, Amazon says it will apply objectively verifiable, non-discriminatory conditions and criteria to determine which offer (either from Amazon Retail or third-party sellers) will become the ‘Featured Offer’; and to not use ‘Prime’ eligibility or ‘Prime’-labelling as relevant criteria for selecting the Featured Offer.
Prime eligibility and Prime labelling refers to Amazon’s membership offers, where users can buy a subscription to Amazon in turn for offers of free delivery and discounted prices.
The CMA was concerned that products being offered in the featured ‘Buy Box’ were less likely to come from third-party sellers than similar offers from either Amazon’s own retail business or third-party sellers that use Amazon’s delivery services.
In addition, Amazon says it will allow third-party businesses using Marketplace to negotiate their own rates directly with independent providers of Prime delivery services so that customers can benefit from lower delivery costs where better rates are negotiated.
Finally, Amazon would be required to appoint an independent trustee who will monitor the company’s compliance with these commitments. The CMA will even have a direct say in this appointment, ensuring they have the necessary skills and expertise for the job.
Ann Pope, Senior Director for Enforcement at the CMA, said: “Amazon’s commitments to the CMA will help ensure that third-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace can compete on a level-playing field against Amazon’s own retail business and, ultimately, mean that customers in the UK get a better deal.
“The CMA took this action after it heard concerns that Amazon was using its strength in the market to gain an advantage over thousands of businesses which use Amazon Marketplace to reach customers.
“We are now consulting on these commitments which we believe, at this stage, will address our concerns.”
Amazon’s CMA woes may not end here, however. The company, as well as Microsoft, are currently facing an anti-trust probe into their cloud market dominance. Both companies have a combined 60-70% share of the total UK cloud market, and some of their practices are being investigated as monopolistic and anti-competition.
The major players in the AI race – including Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic – have announced the formation of a new partnership, the Frontier Model Forum, a new industry body focused on ensuring safe and responsible development for frontier AI models.
The Frontier Model Forum will draw on the technical and operational expertise of its member companies to benefit the entire AI ecosystem, such as through advancing technical evaluations and benchmarks, and developing a public library of solutions to support industry best practices and standards.
So far, the companies have released the core objectives of the Forum, their criteria for membership, and what they aim to accomplish.
Core objectives include:
1. Advancing AI safety research to promote ‘responsible’ development of frontier models, minimise risks, and enable independent, standardised evaluations of capabilities and safety.
2. Identifying best practices for the responsible development and deployment of frontier models, helping the public understand the nature, capabilities, limitations and impact of the technology.
3. Collaborating with policymakers, academics, civil society and companies to share knowledge about trust and safety risks.
4. Supporting efforts to develop applications that can help meet society’s greatest challenges, such as climate change mitigation and adaptation, early cancer detection and prevention, and combating cyber threats.
Membership will be determined by the current forum, and is open to organisations that develop and deploy frontier models (as determined by the Forum), demonstrate a strong commitment to frontier model safety, and are will to participate in joint initiatives and supporting the development and functioning of the initiative.
According to a joint press release by the founding companies, the Forum will focus on three key areas to support the safe and responsible development of frontier AI models.
This includes identifying best practices and sharing this information across industry, government, civil society and academia, with a focus on safety standards and practices to mitigate potential risks.
Another area of focus in advancing AI safety research, first by identifying the most important open research questions on AI safety. The Forum aims to coordinate research to progress these efforts in areas such as adversarial robustness, mechanistic interpretability, scalable oversight, independent research access, emergent behaviours, and anomaly detection.
The Forum says there will be a strong focus on creating and sharing a public library of technical evaluations and benchmarks for frontier AI models.
Further, the Forum aims to facilitate information sharing among companies and governments by establishing secure mechanisms for sharing information regarding AI safety and risks, whilst following protocols for responsible disclosure.
Now just launched, the Forum is set to form an advisory board to guide its strategy and priorities. The current founding companies will establish a charter, governance and funding, and form an executive board, with plans to consult with governments and civil societies
The announcement marks a major collaboration among competing companies. Microsoft and OpenAI are directly competing against Google and Anthropic’s AI models. Further, Microsoft and Google are direct competitors in different ventures, most notably the Cloud industry.
The Forum comes not long after the EU announced it was in the final stages of approving its landmark AI Act, which is set to strictly regulate the development and deployment of AI models across different sectors and industries.
While AI companies have claimed to care about safety, and CEOs even at one point signed an open letter to pull the brakes on its rapid development and proliferation, there has been major pushback against regulation. CEOs signed another open letter addressed directly at EU legislation, saying that Europe risked being left behind if they regulated the emerging technology too closely. The letter urged for increased inclusion of industry experts to monitor the law, rather than lawmakers themselves.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, even reportedly lobbied against the EU AI Act to have his ChatGPT model not be classified as high-risk.
In the US, seven AI companies just agreed to safeguard spearheaded by President Joe Biden, which urged for security testing of AI models, watermarking AI-produced content, publicly reporting AI capabilities and limitations, and researching the associated risks of AI.
While the companies may be directly competing against each other, the announcement of the Forum could help companies better reconcile and comply with government regulation.
The UK Space Agency will be docking its 72-foot model rocket at the Queen Links, Aberdeen, from 3 to 7 August, bringing the ‘Space for Everyone’ tour to the region.
This initiative aims to captivate and educate the next generation, showcasing the UK’s space industry and the diverse array of career opportunities available.
Throughout the event, organisations including The World Wildlife Fund for Nature in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Scotland based leading launch providers Orbex and Skyrora, will be in attendance – highlighting the thriving space industry in Scotland and beyond.
The Space for Everyone tour aims to shine a light on the pivotal role of space in enhancing life on Earth.
Visitors including children, families, and teachers will have the opportunity to witness first-hand how space technologies benefit our daily lives and gain insights into the continuous efforts to explore the great unknown.
UK Space Agency deputy CEO, Ian Annett, said: “Our Space for Everyone tour is an exciting opportunity for young people, and their parents, in Aberdeen to see first-hand what it is really like to work in the space sector and to learn about careers in this growing and exciting industry.
“The space sector requires various skills – many not traditionally associated with it – and champions inclusivity and the need for innovation.
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, or even an astronaut, as there are a host of talents needed to bring space closer to our daily lives and improve our understanding of this critical part of the environment for the benefit of the planet and its people.”
Space for Everyone promises an immersive experience, incorporating virtual reality headsets to provide insights into what a launch from the UK looks like, and the job roles involved in making it happen.
Visitors will also have the opportunity to explore various interactive areas, learning about the crucial role of satellites and discovering the diverse career paths available within the UK space industry.
British astronaut Tim Peake said: “The Space for Everyone tour will demonstrate the incredible capacity of space to inspire. It took thousands of people to make my mission to the International Space Station possible and there is a huge variety of careers on offer in space right here in the UK.
“I hope this activity sparks an interest in the future generations who will take our space sector to new heights.”
Admission to the tour is free, no booking required, and while the event is primarily targeted towards children aged 9 to 18, the UK Space Agency says it will be appropriate for all ages.
The tour first kicked off in Southampton in June and will visit a further four locations around the UK after Aberdeen.
Scottish business confidence has risen into positive territory for the first time in a year, according to the new Business Confidence Monitor for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).
The second quarter of 2023 saw most regions in the UK finally out of the red in terms of confidence, with Scotland scoring a 6.4, up from -0.2 in the first quarter of the year.
Contributing to this is Scotland’s export growth, the highest in the UK, as well as its domestic sales, which saw an increase of 5.6%, one of the biggest in the country, beating the national average of 4.9%.
Despite this positivity, Scotland continues to face the same challenges as much of the UK, with businesses and consumers alike suffering from high inflation rates, soaring energy costs, and an economy shrouded in uncertainty.
ICAEW surveyed its members across the country to assess current business attitudes and outlooks for the coming quarter. While sales in Scotland likely contributed to the growth in confidence, both Scotland and London expect domestic and international trade to slow in the next quarter.
The problem of inflation was also projected to increase in Scotland, further squeezing businesses.
Business Challenges
As confidence recovers, businesses were found to face different challenges than a year ago – regulatory challenges are now the most widely-cited, at 44%.
Concerns about the tax burden have risen to 34%, up from 30% in the previous quarter and reaching a historical high, likely reflecting the corporation tax hike to 25% which came into effect in April.
A growing proportion of Scottish businesses also cited bank charges as a challenge – this figure surged to 24% from 9% in the previous quarter.
Scottish Labour Market
Businesses expanded their workforce in Q2 2023, with employment expanding by 3.3%. Scottish businesses expect to grow employment by 2.6% over the coming year, continuing a pattern over the past year.
For IT and communication companies, salaries high a record high in Q2, reflecting their need for highly skilled people. The pace of salary growth is expected to weaken over the next 12 months, but only slightly when compared with the pattern seen in input and selling price inflation.
Despite efforts to expand workforces, the proportion of businesses citing staff turnover as a growing challenge remains above the historical average.
Input Price and Investment
While annual input price inflation is at a record high, Scottish businesses expect a slowdown over the next year. The cost environment remains difficult for Scotland – high raw energy and commodity costs initially drove inflation, which is now increasingly the result of a more generalised wage and price rise across the economy.
Salary growth is currently at 4.2%, well above the historical average of 2.0%, and is also expected to ease in the next year.
A similar pattern is predicted for selling prices, which have continued a sharp rise in Q2 of 4.3%, the highest increase in Scotland since 2004. Selling price gains are expected to be more modest by next year, as input cost pressures ease.
Profits are expected to continue their rise, as Scottish businesses are confident about maintaining the current rate of growth next year, of 5% for the next 12 months.
Further, capital investment is up by 2.6% this quarter, similar to the UK average. Companies expect a 2.9% boost in the 12 months ahead, however, higher than in any other UK region or nation, and led by the banking, finance, and insurance sector.
Research and Development budgets are also growing at the highest rate in the UK at 2.8%, but are expected to slow to 2.5% next year.
What About Small Business?
Despite a growth of confidence in Scotland as a whole, the Federation of Small Business‘s (FSB) has found Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) confidence has slumped in the second quarter of 2023.
The FSM Index dropped to minus 14.2 points in the second quarter, down 11.4 points in the first quarter of the year, a dramatic shift to a pessimistic economic outlook.
However, each sector reacted differently: confidence among wholesale and retail firms declining by 12.6 points, and professional, scientific and technical firms being the only major sector to reach positive territory, hitting 7.8 points.
Only 47% of small businesses surveyed by FSB plan to grow over the next year, with 89% of SMEs reporting higher costs compared to a year ago.
A major reason for this could be a struggle to access finance: just 45% of SME’s financial applications were successful in Q2.
The first scenes from an Abertay University-led movie making project have been released showcasing a new Virtual Production technique that allows actors to work together in real-time in two different locations using a 5G internet connection.
Claiming a first for the UK film industry, the test sequence used the rapid bandwidth speed of wireless 5G to connect industry quality digital backdrop screens in studios in Dundee and Manchester, allowing two actors to be filmed against a consistent virtual environment, without the need to travel to an exotic location, or be in the same room.
Virtual Production is a new cinematography technique that uses computer-generated imagery (CGI), high-definition LED screens and motion capture to create virtual sets, allowing filmmakers and theatre directors to create large-scale digitally generated environments to support real-time interaction, offering a faster, less expensive alternative to green screens.
The project is a proof of concept for wireless virtual production film-making, opening the door to a more flexible approach as 5G is rolled out across the country, while also showcasing the potential for mobile studios capable of being set up on any site with a 5G connection.
Led by Abertay University in Dundee, the 5G project is part of the Tay5G use case trial funded by the Scottish Government through the Tay Cities Region Deal and is supported by Dundee City Council.
Other supported include InGAME (Innovation for Games and Media Enterprise); VSS (Video Screen Services) StoryFutures; Royal Holloway, University of London; Scotland 5G Centre and telecoms infrastructure company AWTG.
A large LED screen, part of which was previously used to film the 2002 movie The Batman, was installed by VSS in Abertay’s new Virtual Production Research Environment in Dundee and was linked via 5G by AWTG to a similar screen in Manchester.
The short test sequence – featuring a sci-fi narrative based around AI Armageddon – was directed by Professor Peter Richardson, Head of Virtual Production at Story Futures and Professor of Creative Industries at Royal Holloway, University of London.
He said: “From a directing perspective, we had a team up in Dundee and a team down in Manchester where I was physically based, and I would give the actors direction over the 5G network, as well as receiving a direct feed from the camera in Dundee. I could see both shots on my monitor and the two actors that are 280 miles away acting together as though they were there in the same room. It’s been an interesting journey and we managed to get some really great material, so when the shots are compiled together you really do believe the actors are side by side, face to face.”
Abertay University hosts the 5G testbed in Dundee, giving researchers access to a private, controlled network to develop high-performing mobile processes almost matching the speeds of hard-wired connections.
Matt Bett of Abertay University’s Division of Games Technology and Mathematics said the use of virtual production coupled with 5G has enormous potential for the industry, including scope for a significant reduction in carbon footprint through reduced travel.
He added: “The Tay5G Virtual Production project has given us an opportunity to showcase the power of 5G for film production in a way that’s never been accomplished before. These results open the way for 5G to facilitate some major advances in the film and TV industries in the future and to put the UK at the forefront of the huge range of possibilities currently the horizon.”
Dundee’s Fair Work, Economic Growth and Infrastructure Convener, Councillor Steven Rome said: “It is incredibly exciting to see Dundee at the forefront of this groundbreaking work and use of 5G. When the Tay5G project was being developed, we knew that Virtual Production offered huge potential to build on the partners’ expertise across production and games as well as the outcomes from transnational EU project Create Converge and creative clusters InGAME and Story Futures.
“With the recent announcement of a new ‘movie magic’ research lab planned for Dundee, we’re building on world-class expertise in the creative and tech sectors to deliver our shared vision for a strong, smart and sustainable local economy with jobs and opportunities for all.”
Global management consultancy Kearney has today published the 12th edition of its Global Services Location Index (GSLI), which studies the vital factors that make countries attractive as potential locations for offshore business services.
India, China, and Malaysia continue to lead this year, with Brazil and the United Kingdom rounding out the top five.
While Asia Pacific countries continue to lead thanks to their immense cost advantage, abundant talent pool, and strong skills, the UK’s rise to fifth position from eighth is a noteworthy milestone and marks the first instance of a Western economy entering the top five.
In an era of rapidly evolving technology and ever-changing trends, business services such as information technology, business process outsourcing, and engineering are increasingly being delivered across borders as companies seek to lower their costs, scale their talent, and become more efficient by using more of the global talent base.
The global market for business services has also grown from US$624bn (£476bn) in 2022 to US$681bn (£519bn) in 2023 and is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate of eight percent through 2027, which will increase the demand for such services.
To evaluate and compare potential locations for offshoring, this year’s GSLI ranks 78 countries based on 52 metrics, across four dimensions: financial attractiveness, people skills and availability, business environment, and digital resonance.
A key trend in this year’s GSLI is the criticality of talent regeneration. With the emergence and adoption of digital technologies, cost-centric service locations are at risk of losing their competitiveness to more developed and technologically advanced countries as more work and processes will be automated. Talent regeneration, therefore, will serve as the backbone of this shift.
The UK’s tech sector has become a $1 trillion (£800bn) economy, trailing only the US and China, and is one of the strongest ecosystems in Europe. Earlier this year, the government announced it would invest £100 million in funding for its Foundation Model Taskforce responsible for accelerating the UK’s capability in rapidly-emerging types of artificial intelligence.
The country boasts the highest number technology patents filed in emerging technology such as AI/ML, automation, blockchain, robotics, and other digital technologies, which makes them frontrunners in technology in the region.
Further, the UK government’s plans to invest in digital skills training and other programmes, such as funding 1,000 PhDs and scholarships in AI, have helped boost apprentice and digital skills readiness, according to Kearney.
According to the report, the country’s 3,000 ed-tech start-ups are helping people upskill and reskill themselves in technology roles.
Ramyani Basu, partner, digital transformation at Kearney said: “Digital skills of the labour force and digital outputs of business activity are increasingly becoming key differentiators of a country’s performance. The UK’s climb up the ranking is partly due to its heavy investment in digital training, newly announced government programs and funding for businesses which have helped boost its talent regeneration potential.
“Harnessing the potential of technological advancements like AI provides enormous opportunities to grow our economy, create more jobs and continue to lead in the region. It’s important that countries build a strong talent pipeline and solid business environment not just for today’s needs but for those of our future generations. We’re seeing a large shift in Asia’s previous dominance and could see Europe and the Americas climb up the rankings in the next decade.”
More companies are turning to tech for their screening methods, with 71% of compliance leaders saying they use AI or machine learning (ML) as a core component of their adverse media screening.
This is according to Ripjar, a provider for identifying and tackling criminal and malicious activity, which released its 2023 State of Adverse Media Screening report, based on a survey investigating the use of adverse media screening among compliance professionals.
In a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape, compliance leaders are recognising the strategic importance of technology in combating financial crime.
Jeremy Annis, CEO and co-founder of Ripjar, said: “We are witnessing a transformative era in adverse media screening, driven by advancements in AI and machine learning. Our survey report highlights the significant impact that technology adoption can have on improving risk detection and compliance surplus.”
The report highlights the continuous shift from considering technology as a discretional choice to a critical investment, with 62% of respondents acknowledging the over-reliance on manual processes and emphasising the untapped potential of technology adoption.
In fact, 20% of respondents said they were still conducting their adverse media screening entirely through manual processes.
Adverse media is, broadly, any media that would provide a negative or damaging information about an individual or organisation that would suggest a significant business risk. Organisations and individuals can use screening methods to target adverse media when trialing future partners and clients.
Financial institutions regularly rely on adverse media screening to check clients for potential risks like fraud, corruption, financial crimes, money laundering, and other illegal practices.
Investigating the future of adverse media screening and sentiment in the industry, Ripjar surveyed 205 compliance professionals from across the UK, Belenux, Sweden, Finland, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Arab Emrites (UAE).
The report examines attitudes to adverse media screening, and the current challenges faced by the industry.
Among these were budgetary constraints, false positive levels of threats, and the technical complexity of technology and data integration, which firms believe will only increase in difficulty.
Further, 47% of firms believe that the challenge of keeping in step with regulatory changes will increase.
Interestingly, however, 41% of respondents thought that the complexity of implementing new technology solutions will remain one of their top challenges for the new one to two years, with those still usually mostly manual processes listing this as their top challenge.
And for good reason – the digital skills gap is halting digital transformation efforts across the country, and 42% of firms surveyed think resourcing a workforce will still be challenging over the next 12 to 24 months.
Ripjar’s report included a deeper dive into the types of technology used in Adverse Media Screening by firms.
Firms tended to use a combination of in-house and vendor solutions (34%) over exclusively one or the other, highlighting the preference of firms to use a custom, bespoke approach to technology adoption.
AI continues to hit the mainstream, as the emerging technology, along with machine learning, was used by 71% of respondents as a core component of their adverse media screening. These were more often used across the UAE, Benelux, and Nordic countries
Still, 20% of firms use no technical components in their screening process, and those that use some manual processes merely rely on search engines as their most commonly used process for screening clients and organisations.
Respondents that use technology-led solutions had more confidence (100%) in their adverse media screening, whereas those that used some manual processes were 82% confident. Those that used mainly or all manual processes had a much lower confidence level, at 73% and 68% respectively.
While 67% of firms surveyed are still somewhat reliant on manual screening processes, 65% want to increase their automation capabilities whilst retaining some manual processes, suggesting firms have a largely positive outlook on technological adoption.
Further, only 14% of companies are not considering using ChatGPT or other Large Language AI Models (LLMs), as an additional capability for adverse media screening. In contrast, 50% are considering its use in the future, 34% are taking active steps to explore these models, and 2% are already using them.
Trust surrounding LLMs ranges greatly, with 58% of respondents somewhat confident in them, 23% not very confident, and 12% very confident.
While AI and LLMs may need time to become more common place in screening techniques, overall technology is already playing a significant role in the industry, and firms risk being left behind if they continue to delay its adoption.
Gabriel Hopkins, Chief Product Officer at Ripjar, said: “This survey report underscores the transformative power of technology in the fight against financial crime. With advancements in AI and machine learning, organisations now have access to powerful tools to enhance operational efficiency and bolster anti-money laundering.
“The findings highlight that firms leveraging sophisticated technology solutions are seeing significant advantages. While the potential for AI is immense, our customers highlight the importance of working with a trusted solution which provides performance and the required levels of model governance.”
The agreement aims to strengthen Scotland’s leadership in the fintech sector by harnessing new technologies to address major societal, environmental, and industry challenges.
FinTech Scotland, an industry-led initiative supported by the Scottish Government is recognised for enabling collaboration between organisations and people across the profession – from established firms and investors to entrepreneurs and skills agencies.
The addition of ENU as a strategic partner will further strengthen FinTech Scotland’s ability to connect the latest academic insight to industry and government.
The University has a track record for supporting computer science, especially around areas of cybersecurity and cryptography, most recently in supporting spin-out companies such as Zonefox, Symphonic, and Cyacomb.
Professor Bill Buchanan, who leads the Blockpass ID lab at Edinburgh Napier University, a research lab which focuses on digital identity and trust, said: “Scotland is a unique environment for innovation and collaboration between academia and industry.
“The finance industry, too, is fundamentally important to the economic health of our country. Along with this, Scotland has some of the finest cities in the world, which are great places to live and work.
“This partnership will further world-class research and innovation capabilities, and focus on real-life problems. These, we hope, will grow the innovative companies of our future, and support the growth of existing ones – from little acorns, mighty oaks grow.”
The partnership will facilitate the exploration and development of new initiatives that produce the relevant skills and talent needed to support Scotland’s already thriving fintech cluster.
ENU will also play a key role in exploration of distributed ledger technologies – a rapidly evolving field that has the potential to revolutionise the financial industry.
Fiona Mason, head of business engagement and IP commercialisation at Edinburgh Napier University said: “This partnership with Fintech Scotland is an exciting opportunity for both Edinburgh Napier University and the fintech sector.
“We are thrilled to be able to draw on our collective strengths, combining our academic expertise with that of the financial sector to drive forward positive innovation, and we are delighted we can support Fintech Scotland with their ambition to secure Scotland’s place as a top five global fintech centre.”
Nicola Anderson, CEO of Fintech Scotland said: “We are delighted to be entering a strategic partnership with Edinburgh Napier University. This collaboration represents a significant step towards strengthening Scotland’s leadership in the fintech sector.
“By harnessing new technologies and fostering collaboration between academia, industry, and government, we can address big societal, environmental, and industry challenges.
“Edinburgh Napier University’s renowned expertise in computer science will further advance our ability to connect academic insight to practical industry applications. This partnership is also another opportunity to develop the skills and talent necessary to support Scotland’s thriving fintech cluster.”
Virgin Media O2 have confirmed a staggering cut of 2,000 UK jobs in their Q2 2023 results, which revealed a decline in the number of broadband customers amid the cost-of-living crisis and rising broadband prices.
Their fixed customer base fell by 24,700 in Q2, and their contract mobile base saw a net reduction of 1,500.
The two companies, which merged in the UK in 2021, said the decrease in customers was likely due to price rises in April and May. According to the results, broadband on its own was more resilient than other services, with a net reduction of 15,300 in Q2, which the company credited to their 34% year-on-year increase of broadband speed.
Despite a net reduction in its customer base, Virgin Media O2 saw a 6.2% year-on-year increase in revenue, amassing to £2,713.1 million. This increase was largely due to a rise in mobile revenue driven by consumer price rises.
However, consumer fixed revenue and B2B fixed revenue decreased in Q2.
Further, the company saw an adjusted free cash flow on £460.5m in Q2, down from £751.6 million in the first quarter.
The job cuts are set to affect 2,000 UK workers, or about 12% of its total workforce, by the end of 2023, including 800 reductions that had already been announced.
A spokesperson for Virgin Media O2 said the move was in an effort to “simplify our operating model” and said the company was planning on working with both the CWU and Prospect unions as well as employee representatives to discuss the future of their employment and the business.
Virgin Media O2 have yet to confirm which departments will be most affected by the job cuts, or if these jobs would be replaced by automation or AI.
Amid the cost-of-living crisis, UK consumers have continued to feel squeezed by their broadband providers – a recent report found that the UK ranked 73rd globally in broadband costs, with their European counterparts securing faster, cheaper, and more affordable broadband.
Scots have lost at least £120,000 to cyber-criminals through fake crypto investment scams in the first three months of 2023, new figures from the country’s national consumer advice service reveal.
Advice Direct Scotland, which runs consumeradvice.scot, urged vigilance on social media platforms like Facebook, the recently rebranded Twitter X, and the new Threads app amid a surge in online fraud.
The charity has seen cryptocurrency scam complaints double in the first quarter of this year.
Between January and March, 18 Scots sought assistance from Advice Direct Scotland, losing more than £120,000 to such fraud, including an Aberdeen man who was scammed out of about £10,000.
This marked a twofold increase in both the number of cases and the total value compared to the previous quarter.
Additionally, Advice Direct Scotland disclosed that other forms of online fraud had risen by almost a third (32%) during the same period.
The true scale of the problem is likely to be worse than indicated, as the figures do not account for unreported cases or those directly reported to the police.
Criminals often employ social media ads featuring fake celebrity endorsements to entice people into investing in crypto assets, using aggressive tactics and promising unrealistic returns.
Advice Direct Scotland stressed the importance of understanding your investments and conducting thorough research.
Consumers should always check if a company is regulated and authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority, the organisation advised.
They should also be wary of unexpected contacts, high-pressure tactics, and promises of unrealistically good returns, and not assume something is legitimate simply because it has a professional-looking website or social media posts.
In the case of the Aberdonian who lost £10,000, scammers promised him a £90,000 return within a year and convinced him to make regular payments using gift cards.
Scammers also claimed that an extra fee would ensure the £90,000 delivery to his door through a courier.
After blocking all contact and failing to deliver the money, he sought help, but since payments were made using difficult-to-trace gift cards, options for recovery were limited. Currently, he is exploring the possibility of refunds through the debit and credit card companies used for some of the purchases.
Advice Direct Scotland has also seen an increase in “Hi Mum/Hi Dad” scams, in which criminals impersonate loved ones and send unexpected messages via text or WhatsApp, urgently requesting money.
Therefore, the organisations stresses the importance of verifying the true identity of the person they are speaking to before taking any action.
Further, there has been a surge in gift card scams, according to Advice Direct Scotland, with criminals targeting people online posing as a friend asking for financial help in the form of vouchers from retailers.
Advice Direct Scotland is urging people to report any suspected scams to its scamwatch service, with the organisation able to then share this information with the authorities.
Unfortunately, we are aware that Scots have lost more than £120,000 to fake cryptocurrency schemes in the space of three months.
Lyndsay McFee, consumer project lead at Advice Direct Scotland, said: “However, this is a significantly underreported problem, and there may be many more victims of such scams.
“Scammers are constantly seeking new opportunities, including through social media, to target Scots and acquire personal information, bank details, or money.
“It is crucial to stay vigilant while using both new and existing apps or websites. One key thing to remember is that if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.
“Always thoroughly research any financial product or firm you are considering dealing with. People should not feel pressurised or rushed into making a purchase as this can be a clear sign of a scam. Never pay to recover any money as this is likely to be part of a larger fraud.
“The most effective way to stop scammers in their tracks is to report a scam to scamwatch.scot when you see one. Remember there is no shame in being scammed, and consumers who are concerned or need help should contact one of our specialist consumer advisers for free, impartial, and practical advice on 0808 164 6000 or www.consumeradvice.scot.”
The Online Safety Bill is currently in the House of Lords, where members have adopted a new amendment concerning the regulation of encrypted content.
According to the new amendment, Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, will have to add an extra reporting stage before it can require technology companies to scan end-to-end encrypted content and messages for child sex abuse material and other illegal content.
The measure for extra scrutiny is meant to give further protections to privacy that is typically secured by end-to-end encryption.
A report by a ‘skilled person’ will have to be commissioned by Ofcom before the regulator gives notices to technology companies to scan encrypted messages.
The ‘skilled person’ will be an independent expert, according to Lord Parkinson of Whitely Bay, who spoke at the House of Lords on Wednesday.
Ofcom would need to consider how the scanning of encrypted messages in each circumstance would impact privacy and freedom of expression prior to requiring a company to introduce the technology necessary to read encrypted messages. Further, the regulator would be bound by human rights laws.
But it still remains unclear how end-to-end encryption scanning technology will be rolled out, and how the regulator will balance privacy concerns amid an alarming rise in child sexual abuse content in the UK.
Two other amendments which attempted to impose stricter parameters to Ofcom’s encryption scanning notices were dropped in the House of Lords in favour of the newly adopted one.
The first, introduced by conservative Lord Moylan, would have put an outright ban on Ofcom imposing any requirements on weakening or removing of encryption, a move which has been called for by many tech companies like WhatsApp and Signal.
Labour Peer Lord Stevensen of Balmacara’s amendment was also dropped, which would have required an independent judicial commissioner to review if an encryption scanning notice would be proportionate prior to its issue by Ofcom.
There still remains a lack of consensus in government on what this bill would mean for privacy and encryption.
The bill excludes text messages, Zoom, and email from the encryption measures, as well as messages sent by law enforcement, the public sector, and emergency responders.
The exclusion of the public sector and law enforcement from scans, especially amid reports of rampant sexual abuse by law enforcement in the UK has pulled into question the effectiveness of this part of the online safety bill, as well as where it is pointed.
Lord Parkinson, however, has assured that scanning encrypted messages would be a last resort if companies were found to not properly manage their risks – if child sexual abuse material is continually found on a platform, Ofcom will be able to direct the company to use “accredited” technology to remove the content.
Even with the extra step, civil groups are saying the protections do not go far enough to ensure privacy and freedom of expression.
Emblation, a Scottish health tech firm originally based out of Stirlingshire, has launched a $2 million clinical trial in the US in hopes it will transform the progress of its microwave treatments.
Founded by Gary Beale and Eamon McErlean, who met at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University, the company grew from humble beginnings in 2007, gaining startup grants and Scottish Government funding to develop a portable microwave device to treat different skin diseases and disorders.
In 2016, the duo launched their Swift microwave treatment for verrucae and warts which is currently used by over 1,000 clinicians in the US.
However, the device is currently only cleared for general use in dermatology, so cannot be directly marketed as a treatment for warts and verrucae, stymieing its growth.
Emblation’s new trial is set to help their Swift devices achieve a new specific clearance from the US’s Food and Drug Administration, which could extend its reach.
For the trail, three dermatologists are set to recruit 110 patients across three US cities, with each patient to receive treatment from one to four months if needed. Experts will review the project’s progress ‘blind’ to mitigate bias.
Going up against existing cryotherapy treatments typically used to treat skin conditions like warts, the study is pivotal for the expansion of Swift’s microwave technology.
“No healthcare system in the world is as commercially important than that in America, which is why it is so heavily regulated,” Dr Matt Kidd, director of research and development at Emblation said.
“This clinical trial is the culmination of years of research and development of our products to target this market. Once the findings are complete, it should transform the way we can market Swift treatments.
“This is a major milestone for us and it has been a long process to get to this stage, ultimately made possible by the fact that Emblation attracted significant investment.
“It is now our very clear hope that the results will allow us to change how our device is labelled, while also demonstrating that Swift® treatments offer clear advantages over cryotherapy.”
Robotic assisted surgery (RAS) is already being used in many types of operations across the spectrum of surgical specialities, according to the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Some of its reported benefits include reduced peri-operative blood loss, reduced peri-operative pain, more efficient use of anaesthetics and shorter hospital stays.
Used well and for the right patients, RAS has the potential to give greater precision during operations, result in fewer blood transfusions, free up hospital beds, increase patient satisfaction and help with a faster return to work and family, together with the potential for lower rates of return to theatre.
Studies across a variety of surgical procedures have shown some significant advantages of robotic-assisted surgery, particularly when performed by experienced robotic surgeons and on appropriately selected patients.
However, despite a recent rapid growth in RAS, there are no formal processes for providing robotic training in the UK or Europe, or introducing RAS to hospitals.
Unregulated adoption has the potential to lead to varied accessibility, variable outcomes, and possible patient harm, according to the Royal College.
The Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) has therefore published a new guide that discusses some of the challenges – and promises – of robotic surgery.
‘Robotic assisted surgery – A pathway to the future’ also looks at the potential future application of robotics and makes recommendations to encourage sound governance practices that can lead to the safe adoption and expansion of robotic surgery in UK hospitals.
The guidance proposes a structured pathway for established surgeons who want to transition to robotic-assisted surgery. It also identifies the relevant roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders for ensuring and maintaining safe autonomous practice in robotic surgery.
Despite the centralised approaches in Wales and Scotland, the current lack of a national strategy in England and Northern Ireland has meant that the use of robotics is often based on local availability, resources and expertise, rather than patient suitability and care.
Further, there are currently no nationally recognised standards for established surgeons and surgical teams.
Services who wish to transition from open or conventional minimally invasive surgery to an autonomous robotic assisted surgical practice do not have consistent guidance.
There is also limited access to the required training, assessment, feedback and support necessary to perform robotic surgical procedures competently and safely.
There is no clear definition of roles and responsibilities for hospitals, health boards, surgeons, robotic companies, proctors – who observe the procedure and intervene if needed – and the regulators.
With the publication of the new guidance, RCS England is looking forward to working with all relevant parties to develop a set of national training standards and enhance the readiness of the workforce to meet the rapidly expanding robotic technology.
The new guidance also emphasises the importance of proper and cautious research and evaluation, defined outcome-measures and transparency of processes, while at the same time ensuring patient privacy and confidentiality.
In England, there are currently no established protocols or minimum requirements for robotic training of either established surgeons or surgeons in training, although a number of organisations have developed curricula to expose surgeons to basic robot technology.
The RCS England emphasises that decisions need to be based on objective research that considered the full implications of using new technologies, not just at the individual level but also at a systemic and societal level.
Miss Nuha Yassin, Consultant Colorectal Surgeon, robotics and minimally invasive surgery & RCS England Council Lead for the Future of Surgery, Robotics and Digital Surgery said: “This timely new guidance will support the safe and structured introduction of robotic assisted surgery – and the fruitful collaboration between hospitals, surgeons and industry. It’s important for the surgical profession, led by RCS England, in collaboration with the surgical speciality associations, to take charge of all processes, accredit training centres and pathways and facilitate equity in access and training.
“To benefit from the potential advantages, any investment in purchasing robots needs to be accompanied by proper planning for its introduction into the service with a focus on training, quality assurance and efficiency. This also needs to acknowledge the variable learning curve which can be long for some surgeons and theatre teams before these efficiencies can be observed at a large scale.
“In addition to being a tool in the surgeon’s toolkit, robotics and computer assisted technology have the potential to provide a pathway to the future not just by improving the technical or mechanical aspects of surgery, but also by providing enhanced vision around preoperative or intra-operative imaging which aids with operative planning and accuracy.
“Incoming technologies in surgery can support intra-operative decision making. For example, through rapid pattern recognition and by converting data to information in a way that can support the operating surgeon’s judgement and perception – and steer them away from danger or error.”
Professor Neil Mortensen, outgoing President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) said: “The 21st century has brought an increasing variety of less invasive ways to treat disease and to carry out surgery. It is possible that robotic surgery will eventually reach an era where a robot could perform pre-programmed tasks, complementing human performance.
“This is likely a long way in the future and it comes with significant additional ethical and systemic considerations. It is also important to establish the right relationship with industry, being clear and transparent around what constitutes conflict of interest and creating an effective dialogue that will benefit both patients and surgical education.
“At a time when there is less exposure of trainee surgeons to theatre time, robotic-assisted surgery simulation could be an opportunity to safely expose them to the spectrum of case complexity and expand the capacity of the surgical workforce.”
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has announced it will release a commercial version of its open source large language AI model, LLaMa.
The language model, which stands for Large Language Model Meta AI, was first announced in February and was made available to researchers as a small foundational AI model.
According to the Financial Times, Meta will release a commercial version of the model, allowing developers to build applications using the foundational model.
Commercial access would mean that businesses and developers could adapt and improve the open-source AI model, potentially leading to further innovation and improving the functionality of LLaMA.
Meta’s AI model is being offered with much smaller parameters compared to ChatGPT – and the more parameters, the more points a model was trained on, and the greater its output will be in terms of quality. LLaMA will be available with 7, 13, 33 and 65 billion parameters, while ChatGPT’s -3.5 model has 175 billion, and GPT-4 has an estimated one trillion.
The advantage of have smaller parameters – such as requiring less computing power and resources – made sense for LLaMA’s use as tool for academics and researchers.
Since it is still a foundational model and is trained on a large set of unlabelled data, it can be useful to developers fine tuning AI to different tasks and features.
Meta’s launch of a commercial AI model means it has officially joined the AI race, competing with OpenAI’s landmark ChatGPT, and Google’s Bard which is currently attempting to catch up.
While Meta’s LLaMA is smaller than the two largest models, it does have larger parameters than other AI models on the market, and it’s open-source availability may soon mean a boom in innovation for smaller-scale models.
The US is on track to break records for the most data breaches in a single year, outpacing the US’s record 1,862 compromise seen in 2021.
The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), a US-based nonprofit organisation aiming to support victims of identity crime, released its US data breach findings for the first half of 2023.
According to the H1 2023 Data Breach Report, there were 951 publicly reported data compromises in Q2, a 114% increase compared to the previous quarter, which saw 442 compromises.
Through the first half of 2023, the ITRC tracked 1,393 compromises, higher than the total compromises reported every year between 2005 and 2020, except for 2017.
According to the report, the number of victims in H1, amounting to 156,637,416 individuals, increased 153%, compared to the first half of 2022, which had 62,019,351 victims.
However, the report found that the number of victims disclosed in notices of a data breach is well behind 2022’s pace: notices in H1 2023 estimated that 156 million individuals were impacted by data breaches, compared with 424 million in the whole of 2022.
The number of data breaches with no actionable information about the root cause of the compromise grew to 534 in H1 2023 compared to 319 in H1 2022, a 67% increase.
“The second quarter and first half of 2023 has been historic with regard to data breaches,” said Eva Velasquez, President and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center.
“Since we started tracking data compromises in 2005, only the full years of 2017, 2021 and 2022 have exceeded the number of data events recorded in the first six months of 2023. While businesses and individuals may be numb to constant attacks and scams that lead to breaches, it’s important to remain diligent and practice good cyber-hygiene to make any information stolen or exposed less useful for identity criminals.”
The issue of data compromise was felt across industry, as every sector reported a higher number of data compromises in H1 2023 compared to H1 2022.
Healthcare leads as the sector with the most compromises, followed by financial services, which reported nearly double the number of compromises versus H1 2022.
Phishing and ransomware were the primary attack vector for cyberattacks, and the number of malware attacks in 2023 increased 89% over the same period last year.
System and human error also contributed to the high number of data compromises, leading to 311 breaches.
The Competition and Markets Authority has launched a further investigation into Adobe’s acquisition of Figma, the web design company.
In its phase 2 probe, the CMA will investigate via a panel of independent experts if the merger will result in less competition in the design software industry.
Plans for the new investigation were announced on 30 June, much to the of Adobe, which tried to buy Figma for $20 billion. Adobe claimed it was committed to keeping Figma an independent company, saying it had no plans to change the pricing of its offerings, including its free options.
Figma, the San Francisco based company, was founded in 2012, and offers cloud-based software for vector-based design, making it a direct competitor to some of Adobe’s Creative Cloud offerings, including Illustrator and XD.
The CMA found that competition between the two companies actually increased investment in improving services “this important rivalry could be lost if the deal goes ahead,” the authority wrote at the time the investigation was announced.
Adobe argued that their acquisition of Figma would enhance their companies’ respective products, offering Figma’s services the functionality of Adobe systems, with Adobe benefiting from Figma’s features.
The UK is not the only country challenging the deal – the merger is being challenged in the US, and the EU is due to make their decision on the deal by 27 August.
Adobe still hopes to go ahead with the merger – the largest in its 41-year-history – but these plans may be foiled if any of these nation’s regulatory bodies decide to press further with investigations, or rule the deal as anti-competitive.
The Edinburgh-based EdTech robotics company Robotical has secured a six-figure order for its humanoid walking robot.
In what marks the single biggest deal for Robotical since the company expanded into North America in 2021, 360 Martys – its trademark robot – have been rolled out in classrooms throughout the Capistrano Unified School District (CUSD) estate, which is the largest school district in Orange Country, California.
Pupils in CUSD’s 32 elementary schools and two new state-of-the-art STEAM labs are now learning to code with Marty, an educational humanoid walking robot.
Commenting on the order, Hal Speed, Head of North America at Robotical, said: “Marty is an extremely versatile resource that enables children from as young as four to learn to code in a fun and engaging way. And, to make it as easy as possible for educators to deliver lessons that meet success criteria, we have an online learning portal that houses extensive curriculum-mapped teaching resources.
“We are delighted that CUSD has chosen to invest in Marty as their primary STEM learning tool and, having seen Marty in action, it seems both teachers and children are all really fired up to learn with Marty.”
It was a sentiment shared by the Principle of Laguna Niguel elementary Andrea Meissner. In recounting the teacher training that Robotical delivered at the Laguna Niguel elementary – home to the new STEAM labs, she commented: “When they learned to use the robots you would have thought they were having a party. If the teachers had that much fun, I thought, so will the kids.”
Parent Burcu Cevik said that her 7-year-old first-grade son was keen to see the labs and experience the many offerings.
“Once he saw the robots, he was so excited,” Cevik added. “He’s very good at math and science and he’ll love that he can code and program the robots.”
International from the start, over 10,000 Martys have now been sold with resellers across Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America.
The global education technology market size was valued at USD 123.4 billion in 2022 and is expected to witness a compound annual growth rate of 12.3% from 2023 to 2030, according to Grand View Research Inc.
Marty offers a range of learning progression from unplugged and block-based programming right through to Python. The physical product is supported with teaching materials that align to national and regional curricula and complemented by learning activities that enable Marty to be integrated with other areas of the curriculum.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has approved the potential sharing of financial data with online gambling operators for proposed financial checks to ensure gamblers are making healthy financial choices.
It is estimated over £3 billion was spent on gambling between April 2022 and March 2023 alone, making it a massive industry, and potential problem, in the UK.
“Problem gambling has devastating consequences for people’s finances, relationships and health. We are keen to see the financial sector share data to protect people from unaffordable losses and spiralling debt,” said Stephen Almond, Executive Director of Regulatory Risk at the ICO.
To combat irresponsible gambling practices among consumers, the ICO has proposed financial checks be done by gambling operators to warn users about spending too much or making unaffordable bets.
The transfer and sharing of personal financial data, however, needed to be investigated to see if it was compliant with the UK GDPR and Data Protection 2018 law.
In a letter to UK Finance, the ICO confirmed the data protection law does not stop gambling companies from conducting financial risk checks on customers, and that lenders can share people’s personal information – but stipulates this must be done transparently and proportionately.
Under the proposed safeguards the ICO is designing with the Gambling Commission, gambling companies would only be permitted to use personal information they receive solely for the purpose of financial risk checks. Customers will need to be told that checks on their financial health may be undertaken where they incur significant losses.
The ICO has also lent its support to plans for gambling companies to share information about customers identified as high risk who are gambling across multiple sites.
In a report, the ICO set out its advice to the Betting and Gaming Council on the necessary safeguards required to share personal data between different operators.
“Data sharing can be a force for good, enabling organisations to protect people from gambling-related harm. We’ve been pleased to work with the Betting and Gaming Council through our Regulatory Sandbox to help them safeguard gamblers while upholding their rights to privacy,” Almond added.
Following the completion of the Sandbox pilot, the data-sharing project – known as GamProtect – will be implemented across the gambling industry with support from the Betting and Gaming Council.
While the ICO has said the sharing of financial data in these instances would be approved under the UK GDPR, they may need to come under review if the new Data Protection and Digital Rights Bill comes into affect. This bill is set to change certain regulations around data sharing and transfers, but is still undergoing legislative processes.
The head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said that artificial intelligence could disrupt the financial services sector in “ways and at a scale not seen before”, warning that the regulator would be forced to take action against AI-based fraud.
Nikhil Rathi, the chief executive of the FCA, said that there are risks of “cyber fraud, cyber-attacks and identity fraud increasing in scale and sophistication and effectiveness” as AI becomes more widespread, in a speech delivered to executives in London yesterday.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, is hoping to make the UK a centre for the regulation of AI. The UK is still yet to formalise AI regulation and is taking a non-statutory approach to the burgeoning technology, while the European Union is one step away from passing a landmark act to regulate the deployment and creation of AI.
The FCA’s work on AI is part of a broader effort to work out how to regulate the big tech sector as it increasingly offers financial products. This includes services like Google Pay and Apple Pay, as well as the advancement of cryptocurrency.
In his speech, Rathi warned that AI technology will increase risks for financial firms in particular. Senior managers at those firms will be “ultimately accountable for the activities of the firm”, including decisions taken by AI, he said.
“As AI is further adopted, the investment in fraud prevention and operational and cyber resilience will have to accelerate simultaneously. We will take a roust line of this – full support for beneficial innovation alongside proportionate protections.”
Rathi will use the example of a recent “deepfake” video of the personal finance campaigner Martin Lewis supposedly selling speculative investments.
Lewis said the video was “terrifying” and called for regulators to force big technology companies to take action to stop similar scams.
Derek Mackenzie, CEO of global skills provider Investigo said: “With AI set to have a seismic impact of the financial services industry, tackling the digital skills shortfall should be a top priority. From compliance to coding, businesses operating in this area are crying out for the latest tech talent to help them explore and implement AI into the workplace, yet many remain woefully understaffed.
“The FCA is right to get ahead of the game on this important issue, but without the right talent pipeline in place, far too many firms will find themselves falling behind in terms of AI capabilities and open to risk due to a lack of in-house regulatory expertise.”
The Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) has opened applications for the 2024 cohort of its TechX Accelerator programme.
Clean energy startups from around the world can now apply for a place on the programme and a share of the £1.2M grant funding available (up to £100,000 for each start up).
Backed by its strategic partners, bp, Equinor Ventures, and ADNOC, the programme will accelerate the growth of the selected companies by providing access to expert mentors, technology development guidance and commercial support.
Scottish Government Wellbeing Economy Secretary Neil Gray said: “The TechX Clean Energy Accelerator offers a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to develop innovative ideas which will help Scotland make a just transition to net zero.
“Supporting the growth of the clean energy sector is a priority for this government. That is why we support the TechX programme as part of our £90 million investment in the Net Zero Technology Centre through the Aberdeen City Region Deal.”
Participants will be exposed to an extensive industry network with opportunities for potential field trials and further investment.
In its mission to develop and deploy technology for a net zero energy industry, NZTC is galvanising entrepreneurial ingenuity to discover untapped talent and solutions.
This year, the accelerator welcomes applications from companies across the globe specialising in technologies in the following areas: carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS), low carbon hydrogen, alternative fuels and green chemicals, renewable power, digital solutions, decarbonised industrial heat and cooling.
Now in its sixth year, Techx has accelerated 57 technology start-ups to date who have collectively done on to generate over £10M in annual revenue and achieve eight commercialisations.
From wave energy converters for offshore renewable power, to superconducting hydrogen motors to decarbonising aviation, TechX has aimed to propel a clean energy technology ecosystem to help drive the transition to net zero.
Mark Anderson, Chief Acceleration Officer & TechX Director said: “Start-ups stand poised as instrumental drivers in our journey towards achieving net zero. Our TechX Accelerator provides an environment where fledgling companies can unlock their full potential, spark novel concepts, and grow at an accelerated pace.
“I look forward to welcoming our next round of pioneering companies, who will help NZTC unearth transformational technologies to enable clean and affordable energy.”
UK Government Minister for Scotland Malcolm Offord said: “Start-up companies play a fundamental role in driving innovation in the energy sector. The TechX Accelerator is a fantastic programme to help these companies in that delivery, and I encourage any start-up thinking of applying to put in an application.
“The UK Government is investing £90 million in the Net Zero Technology Centre to support sustainable economic growth in North East Scotland, and more than £2.4 billion to level up right across Scotland.”
The application deadline for TechX next cohort is 1 October 2023, with the accelerator set to begin in February 2024. More information and a way to apply can be found here.
Amid growing concerns about the digital skills gap, FutureDotNow, a tech industry coalition, has published a roadmap detailing the next steps for government, businesses, and civil society to increase the UK’s digital capacity and confidence.
According to the roadmap, 59% of the UK’s workforce is unable to do all of the digital tasks essential for work, leading to an accumulative £145 billion potential loss of cumulative GDP growth between 2018 and 2028.
The roadmap has three main points: it establishes a strategy, a means for delivery, and proposes cultural change.
Urgent Action
According to FutureDotNow’s data, only 41% of UK workers can accomplish all 20 essential digital skills for work.
8% can do zero tasks, and 27% can do 17 to 19 tasks.
Using digital productivity tools tends to be the most common skill people struggle with. Next, four out of the ten top skill gaps related to cybersecurity and being safe online.
Further, every industry is effected by the skills gap, even tech: 33% of tech sector workers do not have all 20 tasks under their belt.
Age also do not make people immune to a lack of digital skills – even 55% of digital natives, those aged 18 to 24 years old, are unable to do all 20 tasks.
23 to 34 years old are the most digital savvy, with 48% able to do all tasks. Over 65s have the lowest level of capability, with only 23% able to do all 20 essential digital tasks.
The Roadmap
FutureDotNow’s roadmap aims to establish and deliver a strategy which can create a cultural change to drive technical skills development.
Strategy
The strategy is mainly geared toward government and policy makers attempting to mitigate the digital skills gap.
Firstly, FutureDotNow recommended establishing a national ambition for essential digital capability and confidence in working age adults.
Essential to this is adopting the work skills outlined in the Essential Digital Skills Framework as the national minimum digital skill set required by people of working age. Government and industry should work together to regularly review the framework so its keeps pace with technological advances.
Increasing the awareness and data on the digital skills gap is also essential in closing it. This also would also enable improvements in digital skills to be tracked.
Galvanising businesses to equip employees with digital skills is also part of the strategy, as well as creating resources for businesses to train their employees.
Monitoring, coordinating, and reporting on progress is a vital part of the strategy to create greater visibility and account for progress.
Delivery
The recommendations for delivery are aimed at business, aiming to help employers provide their employees with the tools to build their Essential Digital Skills.
FutureDotNow recommends leveraging the common language of the Essential Digital Skills Framework to help promote digital skills across the board and keep track of their initiatives to build these skills.
The coalition is calling on businesses to assess the digital skillset of their workers, along with their capability and confidence levels completing the essential tasks.
They are also calling on businesses to “actively” aid their people to grow their digital skills, ensuring they can at least accomplish the 20 work tasks outlined in the framework.
Culture
FutureDotNow is calling on business, government, and civil society as a whole to work together to accelerate insight and understanding of the cultural aspects affecting digital transformation.
They specifically want to know how to motive people to enahnce their digital capabilities to make their initiatives more practical and effective.
“We talk a lot about making the UK a science and technology superpower by 2030… but it means nothing if you do not have the customer or the skills base to use the products, never mind produce them in the first place,” Paul Scully, Minister for tech and the digital economy said.
The Employment Outlook report said that OECD countries “may be on the brink of an AI revolution” though adoption of AI is still relatively low across firms.
The rapid progress of generative AI, falling costs, and increasing availability of workers with relevant AI skills does suggest a turning point in the expansion of AI.
Tracking the emerging technology is vital considering the potential impacts on the workplace, displacing workers, making certain skills redundant, and replacing jobs.
According to the report, 27% of jobs are in occupations at high risk of automation when AI is taken into account.
About 20% of workers in finance and manufacturing said they were very or extremely worried about job loss in the next ten years.
According to OECD’s analysis, however, AI’s progress in automating non-routine tasks has enhanced its threats to more technical “high-skilled” jobs, including business professionals, managers, science and engineering professionals, and legal, social and cultural professionals.
Still, 63% of finance and manufacturing workers surveyed said AI had improved the enjoyment of their job.
Further, 79% and 80% in finance and manufacturing respectively said AI had improved their own performance.
Boosting productivity is a key motivation to AI adoption, and if this improves workers’ performance, it may keep their jobs secure while the technology is introduced.
Interesting, OECD’s survey found that overall, workers said that using AI improved their mental and physical health. 54% of finance professionals and 55% of manufacturing professionals said AI had a positive impact on their mental health, with 49% of finance and 65% of manufacturing professionals saying the same for their physical health.
The survey also found that the use of AI in managerial roles, such as monitoring and feedback assessments, tend to be more pervasive – workers often reported higher work intensity and less human-to-human interaction.
However, AI is likely to automate more tedious and repetitive tasks, which workers said improved their job quality.
Further, workers using AI said it gave them greater autonomy in their work – workers had more control over the sequence of their tasks and could even complete a greater range of tasks if they employed AI.
This puts into greater context the increased pace of work often seen with the introduction of AI. 75% of workers surveyed in finance and 77% in manufacturing said that the pace at which they performed tasks increased, but this did not necessarily equate to greater stress, as workers had more control and autonomy.
AI continues to serve a mixed-bag of results across the board, and no where does this appear to be more true than in the case of inclusion and bias.
The introduction of AI allows those with sight, hearing, or speech impairments and other physical disabilities to access more and different types of work.
Further, AI’s ability to automate tasks has helped certain low-skilled workers access more jobs, such as via real-time translation and improvement in writing and customer service skills.
However, AI has put many workers who lack digital skills at greater risk, and this negatively impacts inclusiveness.
This tends to match perceptions, with workers thinking that those with disabilities are likely to benefit from AI’s introduction, but low-skilled workers are likely to be harmed by its use.
Bias is still an issue as well – while 54% and 53% of workers in finance and manufacturing, respectively, think AI has improved fairness in management, one in ten think it has worsened fairness in management.
Overall, the OECD’s Employment Outlook found varied results concerning the impacts of AI on the workplace – which makes sense. Employees at different levels of management and skill development will likely face different outcomes from AI’s introduction.
As mentioned, the uptake of AI is relatively low, so OECD admitted much of their results can not yet be called conclusive.
Starting a career in tech is proving a major challenge for Gen Z professionals, especially for women and ethnic minorities, with more than half (54%) taking between four to nine months to secure their first entry-level role.
According to Wiley Edge‘s Diversity in in Tech 2023 report, nearly a fifth (18%) of this generation’s budding tech workers took 10 months or longer to start their careers.
Just 28% of respondents manages to secure a role within three months or less, meaning many are facing anxious waits to start their careers after university.
As a result, almost two-thirds (62%) of Gen Z respondents said they found it harder to secure a role than they had expected.
Many employers in Big Tech are slowing down or freezing recruitment after massive rounds of layoffs, yet despite these headwinds, Gen Z remain interested in working for these kinds of companies, according to the research.
More than half (53%) of Gen Z tech workers said they wanted to work for Big Tech over any other sector. Financial services was the second-favoured sector, but it was only the preferred choice for 16% of respondents.
Further, barriers to entering the tech industry persist. Tech is still seen as being largely male-dominated – 39% of all Gen Z had this perception, with 42% of all Gen Z women.
Further, it has been found that the massive layouts affecting Big Tech disproportionately affected women, and the proportion of women in the UK tech industry has actually fallen.
Further, even after recruitment, companies are struggling to retain diverse staff, with 64% finding it difficult to retain diverse employees, despite 75% believing their DEI strategies are working well.
Clearly, there is a disconnect between hiring for diversity and creating an inclusive workforce.
Problems with recruitment in tech are clearly felt by the latest generation of employees entering the workforce, but businesses are also feeling the pressure.
The research found that 92% of businesses face challenges when recruiting for entry-level tech roles.
Further, the research exposed a gap between formal education and careers, with 45% of businesses stating that candidates for entry-level positions often lack core technical skills despite holding a relevant degree, and 26% said they lack soft skills.
42% of businesses also reported a scarcity of candidates with the right formal qualifications, with 43% saying the same about candidates from historically underrepresented groups.
Despite this dynamic, a university degree remains desirable to most. The study discovered that almost one in three (27%) businesses exclusively hire from the top universities, while 44% report that they are more likely to do so.
However, the survey found that 53% of businesses surveyed are considering dropping the degree requirement from certain roles to open the door to more candidates.
Khadijah Pandor, Head of Partnerships at Wiley Edge said: “While it’s promising that so many Gen Z professionals are trying to make a name for themselves in technology, it’s disheartening to see that so many are facing long waits to make their career dreams a reality.
“Education is paramount in helping tech careers become more accessible. Gen Z professionals need to be made aware of the rewarding and good-paying tech roles outside of Big Tech. Whether in smaller firms or sectors such as retail, healthcare, finance and manufacturing, opportunities for skilled tech workers are abundant, but knowledge of these opportunities is less so.
“Tech roles are also hugely skills dependent, and our findings highlight that many recent graduates looking to start their career are not meeting the skills requirement employers set. Bridging the skills gap must be a priority for businesses to ensure more impactful recruitment in the long-term.
“University qualifications can’t always keep up with the pace of technological change, therefore future generations will benefit from additional job-specific training. Businesses also need to discover new ways to introduce and nurture talent from diverse backgrounds into their workforce to level the playing field for talent and overcome the digital skills shortage.”
According to the BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence team, RomCom, a threat actor, is likely behind two cyber-attack attempts targeting supporters of Ukraine, including guests of the current NATO Summit.
The team at BlackBerry found that two malicious documents were sent in an attempt to scam supporters of Ukraine abroad and NATO members, with the lures being sent from an IP address in Hungary.
They said it was likely RomCom based on the “tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPS)” of the attempted attack, as well as the code similarity and the network infrastructure.
Currently, Lithuania is hosting a NATO Summit in Vilnius, which will discuss the future of support for Ukraine and it’s potential membership in the organisation.
The threat actors have taken advantage of this by impersonating the Ukrainian World Congress and distributing a malicious document to supporters.
According to BlackBerry’s investigation, the threat actors are using RFT exploitation, using outbound connections that are initiated once the victim opens the document.
The security team identified another document from the same threat actor was likely sent in relation to the NATO summit, lobbying to support Ukraine’s membership. It had the same RFT exploitation tactic.
While the attack vector has not yet been uncovered, BlackBerry says it was likley a spear-phishing technique.
The actors created a malicious duplicate of the Ukrainian World Congress website, using a .info suffix in replacement of the real .org website.
RomCom has used this technique before, according to BlackBerry’s report.
The document sent to supporters contained an embedded RTF file with the name afchunk.rtf. Once the document is downloaded and opened, the RFT loads an OLE object, which connects to IP addresses related to VPN/proxy services.
Another file is loaded after the execution of the initial lure – this file then aims to load the OLE streams into Microsoft Word, with a goal of creating an iframe tag responsible for the next step.
The main attack goal is to execute a chain which exploits a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft’s Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT), known as Follina.
According to the report, if exploited, the threat actors can conduct a remote code execution (RCE) attack by creating a malicious .docx or .rft document.
Threat actors can accomplish this by leveraging the document to execute a vulnerable MSDT version, which would allow the attacker to authorise the utility for execution.
Finally, the attack is completed when the RomCom backdoor is loaded on the machine.
RomCom has not been confirmed as the attacker, but BlackBerry suggests the attack methodology is similar to past attacks by the organisation.
Malware from RomCom was first discovered in August 2022, and was linked to a Cuba Ransomware affiliate.
In November 2022, however, a new RomCom campaign was discovered, which used fake sites in English and Ukrainian and abused software brands to target victims.
In a major move for data transfer capabilities, The European Commission has adopted its adequacy decision for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
The decision by the EU has concluded that the United States ensures an adequate level of protection – comparable to that of the European Union – for personal data transferred from the EU to US companies under a new framework.
On the basis of the new adequacy decision, personal data can flow safely from the EU to US companies participating in the Framework, without having to put in place additional data protection safeguards.
According to the EU Commission, the framework introduces new binding safeguards to address all the concerns raised by the European Court of Justice, including limiting access to EU data by US intelligence services to what is necessary and proportionate, and establishing a Data Protection Review Court (DPRC), to which EU individuals will have access.
The EU says that this decision offers “significant improvements” compared to the Privacy Shield, which existed up until the Shrems II decision sparked by whistleblower Edward Snowden which revealed the surveillance of peopel’s digital data by US authorities.
The revelation triggered Max Shrems, a data privacy advocate, to call on the EU to withdraw the adequacy agreement with the US as EU citizen data could be under surveillance by the US state, which was against the EU’s GDPR.
When this adequacy agreement was withdrawn, companies attempting to transfer data between the EU and the US had different contractual obligations to ensure data was transferred safely, often leading to hefty fines if they were not found to be compliant. This lead to the record £1.2 billion fine against Meta for transferring EU data to the US without a proper contractural basis.
Under the new agreement, if the DPRC finds that data was collected in violation of the new safeguards, it will be able to order the deletion of the data. Further, the new safeguards in the area of government access to data will complement the obligations that US companies importing data from EU will have to subscribe to.
EU President Ursula von der Leyen said: “The new EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework will ensure safe data flows for Europeans and bring legal certainty to companies on both sides of the Atlantic. Following the agreement in principle I reached with President Biden last year, the US has implemented unprecedented commitments to establish the new framework.
“Today we take an important step to provide trust to citizens that their data is safe, to deepen our economic ties between the EU and the US, and at the same time to reaffirm our shared values. It shows that by working together, we can address the most complex issues.”
US companies will be able to join the EU-US Data Privacy Framework by committing to comply with a detailed set of privacy obligations, for instance the requirement to delete personal data when it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, and to ensure continuity of protection when personal data is shared with third parties.
EU individuals will have access to several redress avenues in case their data is wrongly handled by US companies, including free of charge independent dispute resolution mechanisms and an arbitration panel.
In addition, the US legal framework provides for a number of safegaurds regarding the access to data transferred under the framework by US public authorities, in particular for criminal law enforcement and national security purposes.
A new executive order has made access to data limited to what is necessary and proportionate to protect national security.
EU individuals will have access to an independent and impartial redress mechanism regarding the collection and use of their data by US intelligence agencies, which includes a newly created Data Protection Review Court (DPRC).
The court will independently investigate and resolve complaints, including by adopting binding remedial measures.
The safeguards put in place by the US will also facilitate transatlantic data flows more generally, since they also apply when data is transferred by using other tools, such as standard contractual clauses and binding corporate rules.
While this is a major step towards streamlined international data transferred, the Framework will be subject to periodic reviews carried out by the European Commission, together with representatives of European data protection authorities and competent US authorities.
The first review will take place within a year of the entry into force of the adequacy decision, in order to verify that all relevant elements have been fully implemented in the US legal framework and are functioning effectively in practice.
Privacy advocate remain unconvinced by the new framework. Activists at NYOB (None of Your Business), the data privacy advocacy group, have said there is little to no different in the new framework from past EU-US agreements including Safe Harbour and the Privacy Shield, both of which did not protect EU data from US surveillance.
NYOB, in a response to the agreement, say that “the US will attribute another meaning to the word ‘proportionate'” than the EU courts so they can continue their surveillance measures.
Max Shrems, founder of NYOB said: “Just announcing that something is ‘new’, ‘robust’ or ‘effective’ does not cut it before the Court of Justice. We would need changes in US surveillance law to make this work – and we simply don’t have it.”
NYOB is already preparing to challenge the new agreement in the EU Court of Justice.
Currently, the UK is in talks with the US to create its own data-bridge with the US to ensure safer and easier data transfers between the new countries. To keep its own data adequacy with the EU, the UK plans to “piggy-back” on the EU-US agreement.
Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s two biggest cloud providers, are calling on Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, to defer its recommendation to involve the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in its probe of the potential anti-competitive nature of the UK’s cloud infrastructure services market.
Back in May, Ofcom proposed to refer the UK cloud market for investigation into anti-competitive behaviour, saying that AWS and Microsoft are the leading providers of cloud infrastructure services in the UK.
Ofcom’s initial market study found features and practices they say make it more difficult for customers to switch or use multiple cloud suppliers – Amazon’s and Microsoft’s dominant positions in the industry has caused particular concerns.
Among these practices include egress fees for transferring data out of the cloud, restrictions on interoperability with different cloud providers, and committed spend discounts which drive customers away from better quality alternatives.
Ofcom worries that these restrictions and practices will drive down competition and make it more difficult for cloud users to access better quality services and the multicloud.
Each company released their own response to the Ofcom proposal – AWS’s is 14 pages in total, while Microsoft’s response runs for 58 pages.
AWS claims that Ofcom’s response was based on “fundamental misconceptions” on the IT and cloud landscape, and that interoperability is actually easier than ever.
Intervening with the current market would actually “dampen competition and impede innovation.”
However, according to AAG’s market share analysis, AWS has the largest share of cloud infrastructure market, at 33%. AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google’s Cloud services together share 66% of the global cloud market.
Microsoft’s response focused on how the UK could miss out on potential innovations and discounts for cloud services if providers have to take into account interoperability requirements.
Microsoft went so far as to say the UK could fall behind: “It would be a particularly unfortunate outcome if UK businesses and public sector customers faced less vibrant and competitive cloud solutions on a global stage than those available to their rivals in the EU, the US and China.”
Google, another major cloud provider, said the UK’s cloud competition is “generally working well.”
The company did, however, defend Ofcom’s stance on interoperability: “We share the wider industry’s concern that the unfair licensing practices and commercial strategies deployed by certain legacy on-premises IT providers are causing significant harm to the cloud sector and UK customers at this critical inflection point by creating commercial lock-ins.”
Threads, the new social media app developed my Meta as a rival to Twitter, already has over 100 million users in less than five days, new data says.
Threads went live last Wednesday on both Apple and Android app stores, in 100 countries across the world, garnering 100 million users in less than a week.
Breaking the record set by OpenAI’s ChatGPT app, Threads gained these users despite not launching in the European Union due to concerns the app would not meet GDPR standards.
According to Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, the app had 10 million users in its first seven hours, and 30 million in the morning after its launch.
Data from Quiver Quantitative, Thread’s 100 million users within its first five days is already nearing a third of Twitters 350 million regular users it fostered since its launch in 2006.
Threads is linked to Instagram, a social media sight owned by Meta – accounts are linked and therefore easy for people to generate and start using, which may contribute to its high uptake.
Elon Musk’s Twitter has already threatened Meta with a lawsuit, calling Threads a copy-cat rather than a rival. Twitter has also claimed that Meta “stole trade secrets” by hiring ex-Twitter staff who were part of massive layoffs imposed by Musk since his takeover.
Twitter is facing legal action in Germany for supposedly not taking down hate speech after it had been reported.
The legal cases focuses on determining whether the social media site has a contractual obligation to its users, under its Terms of Service, to remove antisemetic Tweets which contain sedition, including trivialisation and denial of the Holocaust.
The verdict could set a precedent for numerous affected communities, and social media regulation as a whole.
The two organisations are criticising the platform’s insufficient moderation of content that includes sedition, which is illegal under the German law code.
The subject of the lawsuit is six antisemetic and illegal comments that were not removed despite being reported to the platform. In one case relating to Holocaust denial, Twitter had even allegedly refused to remove the content.
HateAid and EUJS claim that this practice contradicts Twitter’s Rules and Policies, which are part of the terms of service for users, where the company states it will not tolerate threats of violence and behaviour that incites hatred.
The case would provide clarification about whether users have a legal claim to enforce these Rules and Policies as part of their contract with social networks, and would give users the right to sue for the removal of inciting content in the future, even if they are not personally affected from violations of their rights.
In its Rules and Policies, the American social media platform assures that it will not tolerate hatred and violence. The corresponding Hateful conduct policy states that Twitter is “committed to combating abuse motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance, particularly abuse that seeks to silence the voices of those that have been historically marginalised”.
In addition, the Abusive behaviour policy states that Twitter prohibits content “that denies that mass murder or other mass casualty events took place”, including, among other things, “events like the Holocaust”.
However, the rules appear to be vaguely enforced, according to the two groups filing the lawsuit. Particuarily after Elon Musk’s takeover, the company has repeatedly hit the headlines with decisions concerning the restoration of blocked accounts and the reduction of staff in moderator teams.
Josephine Ballon, Head of Legal at HateAid: “We’ve put the control over the public discourse on the internet into the hands of private companies and investors. Twitter assures it won’t tolerate violence on its platform. Users have to be able to rely on that. But in practice, we see the opposite happening: illegal content is at best removed in arbitrary and untransparent ways.
“This must finally change. Twitter owes us a communication platform where we can move freely and without fear of hatred and agitation.”
The case will be based in Germany, where their strict laws regulating antisemitism, Nazi propoganda, and Holocaust denial will be leveraged against the social media giant’s inaction.
Avital Grinberg, who, in her capacity as President of EUJS, is filing the complaint:
“Twitter has betrayed our trust. By allowing hateful content to spread, the company fails to protect users, and Jews in particular. What starts online, does not end there. Twitter cultivates real hate and violence, and assuch, disregards our democratic values.
“For young people, engagement also means to commit and express themselves online. If Jews are forced out of the virtual space due to antisemitism and digital violence, Jewish life will become invisible in a place that is relevant to society.
“We will no longer tolerate this! Remembrance of the Shoah must not be merely expressed through emotional speeches, but also through clear positions, resolute action and protective laws. This lawsuit is the response of resilient Jews to the failure of Twitter and the rule of law.”
According to the Guardian, the four of the tweets blatantly denied the Holocaust, another called for the gassing of “blacks” and another compared the Covid-19 vaccination programme to Nazi death camps.
Twitter either said the tweets were not in violation of their guidelines, or did not respond at all, the lawsuit claims.
Antisemism appears to be on the rise, and the link to social media is undeniable – reports show that young people have been exposed to conspiracy theories across social media, with activist group Hope Not Hate finding antisemitsm rife on social media, hitting new highs in 2020.
The European Commission found a sevenfold increase in antisemetic posting across French language accounts, and over a thirteenfold increase in antisemetic comments within German accounts in 2021.
While the lawsuit is based in Germany, it could have major affects for regulation in the UK. The Online Safety Bill aims to have social media organisations take more responsibility for harmful content like hate speech, but the current proposed system has been under fire for giving too much control over to social media sites.
Currently, the draft legislation introduces a triple shield protection, where social media sites will have to monitor their content on the basis of their own terms of service.
Rather than having government mandated terms of what is and is not allowed, social media giants may be able to rely on the same vauge language and moderation tactics they currently use to dissuade users and avoid fines.
The Tay Cities Region Deal has announced free digital skills coursed for people living and working in the Tay Cities region.
The Digital Skills Project is part of the £20 million Regional Skills and Employability Development Programme funded by the Scottish Government.
Working in collaboration with The Data Lab, the project aims to help workers adapt to increasingly automated, digitalised, and data-driven workplaces.
The partnership between The Data Lab and the Tay Cities Region Digital Skills Project aims to address the digital skills gap for businesses, while supporting diversity and preparing participants for the changing demands on workplaces.
The project also aims to support digital and data-driven innovation across a wide range of sectors to enable businesses to adapt and compete in a future digital economy.
Taking place from July to December 2023, the courses on offer include training in coding, data analytics, data visualisation, machine learning, and using data for service design.
Training providers offering the courses include Dundee and Angus College, Fife College, CodeClan, Code Division, and Technology Coaching.
The courses are available to women, people with disabilities, people from minority ethnic backgrounds, and neurodivergent individuals, in Angus, Dundee, Perth & Kinross, and North East Fife.
Some courses are designed for specific groups, such as women returners, Ukrainian refugees, and individuals working in social enterprises.
Councillor Grant Laing, Chair of the Tay Cities Region Deal Joint Committee, said: “In our data driven world, the ability to analyse, interpret and tell stories using data is an essential skill relevant to every sector of our economy.
“The Digital Skills Project is therefore delighted to be working in partnership with The Data Lab to deliver fully funded data courses to residents across the Tay Cities Region, helping to upskill citizens and future-proof the local economy.
“This is one of the ways that we are working towards closing essential skills gaps to ensure quality jobs for local people, support diversity and drive a sustainable and regenerative economy.”
Anna Ashton Scott, Programme Manager for Professional Development at The Data Lab, said: “We’re proud to partner with Tay Cities to help more people in Scotland upskill with data to progress their careers. Addressing the digital skills gap and supporting diversity is key to ensure no one is left behind in today’s workforce where we all need data skills.”
Since November 2020, The Data Lab’s Data Skills for Work Programme has supported over 500 learners to learn and master the necessary skills to drive and sustain data-driven innovation.
For those interested, you can find the full list of courses on The Data Lab’s Data Skills for Work website here.
The report has found that human error is the top cause of cloud data breaches, with 55% of respondents citing it. This was well ahead of the next most common reason, exploitation of vulnerabilities, at 21%.
Featuring 2,889 respondents from across the globe except for Africa, and with 260 respondents from the UK, the survey was aimed at professional security and OT management.
From the offset of the report, it is clear that much of the digital world has become cloud first, but this increased reliance on the cloud, and cloud supporting services, has left many enterprises with complex security issues and legal confusing surrounding data sovereignty.
It’s A Multicloud World
Cloud’s proliferation in the digital landscape quickly made it the rule of data storage, not the exception, and it seems multicloud is well on its way to achieving this same status.
In fact, 79% of respondents to the survey Thales Group conducted have more than one cloud provider, with the average number of cloud infrastructure providers being 2.3.
Thales Group said there were many benefits to a multicloud portfolio – additional functionality, diversifying resilience, increasing service availability may all have contributed to the rise of the multicloud. Partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions seem to be contributing as well.
Coupled with this is the increased usage of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, with 22% of respondents saying that their enterprises use between 51 to 100 SaaS applications.
This expansion, however, means there is more to manage and keep secured.
The Cloud Threat Landscape
When asked to rank targets by the likelihood of attack, 38% of respondents said that SaaS applications were the leading targets for attacks, followed by cloud-based storage (36%).
Overall, securing the cloud was seen as a top, increasingly complex, priority among enterprises.
And this is not unfounded – 46% of respondents say they experienced a data breach in their cloud environment, and the number experiencing a data breach in the last year is up by four per cent (from 35% to 39%).
The increase in SaaS providers makes security more complex, and could be contributing to the increase in cyber attacks. Organisations may have to dedicate specific teams to secure each application provider, or have a team well-versed in multiple platforms.
Cloud has become a more common path for new applications, with those with 60% or more of their workloads and data in the cloud increasing from 23% to 27% in the last year.
The amount of sensitive data stored in the cloud is on the rise – in 2022, 52% of respondents said that 40% of their sensitive date was in the cloud. In 2023, this increased to 64%. This reflects the increase of core applications running in the cloud, brining their data with them.
Even with more sensitive data being stored in the cloud, there is stull much of it not encrypted.
Only 22% of respondents said that over 60% of sensitive data in the cloud is encrypted, with an average of 45% of data being encrypted.
Further, only 2% reported that 100% of their sensitive data stored in the cloud was encrypted.
Data Sovereignty
Data or digital sovereignty is how states regulate the protection, privacy, and security of technology in use under their jurisdiction. Different governments provide different levels and guarantees surrounding digital sovereignty, and countries often have to work together to reach agreements for safe data transfers to protect the integrity of their nation’s data sovereignty.
Respondents appeared wary around data sovereignty – 83% said they were somewhat or very concerned about its impacts on cloud deployment.
This is for good reason – laws are continuously challenged and changed across the globe affecting data transfers, digital rights and privacy, which can massively effect the ability of companies to use, access, and share data.
The introduction of cloud services, especially multiple cloud providers, gives companies an extra layer to regulate when it comes to data soverignty, ensuring third parties are complaint through strict regulations and contractual bases.
To meet digital sovereignty requirements, 96% of respondents said that designating or changing the location or jurisdiction of full data encryption are acceptable measures to achieve data sovereignty. In contrast, four per cent are not concerned about the location of data with respect to data sovereignty.
Some organisations are taking the location-based approach, while others are opting for increased encryption to ensure that data is secure from disclosure not matter its jurisdiction.
Complexity in the Cloud
More than half (55%) of respondents have said it is more complex to manage data in the cloud than in on-premises environments.
To delve into what might be causing this complexity, Thales Group asked respondents more questions regarding the organisation of data in the cloud.
It revealed that only 14% of respondents could control all of their encryption keys in their cloud environments, meaning that the majority of organisations work with multiple cloud environments with different encryption keys across the environments.
Further, 62% said they have five or more key management systems in place across their infrastructure, and 27% say their cloud provider controls all of their keys.
With such complexity across cloud systems, or companies forfeiting key control to their cloud providers, it is unsurprising that 55% report human error as the leading cause of cloud data breaches.
Ways to Improve
Thales Group listed several ways companies are trying to improve their cloud security.
Adopting multi-factor authentication has increased to 65% across organisations, which is an improvement Thales Group says is simply not good enough.
Further, centralising encryption management could be key to keeping data more secure in a multicloud environment. This would reduce operational complexity and improve flexibility to secure new environments.
A zero trust environment could also be vital – only 41% of respondents said their organisation had zero-trust controls on cloud infrastructure, with only 38% using zero-trust in their cloud networks.
Centrica Business Solutions has secured the development rights to a 65MW two-hour battery storage plant in Perthshire, its largest battery storage acquisition to date.
The site in Abernethy is located near a connection for North Sea offshore wind farms and will help manage grid capacity by charging when demand for power is low, and discharging when demand is at its highest.
Once connected to the grid in 2028, the 65MW two-hour battery will be able to store enough electricity to power 130,000 homes for an hour – the equivalent to a town the size of Aberdeen. The discharge could happen up to four times a day.
Capturing and storing energy for use when and where it’s needed will play an important role in improving the UK’s energy security and maximising the potential of offshore wind farms in the North Sea.
The project forms part of Centrica’s plan to deliver 1GW of low carbon energy assets and will join the 30MW battery storage plant in Aberdeenshire – which is set to go live in mid-2024.
Gregory McKenna, managing director at Centrica Business Solutions, said: “The new battery storage site is our biggest project to date, and demonstrates our long-term commitment to improving the energy independence of the UK.
“If the country wants to achieve a reliable, secure and decarbonised power system, then battery storage sites must be the rule rather than the exception. Storing energy at times of surplus to keep the lights on during times of peak demand will be key to delivering on these ambitious targets.
“However, the five-year wait for a connection date shines a light on the challenges renewable energy projects like this continue to face with the grid being totally constrained. To keep the net zero transition on track, it’s important that we work to speed up grid connections and avoid further delays to new and existing projects.”
The new report from Kaspersky has revealed that while traditional phishing scams are still being used, new and more sophisticated scams are targeting crypto wallets.
Crypto wallets function in much the way traditional wallets do – they store cryptocurrency that can then be accessed and exchanged by the cryptoasset owner.
These wallets come in two forms: a hot wallet, which has permanent access to the internet, and a cold wallet, which does not have a permanent connection to the internet, coming in the form of a private key or dedicated device.
Hot Wallets
Since hot wallets require an internet connection, their ease of creation and use make them a major target of cybercriminals. But because they are always online, users tend to not store large amounts of assets in hot wallets.
Cybercriminals are still interested in targeting these wallets, but make less of an effort – their phishing scams are simple and often target unsophisticated users.
Hackers will typically send an email message to users pretending to be a well-known crypto exchange platform, requesting a user to verify their account or confirm a purchase.
Users who click the link are redirected to a page an asked to enter their ‘seed phrase’ – a phrase of 12 or 24 words for recovering access to a crypto wallet, which functions as the main password for these wallets. This phrase cannot be changed or recovered – losing it or giving it to scammers would permanently compromise the wallet.
Because these lack sophistication in both technical or social engineering, they are typically done on a mass scale and target newer, less technical users.
Cold Wallets
As cold wallets are not always connected to the internet, and are typically stored on hardware, these tend to store larger amounts of assets.
While it would be more difficult to access cold wallets, it is not impossible, and sophisticated tactics can lead to a massive pay out if successful.
Scammers typically use social engineering at a more advanced level to target cold wallets – Kasperky picked up an email campaign aimed at cold wallet owners which used sophisticated technical techniques to dupe owners into disclosing their passwords.
The campaign sent emails to users which was addressed as being from the Ripple cryptopcurrency exchange for a giveaway offer. The link leads users to a blog page detailing the rules of the giveaway, providing another link where users can register.
Already with extra steps, the scammers copied the design of the Ripple website and went to the trouble of registering a nearly identical domain name. They also used a .net domain, while Ripple uses a .com, but as .net is a commonly used by legitimate domains, it may not have sparked any hesitation to many users keen for a crypto giveaway.
Once users follow the link to the fake registration page, they are offered to connect with a WebSocket address where they can enter the address of their XRP account – XRP being the cryptoasset on offer for the giveaway.
Next, to appear even more legitimate, users can choose an authentication method to receive the tokens – hardware wallets are the top listed and suggested method by the scammers, as shown by Kaspersky’s report.
Selecting the Trezor option redirects users to the official website, trezor.io, which connects devices to web apps via the Trezor API. When the user tries to connect, Trezor Connect will ask them to consent to “anonymous collection and to confirm that they want to connect to the website,” the Kaspersky report says.
The address in question is actually displayed as a Punycode on the side of the site, with scammers hoping the address goes unnoticed by users.
Connection with the other hard wallet option, Ledger, is similar, but uses a WebHID interface, according to Kaspersky, with the other steps the same.
Once users connect their hardware wallet, Kaspersky found that scammers use two different APIs for interacting with the account, and then request the funds. Scammers also create one-time “intermediate wallets” to receive and forward the funds to the scammers real accounts, helping to hide the assets’ target destination.
With all that effort, how common are crypto wallet scams in the first place?
Kaspersky’s antispam solutions said they detected and blocked 85,362 scam emails targeting cryptocurrency users in the spring of 2023, with a peak of 34,644 messages in March alone.
The Dark Web is a mysterious place, and for good reason: only 6.7% of global internet users ever access it.
But is the Dark Web really just an internet doppelganger full of breached data for sale, guns for hire, and drugs on mass? What’s actually on the dark web?
Bitdefender examined the dark net marketplace, revealing what products and services people can really find on the online black market.
The Dark Web, first of all, is difficult to access – it requires specialised internet browsers and is not indexed by search engines, so users have to already know where to go to find it.
It also should not be confused with the Deep Web – this actually accounts for most of the internet. Much of the Deep Web is not directly accessible because it requires credentials, and is therefore not indexed by search engines – for example, science journals.
Bitdefender’s investigation is just a small fraction of what is actually occurring on the Dark Web, but still provides an excellent example of what can be found, how it is sold, and the prices for hot commodities on the dark web.
Interestingly, not everything on the dark web is illegal, and just as on the ‘above’ internet, there appears to be just as many scams.
Products and Services
Credit cards are a staple on the Dark Web – the cheapest credit card will only cost a buyer around $80 USD.
Sellers guarantee the amount on the credit card and the spending amount attached to the card, with an accompanying price tag.
An HQ Visa Platinum card, complete with CC and CVV with up to $30k guaranteed, costs $288 on the dark web, according to Bitdefender’s research.
Financial services like PayPal are also a prime target for hackers, and a hot commodity on the Dark Net. Prices tend to fluctuate depending on supply and demand, and there is often no guarantee that the bought account will be accessible.
Unsurprisingly, crypto currencies are a major product on the Dark Web, with compromised crypt accounts available for sale.
Working SIM cards can also be found for sale on the Dark Web in bulk – an anonymous Swiss number costs around 300 euros, according to Bitdefender.
The Dark Web is also full of compromised social media accounts, from Facebook and Instagram, to professional LinkedIn accounts.
Most of the prices are relatively low, and users can even purchase followers to expand their reach or make their profiles look more legitimate.
Also alarmingly, Bitdefender found employee credentials available for sale on the Dark Net, typically sourced from data breaches. This information can be used for further attacks.
Physical IDs are also found for sale, both real and fake – passports, drivers licences, and even biometric passports can be found for varying prices. A UK passport was found on sale for 2,500 euros.
Streaming services are also found for sale on the Dark Web, and are a hot commodity as streaming services expand and increase their prices.
Criminals often sell them in bundles, using stolen credentials or having created them with stolen credit cards.
Staying Safe Online
Bitdefender says its important to stay updated on the latest data breaches and what was compromised, so you can know if your information is at risk of ending up on the Dark Net.
Monitoring credit and debit card purchases closely is important as well – communicating with your bank about any unauthorised activity on your cards is also important as they can then file a claim for fraud.
Checking your digital footprint is also important, to know where your credentials and cards are stored, and to understand and lessen the risks of compromise.
Eight new passenger check-in baggage scanners are set to arrive at the airport, which produce 3D X-ray images, eliminate the requirement to remove electronic devices, liquids, and gels from hand luggage, allowing passengers to take up to two litres of liquid to be carried onto a plane.
Smith Detection’s HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX is a computed tomography (CT) X-ray scanner which delivers quicker baggage assessment and low false-alarm rates of automatically identified threats.
Featuring Smith Detection’s digital technology, the HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX not only produces the highest quality images and the fastest deliver to operators, it also provides a very detailed analysis of a bag’s content, allowing security operators to easily spot items that shouldn’t be there.
The company also claims that the HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX is the most energy efficient checkpoint CT on the market, which will help to lower the total cost of ownership and reduce customer energy demands compared to similar products.
Smiths Detection’s Head of Market, Andy Evripides, said: “We are delighted to be supplying Edinburgh Airport with our leading CT checkpoint X-ray scanner. The system provides higher levels of safety and security, leading to a significantly improved passenger experience by allowing them to pass through security with less hassle and the need to unpack and repack their hand luggage. The system also uses the least energy of its type on the market, helping airports reach their sustainability goals.”
Adam Wilson, Chief Operating Officer at Edinburgh Airport, said: “Providing passengers with a smooth and safe experience through security is incredibly important to us and the implementation of the new Smiths Detection HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX will deliver that as we adopt this new technology. Safety is always paramount and by moving forward with these innovative and next generation scanners, we will maintain those high security standards while helping passengers move through the airport quicker.”
Major airports have been given a headline of mid-2024 by the UK government to install CT scanners and Edinburgh Airport will follow a phased implementation of new x-ray technology during 2024, installing the Smith Detection’s HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX units to maintain high safety standards and improve passenger experience.
The airport still asks for passengers should continue to prepare for security as normal – no more than one litre worth of liquids and any liquids being carried must be under 100ml, with all liquids fitting into one clear bag.
Laptops, tablets, and large electricals must also be removed from bags and placed into security trays.
Privacy and security experts across the UK have signed an open letter explaining their alarm at the UK’s proposals to dismantle end to end encryption as part of the draft Online Safety Bill.
Clause 110 of the Bill proposes the scanning of end-to-end encrypted messages prior to their encryption for child sexual exploitation and abuse content.
The clause provides Ofcom with the powers to make tech companies use “accredited technology” to take down child sexual abuse content, including providers of encrypted messages such as WhatsApp, Signal, and Element.
These companies have already claimed they may leave the UK market if encryption is compromised.
According to the open letter, the UK government plans to scan encrypted messages through one of two ways: via a ‘backdoor’ after the messages are sent and protected by cryptography, or on a client-side scanning before messages are encrypted and sent.
The privacy and security experts stipulate that both methods impede privacy rights, increase security risks, and could create a slipper slope towards more state surveillance.
In the case of cryptographic backdoors, the experts said that this method would allow not only the State to view every private message, but any actor with access to the relevent monitoring facilities as well. This increases the security risks already facing nation-states, and would provide third party access to private messages.
Client-side scanning, on the other hand, would require “a mandatory, always-on automatic wiretap” in every device to monitor prohibited content. This is not necessarily a straw-man argument – in order to scan messages prior to them being sent, third party applications will be needed to monitor user activities and messages for prohibited content.
Robin Wilton, Director of Internet Trust at Internet Society, said commented on the proposed technological solutions, saying: “There is no such thing as a safe back door to encryption. If a back door is known to exist, it will be found and exploited by criminals and malicious governments, making everyone less safe.
“Nor is client-side scanning is the answer. Even the Government’s own Home Office-funded prototypes weren’t effective, and would face legal challenges if used.
“Sooner or later the Government must admit that its goals are counter-productive and its proposals don’t work.”
Further, these monitors are not always effective, according to letter’s signatories, and can have further capabilities, like facial recognition, added on. Further, the researchers say that “sufficiently reliable solutions for detecting child sexual exploitation and abuse content do not exist.”
However, earlier in the letter, the signatories did admit that “We cannot speak to the relative merit of this step in preventing harm to children in our professional capacities.” The “step” refers to the monitoring of encrypted messaging.
It appears the experts may have the populous on their side: a survey conducted by Element of 2,000 Brits found that the majority (83%) think private messages should remain private from the government, and that 70% say that ending encryption will not stop illegal activity.
Further research shows how much Brits rely on encrypted messaging services to share private information. Polling conducted on behalf of Index on Censorship shows that almost two thirds (61%) of Brits shared information about their children’s health, and over a third (39%) shared their children’s location data on private messaging platforms, with 55% reporting information about their children’s schools.
Jessica Ni Mhainin, Policy and Campaigns manager at Index on Censorship said: “This polling shows once again that the British public do not support the erosion of their privacy. By ending encryption, the Bill mandates government censorship and oversight of private messages by the backdoor: but mass surveillance is not the solution to online safety. Peers must support amendments to stop the monitoring of private conversations.”
Dr Monica Horten, Policy Manager for Freedom of Expression at Open Rights Group said: “This bill will damage the security infrastructure that provides encrypted chat services.“The government insists that Ofcom will not mandate anything that compromises end-to-end encryption. But this is the opposite of what the Bill says. It gives Ofcom powers to require AI-driven screening software installed on everyone’s phones to check their messages before sending.
“That’s not possible without compromising encryption, and should not be put into law without judicial oversight, under human rights law. Better still, peers should act to delete private chat services from this Clause.”
One expert, however, says that the issue is not entirely clear cut.
Brian Higgins, Security Specialist at Comparitech: “The encryption debate surrounding the Online Safety Bill is incredibly divisive. Unfortunately the two sides are polarised to such an extent right now that any potential middle ground is currently a very lonely place.
“Allowing criminals unimpeded use of end-to-end encryption will certainly facilitate the continuation of Child Sexual Exploitation and other activities. This is a fact. Law enforcement are still making arrests after the Encrochat network was infiltrated in 2020. Encryption is a popular criminal tool.
“It’s also worth remembering that Article 8. (in the U.K. and across Europe) is a Qualified Right. A Right which ‘may be interfered with in order to protect the rights of another or the wider public interest’.
“Protecting children from sexual exploitation and the wider citizenry from crime must surely meet this Qualification, so regardless of how many CEOs complain that the Bill will affect their business model the Government are legislating correctly in this instance.
“Is the Bill cumbersome and overly heavy-handed? Yes it is. Should it be re-considered? Yes it should. But just making threats or telling everyone that the right technology doesn’t exist yet so we shouldn’t bother to address the problem at all are unhelpful and irresponsible positions to take. A real expert is someone who is always learning about their field, not just sitting in it and refusing to open the gate.”
The European Commission has proposed a new law to streamline cooperation between data protection authorities when enforcing GDPR in cross-border cases in the EU.
The new regulation will set up concrete procedural rules for the authorities when applying the GDPR in cases which affect individuals located in more than one Member State.
For example, the proposal will introduce an obligation for the lead Data Protection Authority to send a summary of key issues to their counterparts concerned, identifying the main elements of the investigation and its views on the case, and therefore allowing them to provide their views early on.
In 2022, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) issued the Commission a wish list of suggestions to streamline and improve some procedural aspects of GDPR, such as cross-border investigations.
Currently, the EU has a “one-stop-shop” rule whereby the DPA put in charge of an investigation is based on where the organisation under invesigatin is based.
For many high-profile instances, this falls to the Irish DPA, as many large US tech giants base their European headquarters in Ireland.
This also means that the majority of the fines are paid out into the Irish DPA – their previous rulings have created tension between the Irish DPA and other DPAs, as well as the EDPB itself.
The Irish DPA’s rulings involving these massive tech conglomerates have been routinely challenged by the EDPB, which often decreed harsher judgements and larger fines against tech companies taking residency in Ireland.
The proposal aims to reduce disagreement and facilitate consensus among authorities from the initial stages of the process.
For individuals, the new rules will clarify what they need to submit when making a compliant and ensure that they are appropriately involved in the process.
For businesses, the new rules will clarify their due process rights when a DPA investigates a potential breach of the GDPR.
The EU commission claims that these steps will bring swifter resolution of cases, meaning quicker remedies for individuals and more legal certainty for businesses.
For data protection authorities, the EU Commissions says these new rules will smoothen cooperation and enhance the efficiency of enforcement.
The new proposal aims to harmonise rules in the arears of complainants rights, the rights of data controllers and processers under investigation, and to streamline cooperation and dispute resolution.
In the first case, the rules brings together the requirements fro a cross-boarder complaint to be admissible, removing the current obstacles brought by DPAs following different rules.
For parties under investigations, the proposal provides them with the right to be heard at key stages in the procedures including during dispute resolution by the overarching European Data Protection Board (EDPB).
Key to the proposal is allowing DPAs to provide their views early on in investigations, and making use of all the tools of cooperation provided by the GDPR, such as joint investigations and mutual assistance. These provisions are set to enhance DPAs’ influence over cross-border cases, facilitate early consensus-building in the investigation, and reduce later disagreements.
The proposal specifies detailed rules to facilitate the swift completion of the GDPR’s dispute resolution mechanism, and provides common deadlines for cross-border cooperation and dispute resolution.
The use of Google Analytics has landed two Swedish firms a fine of €1 million (£860k) each for breaches in GDPR, with two other firms receiving a warning for the same.
The Swedish data protection authority fined the companies for how they transferred personal data via Google Analytics to the US. The case found that the data on Google Analytics, which measures and analyses website traffic, is classified as ‘personal’ because it can be linked with other unique data.
Google Analytics tracks website traffic, and provides each user with a unique identifier, which is classified as personal under GDPR.
Further, the ruling found that the technical security measures that the companies took were “not sufficient” to ensure an adequate level of protection that is guaranteed with GDPR.
Companies would have to take these extra precautions as data cannot freely be transferred between the EU and the US – a court ruling called “Shrems II” ruled that the US did not meet GDPR standards and therefore, data could not be freely transferred to the country from the EU.
This ruling has landed major companies, like Meta, with massive fines for breaching GDPR.
Any data transfer – without specific technical and legal protections stipulated by contract for each type of transfer – to the US could be classified as a breach of GDPR.
Data transfers not only include transporting or sending data across the Atlantic – simply accessing and viewing the data in a different country classifies as a transfer, even if this is within the same company.
This is what landed Meta a £1.2 billion fine for the Irish Data Protection Commissioner – transferring EU data to its US servers.
For the Swedish cases, all four companies based their decisions on the transfer of personal data via Google Analytics on standard contractual clauses – which is typically not enough of a legal basis or guarantee to transfer EU data to the US.
Further, the Swedish audit found that none of the companies’ additional technical security measures were sufficient.
This is not the first time Google Analytics has put European companies in jeopardy of breaching GDPR.
In 2022, the French data protection authority warned websites using Google Analytics to come in line with data protection regulations over its transfer of data to the US. Even before this, the Austrian authority found data transfers using Google Analytics to be in breach.
Companies in Europe appear to still be struggling with these rulings, as illustrated by the new fines in Sweden.
However, things might change – the EU is currently in talks with the US to create an adequacy agreement which would allow for a more free flow of data between the two countries.
The EU said they were happy with some progress made by the US to ensure the protection of EU data, such as an executive order saying that EU data cannot be viewed by law enforcement without appropriate cause to do so.
The UK is also looking to piggy-back on this adequacy agreement by creating their own US-UK data bridge – however, digital rights groups have said the UK’s draft Data Protection and Digital Information bill will but the UK and EU adequacy agreement in jeopardy.
28 civil society organisations and privacy experts have written to the European Commission to raise concerns about the threat that UK data reform poses to European citizens’ data rights.
The Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) Bill, which is expected to be passed into law this autumn, will amend the UK GDPR.
Privacy campaigners have long warned the proposals will undermine the data protection rights of people in the UK, and give more power to the state and corporations.
But the proposed changes will also impact data protection rights in the EU.
Mariano delli Santi, Legal and Policy Officer for Open Rights Group said: “The DPDI Bill will rip up hard won privacy protections. This will not only harm UK citizens but also the rights of Europeans living inside and outside of the UK.
“The UK government’s determination to deregulate data protection is putting the adequacy agreement with the EU in jeopardy, which is a risk that the UK economy cannot afford.”
Key concerns with the DPDI bill include the adequacy agreement between the UK and the EU which allows for the free flow of personal data to and from the UK without additional safeguards.
Adequacy agreements are provided to the EU to nations that have data protection standards in line with the EU GDPR, offering similar protections to EU citizens. These agreements allow data to be transferred back and forth without further intensive and costly contracts.
The EU is currently in negotiations with the US to discuss the possibility of a new EU and US adequacy agreement – the UK is also in talks with the US to form a similar data bridge.
However, the current EU-UK adequacy agreemented rested on the premise that the UK’s data protection system would continue to follow the same rules as when the UK was an EU Member State.
Data rights activists say the proposals within the new DPDI Bill seriously undermine data protection rights, and as such, threaten the adequacy decision.
The main proposals threatening the EU adequacy agreement include facilitating the onward sharing of European personal data to third countries without safeguards.
Also, the Open Rights Group has claimed that the bill would undermine the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), which would be paramount in continuing the adequacy agreement.
Further, the DPDI Bill would give the UK government the power to override data protection principles whenever it sees fit, meaning that European personal data could be accessed by UK public authorities without basic human rights safeguards in place, according to the Open Rights Group.
The bill would also give the UK government power to give political directions to the UK data protection watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Welcome to DIGIT’s Movers and Shakers for June 2023.
Here, we’ll go through some of the major partnerships, recruitments, appointments, and expansions seen in the Scottish Tech ecosystem throughout the month of June.
This month’s issue features some standout organisations partnering up, as well as some major appointments within the Scottish tech scene.
Partnerships
University of Edinburgh and NatWest
The University of Edinburgh and NatWest Group (NWG) have announced the launch of a new data-oriented banking innovation centre — The Centre for Purpose-Driven Innovation in Banking.
The new innovation centre is set to combine business insights from the banking group with the university’s research, data, and social science expertise, to co-create data-driven solutions for the future of banking.
The Centre aims to bring the latest academic developments and thinking in data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI), climate change, business, and the social sciences to tackle issues in the banking sector.
Dame Alison Rose, CEO of NatWest Group, said: “This, once again, shows that through the power of partnerships, we can support the people, families and business[es] we serve and help them thrive.”
London-founded and Edinburgh-headquartered global purpose-led ad platform Good-Loop strikes a partnership with Captify to track the environmental impact of online ads.
Through this partnership, Captify will gain access to Good-Loop‘s proprietary Green Media technology, enabling brands and agencies to measure the carbon emissions generated by their digital ads in real time.
According to Good-Loop’s carbon calculator, the average online ad campaign emits 5.4 tons of carbon dioxide, half of the annual impact of one person in the UK. This happens through ad serving infrastructure, real-time bidding, data centres and data transmission, all of which use large amounts of energy.
“I’m really excited to be partnering with Captify and helping them to deliver more carbon-efficient campaigns for their clients. Their commitment to decarbonisation and driving down emissions will help to create a more positive, sustainable ad ecosystem,” said Claire Gleeson-Landry, head of investment and sustainable media at Good-Loop.
A UK-US data bridge could be well on the way as the Prime Minister and US President Joe Biden announced a commitment in principle.
The agreement could lead to the establishment of a UK Extension to the Data Privacy Framework, which would see the creation of a new ‘data bridge’ between the two countries.
US companies who are approved to join the framework would be able to receive UK personal data under the new data bridge.
Techscaler and Smart Things Accelerator Centre (STAC) have announced a new partnership, aiming to further grow and support Scotland’s Internet of Things (IoT) and software startups.
Techscaler is a tech startup support programme — backed by a £42 million contract from the Scottish Government, and delivered by Edinburgh-headquartered CodeBase — aiming to deliver on the key priorities outlined in the Scottish Tech Ecosystem Review (STER) report.
STAC, meanwhile — which is supported by Scottish Enterprise, CENSIS (Scotland’s Innovation Centre for sensing, imaging, and IoT technologies), and Glasgow-based product design firm Filament — is an accelerator helping scaling Scottish IoT startups to be globally competitive.
On the announcement, CodeBase’s Chief Strategy Officer, Steven Drost, said: “I am excited about this partnership, because it signals a moment of maturity for the ecosystem.
“The partnership brings together two different strands of startup building — software and hardware. Combining those strands enables both to learn and build and grow faster — this can only be a good thing for Scottish tech.”
Edinburgh-based BR-DGE has partnered with Hands In, a plug-and-play payment solution for the travel and hospitality sectors.
BR-DGE is a merchant centric payment technology startup, has brought together more than 300 payment providers and technology solutions startups through its partnership program.
Under its partnership with Hands In, BR-DGE merchants gain access to a cost-splitting solution which could address the high failed payment rates in the travel, leisure, and hospitality sectors.
According to data from the Office for National statistics, failed transactions were projected to lose airlines £5.45 billion from UK consumer sales.
Vodafone and Three have struck a deal to merge their UK operations, creating the UK’s largest mobile network with a combined customer base of 27 million.
Three is a unit of CK Hutchison, a Hong Kong based company, which would own 49% of the new company, while Vodafone would take the majority stake of 51%.
The deal would leave only three mobile networks available in the UK, and mean all three would be combined networks.
The CMA said, as reported by the BBC: “Both Vodafone and Three are key players in the UK communications market – with millions of consumers and many businesses relying on their services – so it’s right that the CMA reviews the impact this deal could have on competition.”
Cyber chiefs from the UK and Singapore have come together to strengthen cyber collaborations with the new UK-Singapore Cyber Dialogue improving collaboration around the Internet of Things (IoT) security, app security and cyber skills development.
The countries have discussed the cyber threat landscape, deterrence strategies against, international cyber capacity building, international cyber policy issues including in the UN, and the role of public-private partnerships in cybersecurity.
The collaboration comes after The National Cyber Security Centre, alongside international partners such as the US, warned that Lockbit was the most deployed ransomware variant across the world in 2022, as organisations of all sizes across a wide range of critical infrastructure sectors have faced serious disruptions.
Jadu, a web experience management software company, has partnered with global IT and business consulting services firm CGI and the City of Edinburgh Council to develop ‘Jadu Central Gateway’, a new Intranet publishing platform that provides secure access to the Council’s Intranet to frontline workers.
The platform addresses an issue faced by frontline employees who don’t have regular access to the Council’s Intranet, which limits their ability to access important internal communications, policies, guidance, and support, as well as information on pay, benefits, and wellbeing initiatives.
Cammie Day, council leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, said: “This platform will provide access to a host of support documentation and guidance to all of our previously digitally excluded frontline employees. By creating a secure gateway to the intranet, Jadu Central Gateway ensures that all colleagues have access to the same information at the same time and is a significant step in our digital and accessibility ambitions. The platform reinforces our commitments to engagement and empowerment of colleagues, and to continue transforming services.”
AND Digital has announced the start of a second engagement with the UK Cabinet Office to enhance its Find a Grant service for both users and administrators. The Glasgow-based Cabinet Office team will work closely with AND Digital on the implementation of the project.
The agreement comes after AND Digital built the first phase of the Find a Grant service for Cabinet Office in 2022.
Since then, over 85,000 citizens have successfully used the new service to find and apply for government grants in the first 12 months after the initial beta launch.
Peter Dale, Club Executive at AND Digital’s Glasgow club, comments: “Cabinet Office set out an ambitious goal of creating a single online access point for all eligible UK Government grant opportunities with improved efficiency, accessibility and transparency of government grants.
Scottish digital skills academy CodeClan has partnered with New York-based Flatiron School to deliver on demand, self-paced digital courses as an alternative to full-time immersive courses in software development and data science.
Globally, self-paced learning is becoming increasingly popular, enabling people to study around work and other commitments.
Loral Quinn, CodeClan’s CEO, said: “The Flatiron team are at the front of the field in this area, and we’re excited to partner with them with a view to appealing to a more diverse range of students and making CodeClan more accessible to a bigger audience.”
Esports Scotland, the country’s grassroots to professional event organiser, esports in education leader, and white label solutions provider is to work closely with Deep Green, a pioneer of climate and society friendly compute, on a range of initiatives to help the Scottish gaming community reduce the carbon impact of their activities.
In an era marked by rapid growth in the esports and gaming industry, it is imperative to address the significant energy consumption and environmental footprint associated with these sectors. Esports Scotland and Deep Green will develop a range of educational resources for the industry, sponsor esports events and make carbon positive compute available to gamers, event organisers and games developers.
James Hood, CEO of Esports Scotland said: “It has been an exhilarating six months for us at Esports Scotland, as we have solidified our direction and made sustainable practices a central part of our mission. With the work we will do with Deep Green, we can combine the immense influence of the esports community with their cutting-edge technology to drive positive change and contribute to a greener future.”
Mark Bjornsgaard for Deep Green Energy said: “Given the unprecedented growth in high performance and data-intensive computing across all sectors, it is imperative that we continue to find ways to be ever more energy-efficient and sustainable. Re-purposing, what would be, waste heat is central to this.
“The work we will do with Esports Scotland validates the demand for energy-efficient compute that also provides a societal good – supporting local businesses in reducing their reliance on carbon-intensive fossil fuelled boilers.”
Spire Global and OroraTech
Spire Global, Inc., a global provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, has signed an agreement with OroraTech, the global leader in space-based thermal intelligence, to build, launch and operate an eight-satellite constellation dedicated to global temperature monitoring. Once operational, it will represent the first and largest constellation of satellites dedicated to tracking and monitoring wildfires.
Each spacecraft in the eight-satellite constellation, which will be launched in mid-2024, will carry OroraTech’s proprietary thermal-infrared optical payload and data processing unit with on-orbit fire detection capability. The urgent data collected by the satellites will be downlinked via Spire’s ground station network and delivered to OroraTech through an API. The satellites will help identify and monitor areas at risk of wildfires as well as enable early detection of wildfire hot spots, which are increasing rapidly as a result of climate change.
OroraTech has successfully operated a precursor sensor in orbit on a satellite designed, built and operated by Spire for 15 months. Initially intended as a technology demonstration, it exceeded expectations and is now serving as an active fire monitoring instrument for customers across the globe. Currently, the sensor is actively assisting SOPFEU, the fire agency of the province of Quebec, Canada. Earlier this month, another Spire satellite carrying payloads for OroraTech, was successfully launched on SpaceX Transporter-8.
Recruitment and Appointments
UK Government’s Foundation Model Taskforce
Ian Hogarth, the tech entrepreneur, investor, and artificial intelligence (AI) specialist, has been announced as the chair of the UK Government’s Foundation Model Taskforce.
The Foundation Model Taskforce was first announced earlier this year, with the UK Government backing it with an initial £100 million to build sovereign capabilities in foundation models — the tech underpinning generative artificial intelligence — as well as helping guide AI safety, research, and development.
The newly announced chair is the founder of Songkick, the concert directory website, as well as venture capital firm Plural. He has co-authored the State of AI report since 2018, and is also a visiting professor at University College London’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.
Skills Development Scotland (SDS), the country’s skills agency, has appointed Cameron Lepper as the new chair of its Digital Economy Skills Group (DESG).
The Digital Economy Skills Group is the industry and public sector partnership aiming to enhance the country’s digital capabilities.
As the new chair, Lepper, who’s Head of Cloud Commercial and Optimisation at education software company Tribal, takes over from Ross Tuffee.
Tuffee has spent the last three years at the head of DESG, working with 25 other members to influence the delivery of the vital digital skills that are needed in Scotland.
Ingledew will join CFIT as an independent non-executive director, alongside Alex Marsh, the former head of Klarna UK. The appointments aim to bolster CFITs governance structure while it starts bringing together time-limited ‘coalitions’ of experts.
The aim of the coalitions are to bring better outcomes for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in spaces like academia, technology, and policy. The first coalition will consider opportunities in Open Finance, according to CFIT.
“Stephen’s experience in setting up and driving national fintech coalitions is invaluable to us. His four-decade long career facilitating collaborations across all UK regional fintech clusters will be instrumental in shaping our operating model going forward,” said the chair of CFIT, Charlotte Crosswell OBE.
The Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland has brough on four new trustees, each bringing key areas of expertise to the board and supporting Scotland’s businesses to be resilient against the growing threat of cyber and fraud crime.
Scotland’s support organisation for cyber and fraud crime, the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland, has announced the appointments of four new trustees.
DCC Jane Connors was sworn in as Deputy Chief Constable of Police Scotland, with executive responsibility for Crime and Operational Support, in February 2023.
She brings to the board a wealth of knowledge in policing, including 30 years of service within the Metropolitan Police Service. She was Gold Commander for Operation London Bridge, the policing operation for arrangements in London following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The Data Lab — which is Scotland’s innovation centre for AI and data science — has appointed 20 new members across its three advisory boards of Governance, Innovation, and Education.
Established in 2014, the centre — which is a part of the University of Edinburgh — helps companies, organisations, and individuals to grow operations, develop new projects, and ensure they have the data skills needed to move forward in a world that’s becoming more and more AI- and data-led.
The Data Lab’s advisory boards each has its own scope: the Governance Advisory Board’s responsibilities, for instance, include setting the centre’s strategic, compliance, and finance direction.
The Innovation Advisory Board, meanwhile, consists of data leaders providing direction for the centre’s innovation-oriented activities and approach to project investment.
Technology company Workpro has strengthened its project and systems teams with new appointments which will help to maintain and accelerate the speed of its current remarkable growth phase.
The three new hires boost the headcount to 33 at Workpro, which is the market-facing brand of Edinburgh-based Computer Application Services Ltd (CAS), and is another milestone on the way to the target of 40 within the next 15 months.
Jacob Wall has been taken on as a Systems Analyst, after working elsewhere as a business analyst in systems development.
Farhat Sameja has joined the company as a Project Team Leader after being a project manager for an engineering company.
Aju Jose is now an Infrastructure Engineer with Workpro, having worked in Dubai for seven years and having recently completed a Masters in Cybersecurity.
Celestia UK
Edinburgh’s Celestia UK has strengthened its management team with the appointment of Chartered Management Institute Awarded Walce Horvath as Office & HR Manager.
Walce joins the growing team at the Edinburgh based satellite communications company with a remit to support its HQ in the UK as well as its teams located in Lisbon, Portugal and Santander, Spain. She will also oversee training, development and recruitment for the highly specialised team.
She brings extensive experience of working with established as well as growing business support teams, in both the private and public sector, people management and development as well as in-depth knowledge of legislative and employment matters.
Having also worked with companies focussed on research and development in several different technical fields, she also understands the challenges and opportunities involved in bringing new products to market, a road Celestia UK is currently travelling.
Scotcoin
Technology and professional services entrepreneur Nikola Kelly has joined the advisory panel of The Scotcoin Project Community Interest Company (CIC) to support its growth and connections within Scotland’s digital ecosystem.
Nikola has nearly 20 years’ experience within the Scottish tech sector and is currently CEO of Be-IT Group, leading the company to a turnover of £14 million. She completed a management buy-out of its businesses in March 2023, which include Scotland’s largest independently owned IT recruitment specialist Be-IT Resourcing and IT consultancy Be-IT Projects.
Also sitting on the advisory panel for Career Ready, a national social mobility charity, Nikola is one of the main proponents of diversity and inclusion in the Scottish tech sector, often speaking on topics such as female and neurodiverse representation in the industry.
Nikola has been recognised as a Scottish Women in Business awards ‘young star’ and for her outstanding contribution as a young business leader.
Skylark Lasers
Skylark Lasers, the agile photonics company that specialises in the design and manufacture of ultra-reliable, high-performance, single-frequency DPSS lasers, has appointed a new CEO, to lead the business and guide its long-term growth vision.
Dr. Ben Szutor has been appointed as company CEO and will lead the business in the global roll-out of its unique technology and precision lasers. His focus will be to scale up its product ranges based on Skylark’s monolithic compact DPSS (C-DPSS) laser technology that delivers a ready-to-operate laser solution, with increased lifetime and enhanced performance over a wide range of wavelengths.
The company’s world-leading laser products are manufactured at its Edinburgh HQ by a skilled workforce of 30 people. The ambition is to drive this to over 50 during the next 18 months. The lasers have multiple applications across manufacturing and research with around 95 per cent produced for export.
Commenting on his appointment, Dr. Ben Szutor, said: “It’s an exciting time for the photonics industry and I’m ready to lead Skylark Lasers in its global expansion and pursuit of enhancing the technical capabilities of the country.
“Innovation is at my core and it’s something we’re continuing to put at the heart of Skylark too. The applications for precision lasers with longer lifespans and greater performance are growing, and playing a leading role in their commercialisation and is an exciting prospect.
Hanya Partners
Hanya Partners, the management consultancy specialising in IT, organisation development and supplier performance, part of the Taranata Group, announces the promotion of Philip White to Managing Partner and the appointment of Eyrun Bernhardsdottir as Senior Client Executive.
Eyrun brings extensive knowledge of the IT & Business Change space from her previous role as a Principal Consultant at sister company Head Resourcing.
Having joined Head Resourcing in 2014 as a Resource Consultant, Eyrun was initially involved in some of their largest corporate accounts, developing into an accomplished Account Manager and Delivery Consultant, managing a range of key accounts across various sectors, including Financial Services, Technology, Consultancy, and the Public Sector.
In addition to building strong client relationships based on both results and a consultative, honest, and trustworthy approach, she has also developed her role within Head Resourcing, becoming a Principal Consultant within the Head Contractor Solutions team and working on a number of internal projects to ensure continuous improvement.
White has been with Hanya Partners Ltd. since January 2020, as Consulting Director within the Sourcing and Supplier Management division and has been a huge part of the success in recent years.
In his new role, White will step up to a management role and also join the Hanya Partners board, he will be responsible for leading the company’s strategic direction and overseeing its day-to-day operations. He will also continue to develop and implement new business initiatives and to grow the company’s client base.
“We are thrilled to promote Philip to Managing Partner,” said Martin Ewart, CEO of Hanya Partners Ltd. “He is a highly skilled and experienced procurement professional with a proven track record of success across our clients. I am confident that he will continue to be a valuable asset to our company and will help us achieve our long-term goals.”
Expansions and Relocations
ClearSky Logic
Edinburgh-based ClearSky Logic is set to expand its operations by targeting hub openings in London and Manchester within the next twelve months.
Founded in 2018, the Scottish digital transformation company provides guidance and consultation to help companies grow and scale.
“We are reducing business risk for companies when it comes to implementing tech and software, and with an agile group of highly specialised people in place we liken ourselves to a special ops team.” said Darren Auld, ClearSky Logic CEO and Co-founder. “Working on a project basis following a thorough preparation phase, we can deliver software much quicker than the competition.”
The company says it is seeing an increased demand to help companies implement technologies like ChatGPT, Blockchain technology, and carbon emission reductions.
The National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), operated by the University of Strathclyde, has now opened its new flagship facility at the heart of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS) in Renfrewshire.
Acting as a magnet for advanced manufacturing in Scotland and across the globe, the heather coloured, 11,500m2 operationally carbon neutral campus next to Glasgow Airport will support manufacturing, engineering and associated technology businesses of all sizes.
Innovative R&D aims to help them become more productive, tap into emerging markets, embrace new technologies, and achieve net-zero targets.
UK fintech start-up ZIPZERO has relocated its head offices from London to Aberdeen, Scotland, in a bid to accelerate its growth.
ZIPZERO is spearheading an AI-driven consumer-and-advertiser platform revolution – bringing together both groups for a financially empowering relationship. By crowdsourcing paper and digital receipts directly from consenting consumers, ZIPZERO not only helps consumers optimise their spending and lower their household bills but also offers marketers an advanced AI tool that identifies target consumers and informs marketing strategy.
The company has over 200,000 app users in the UK and has been prolific in shaping discussions on the cost-of-living crisis.
Commenting on the reasons behind the move, ZIPZERO’s CEO, Mohsin Rashid, said: “Scotland is the most fertile land for UK tech. There are a number of programmes driving growth in the tech sector, and the connection between industry innovators and academia is particularly strong. This has all helped to create a thriving tech community; ideas are easy to share, inspiration is readily found, and people are excited by the prospects of innovation – we’re very excited to be here.”
Awards
Scottish Cyber Awards
Scotland’s cyber security community is preparing to recognise the contributions of companies, individuals, and academics as the Scottish Cyber Awards open for their seventh round.
The awards – run by the Cyber and Fraud Centre – Scotland – highlight the Scottish cyber security calendar, providing an opportunity for networking as well as a celebration of achievements in the industry.
Hosted by comedian Fred MacAulay on 30 November, the awards will for the first time be taking place at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.
This year’s awards will also see the introduction of the Financial Fraud Team of the Year award, which will recognise a team that has demonstrated exceptional innovation, dedication, and expertise in the fight against financial fraud, a rapidly growing crime in Scotland.
Universities across the UK have announced they are drawing up a set of guiding principles to ensure that students and staff are artificial intelligence (AI) literate.
The news comes as the sector struggles to adapt teaching and assessment methods to deal with the growing use of generative AI.
Vice-chancellors at the 24 Russel Group research-intensive universities have signed up to the code.
They say this will help universities to capitalise on the opportunities of AI while simultaneously protecting academic rigour and integrity in higher education.
Welcoming the news Sheila Flavell CBE, Chief Operating Officer, FDM Group said: “It’s encouraging to hear that our universities are on the front foot when it comes to setting high standards of teaching and learning around AI.
“With businesses crying out for new hires equipped with the latest tech skills and analytics capabilities, providing students with a fully rounded education and qualifications in this area is critical for building a dynamic workforce, fit for the future ahead,” she added.
While once there was talk of banning software like ChatGPT within education to prevent cheating, the guidance says students should be taught to use AI appropriately in their studies, while also making them aware of the risks of plagiarism bias, and inaccuracy in generative AI.
John Kirk, Group Deputy CEO at ITG said: “Having a dedicated plan in place to ensure the highest standards of teaching and learning in AI across our universities is a wise move which will ensure the next generation is better equipped to bring additional skills into the workplace. The reality is that this technology is here to stay and deployed correctly can enhance our creative industries and help businesses transform marketing and customer interactions for the long term.
“With the digital skills shortfall still causing headaches for many companies, having systems in place to better understand such a high impact technology is a step in the right direction.” added Kirk.
Staff will also have to be trained so they are equipped to help students, many of whom are already using ChatGPT in their assignments. New ways of assessing students are likely to emerge to reduce the risk of cheating.
All 24 Russel Group universities have reviewed their academic conduct policies and guidance to reflect the emergence of generative AI.
The new guidance says: “These policies make it clear to students and staff where the use of generative AI is inappropriate, and are intended to support them in making informed decisions and to empower them to use these tools appropriately and acknowledge their use where necessary. ”
MarTech expert Sjuul van der Leeuw, CEO of Deployteq added, “Generative AI has huge potential to transform organisations and empower the creative industries, so this initiative will help students and staff better understand its full potential.
“The global race to embrace AI and other key transformative technologies shows no sign of slowing down, so collaboration between academics, businesses, and the next generation to drive better understanding how it can be utilised whilst adhering to high ethical standards of best practice is a positive step forward.”
Developed in partnership with experts in AI and education, the principles represent a first step in what promises to be a challenging period of change in higher education as the world is increasingly transformed by AI.
The five guiding principles state that universities will support both students and staff to become AI literate; staff should be equipped to help students to use generative AI tools appropriately; the sector will adapt teaching and assessment to incorporate the ‘ethical’ use of AI and ensure equal access to it; universities will ensure academic integrity is upheld; and share best practice as the technology evolves.
Dr Tim Bradshaw, the Russell Group chief executive, said: “The transformative opportunity provided by AI is huge and our universities are determined to graps it. This statement of principles underlines our commitment to doing so in a way that benefits students and staff and protects the integrity of the high-quality education Russel Group universities provide.”
Prof Andrew Brass, head of the School of Health Sciences at the University of Manchester, said: “We know that students are already utilising this technology, so the question for us as educators is how do you best prepare them for this, and what are the skills they need to have to know how to engage with generative AI sensibly?
“From our perspective, it’s clear that this can’t be imposed from the top down, but by working really closely with our students to co-create the guidance we provide. If there are restrictions for example, it’s crucial that it’s clearly explained to students why they are in place, or we will find that people find a way around it.”
Prof Michael Grove, deputy pro-vice chancellor (education policy and standards) at the University of Birmingham, said: “The rapid rise of generative AI will mean we need to continually review and re-evaluate our assessment practices, but we should view this as an opportunity rather than a threat.
“We have an opportunity to rethink the role of assessment and how it can be used to enhance student learning and in helping students appraise their own educational gain.”
The UK’s draft Online Safety Bill has gone through a flurry of controversial changes throughout its legislative lifetime, with many new clauses just introduced facing much scrutiny.
Currently, the bill would require age verification for websites and services that show or allow pornographic content.
The amendments would affect user-to-user platforms as well as major adult entertainment sites that show pornographic content.
Age-checking technologies would be deployed to determine if a user was over 18 years of age through a number of means, potentially from a user’s selfie, official IDs, documents, or voice recognition technology.
The bill does have stipulations that users will be anonymised in the age verification process.
Privacy advocates, however, are concerned that the bill goes too far and will mean companies can collect citizen’s private data.
“The government’s desire to protect children is understandable but peers need to consider the privacy risks that come with forcing websites to verify the age of their users,” Dr Monica Horten, a policy manager for freedom of expression at Open Rights Group said in a statement.
“Some of these systems use facial recognition techniques to identify people’s age. The collection of large pools of children’s biometric data by private companies, with no governance structures in place, is something that all parents should be very worried about.”
The collection of children’s data is more closely regulated than the collection of adult data, and the Information Commissioner’s Office introduced the Children’s Code to enshrine more standards surrounding the legal collection of children’s data.
Currently, websites often have age verification methods which are easy for children to subvert and do not require specific documentation – another worry with the bill is that will unfairly target those from certain socioeconomic backgrounds that do not have ID documentation.
Another concern is that these laws may prevent children from accessing information on sexual health, gender, and sexuality if the definition of porn is not concretely defined in the bill.
“With these amendments, there is also a risk that children will be blocked out of websites as platform providers, worried about strict liability and criminal penalties will prefer to exclude them rather than risk expensive and untried age estimation systems for which they will pick up the tab,” Dr Horten said.
Wikipedia has already come out against the bill’s proposed age verification processes, saying they will not censor or block users from accessing certain pages, calling for an encyclopaedia exemption from the age restriction measures in the bill.
According to the BBC, tech minister Peter Scully said that sexual health information would not be effected, and Ofcom would have the ability to decide the rules of what is unavailable to those under 18.
The Online Safety Bill has faced much controversy since its introduction, from big tech, privacy activists, and child safety advocates alike.
One of the main points of contention includes its new rules of encryption – under the bill, communications that would normally be encrypted would first be scanned on the client side for child abuse material, breaking the privacy inherent in end-to-end encryption.
Major tech companies and privacy advocates have said this unprecedented law would impede the privacy of citizens, and potentially jeopardise the safety of those relying on encrypted messages, such as journalists and activists.
Further, the bill could lead to the imprisonment of tech executives if they fail to keep children safe online via the rules in the bill.
As well, another clause recently introduced would make tech companies provide bereaved parents access to their deceased children’s data at the request of the coroner’s office for investigations into the cause of death.
Elon Musk has announced that Twitter is now limiting the number of tweets users can read in a day.
Currently, verified accounts will be limited to 6,000 posts a day, while unverified can access a maximum of 600 a day. Newly created unverified accounts can only read 300 a day.
These rules will soon change, but not be totally disbanded – Musk announced that verified users will be able to view 8,000 tweets a day, with unverified users seeing 800 and newly unverified limited to 400.
Musk announced the new restrictions in a tweet “to address extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation…”
Twitter appeared to be suffering from outages over the weekend, with #TwitterDown trending.
According to the BBC, users were met with the message: “Rate limit exceeded. Please wait a few moments then try again.” This is potentially to do with exceeding the number of tweets they could read in a day, or a wider outage.
Further, according to the BBC, people attempting to access Twitter were told they would need to log into an account – previously people could view public tweets without a Twitter account.
Limiting the number of tweets users could view would limit site traffic and the number of advertisements users could view, driving down revenue for the site overall.
The change is among a number of confounding measures Musk introduced since taking over the company in October 2022.
Musk reformed the verification ‘blue tick’ service for public figures, turning it into a paid for service. He also laid off around 80% of his workforce, which greatly impacted the sites’ functionality, leading to outages.
The concerns over data scraping of the new measure may have to do with Twitter’s new policy on its Application Programming Interface (API) access, which now charges people to view the source of tweet data.
Twitter is not the only site to change its API policy – Reddit is set to start charging third party developers for API access to its site, leading to major blackouts across the forum.
The House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee has released a new Digital Exclusion review, blatantly calling out the Government’s failings for digital inclusion across the UK.
Among some of the report’s major findings is that the UK government needs to update their digital exclusion initiatives to reflect current technological advancements and directly address modern issues exacerbated by the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis.
According to the report, the cost of living crisis has “made a bad situation worse for people who struggle to afford internet access.”
The increasing move of services to digital platforms is at risk of leaving people across the nation behind as they struggle to access the digital world due to a lack of skills, broadband infrastructure, or access to devices.
The Good Things Foundation Data Poverty Lab had identified 81 broad areas where the internet “has become integral to daily lives,” according to the report, and the government has ambitions to intensify their digital transformation in at least 75 public services.
Public services can therefore be inaccessible to those that are not able to access the internet or perform even the most basic digital tasks, such as connect to wifi or open a webpage.
This has permeated into the workforce: the Industrial Strategy Council reported that around 5 million workers will be “acutely under-skilled” digitally by 2030.
The report claims that investing in digital skills makes economic sense: for ever £1 invested in basic digital skills, there will a return of £9.48 by 2032, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).
“The economic case for tackling digital exclusion is clear: it would improve productivity, support economic growth and alleviate pressure on some public services,” the report read.
“Yet the Government does not appear to have conducted a single assessment of the economic impacts of digital exclusion in recent years.”
Further, improving digital inclusion aligns with many public and government interests: programmes are in line with Levelling up initiatives, and could aid net-zero goals.
The House of Lords committee is recommending that the Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) should therefore public an assessment of the probable impact of digital exclusion over the next ten years, and value for money assessments for their proposed interventions to lessen the digital divide.
Recommendations
The report made several key recommendations for the government across different aspects it found increased digital exclusion, from broadband initiatives to skills and accessibility, to predictive AI’s impact.
Pragmatism is central to the report’s approach: Liam Halligan, as quoted in the report, said that effective solutions are:
“Just not sexy. Ministers like talking about unicorns and AI. They like being photographed with the tech bros in T-shirts and sand shoes, rather than dealing with what is a necessity of life now.”
First, the report required the government to refresh their digital inclusion strategy within six months of responding to this report.
Currently, the committee has “no confidence” that DSIT is making a digital exclusion a priority.
The committee recommends that DSIT should therefore establish a cross-government digital exclusion unit, working with external stakeholders and across government departments to “embed digital exclusion in priority policy areas.”
Internet Access
Another major priority the House of Lords committe found the government was falling short in is affordable itnernet access and broadband rollout.
While the committee supports the continued rollout of Project Gigabit to bring broadband infrastructure to rural and remote areas, they recommend Ofcom reviews the definition of what qualifies as a “decent broadband service” under teh Universal Service Obligation.
Currently, the obligation does not guarantee that those in more remote areas can access broadband that would allow for videoconferencing, making it more difficult for them to access more work opportunities.
In addition to infrastructure, the committee recommends the government makes a more concernted effort to make broadband accessible through reviewing internet voucher schemes and removing VAT from social tariffs and from wholesale broadband.
Skills
To improve digital skills, the committee has recommended that the Department for Education plays a central role in setting basic digital skills targets at varying education stages, including for school leavers.
Focusing on ensuring students leave school with the most basic digital skills rather than offering coding classes needs to be a renewed commitment.
However, schooling cannot be the only route to improve digital skills – the committee has reflected that local, community-level interventions have been more successful than formal qualifications and government-wide initiatives.
Accessibility
Though digitisation can often improve accessibility to certain services, it can enhance inequalities for those who face more digital exclusion due to a lack of resources, skills, or due to disabilities.
The government’s digital inclusion strategy should therefore include support for in-person and place-based initiatives to help those who have issues accessing online services.
Further, the committee has challenged the government to audit their own websites for accessibility standards and regulations, and have public services adopt accessibility standards for their websites.
Refocusing on AI
The use of predictive AI was also touched on in the report – the committee proposed the government should review the extent of predictive analytics in public-facing services.
Predictive AI systems and other algorithms rely on data, and digitally-excluded people are often left out of these data sets as they are less likely to interact with the online services collecting this data. Therefore, they risk further digital exclusion if this is not taken into account, especially if this is used for informing public services.
Over 150 businesses executives, including from Meta and Renault, signed a letter warning that Europe could be left behind as a result of the new draft EU AI bill.
Executives from Siemens in Germany and Airbus in France were also signatories of the letter which claimed Europe would jeopardise their competitiveness through the law’s regulations.
The EU AI Act is currently rounding its final legislative stage, and would introduce hallmark regulations such as forcing companies to disclose AI-generated content, restricts the use of biometric AI surviellence by law enforcement, and designates certain applications of AI – such as in healthcare or hiring practices – as high risk and requiring further regulations.
In the letter, executives warned that companies developing AI technology in the EU would face more burdensome liability risks and higher compliance costs than their global counterparts, making it more difficult to compete in a wider market.
Companies said the regulations could force some of them to move abroad to develop their AI technology with less stringent regulations.
The letter pushed for a risk-based approach over the current legislation, which they claimed to call for “rigid compliance,” as quoted by the Financial Times.
Further, the letter called for a body of industry experts to monitor the law and its implementation rather than law makers.
This letter is in contradiction to an earlier open letter signed by major players in AI, including Elon Musk and Sam Altman from OpenAI, stating that researchers needed to hault development of generative AI in order for regulations to catch up.
It has recently been revealed in a Time report, however, that OpenAI actively lobbied the EU to exclude their generative AI model ChatGPT from being classified as “high-risk” and therefore requiring harsher regulations.
It appears that many companies are backtracking this earlier call to regulate AI as fears mount that it could slow their development and deployment.
A study from Standford University investigated the major large language AI models currently available and if they complied with the new EU act’s regulations – none of the models were found to be fully compliant.
Failing to comply could result in major fines and even outright bans until companies get their technology in tow – developers in Europe are showing their apprehension to the first attempt to regulate AI.
Kroll, an independent provider of global risk and financial advisory solutions, has today revealed that more than two-thirds (68%) of UK risk experts expect financial crime risks to increase over the next 12 months.
The findings come as part of Kroll’s newly released 2023 Fraud and Financial Crime Report, which surveyed 400 risk professionals across four continents. UK respondents were broadly in agreement with their global counterparts and the figure for all respondents was 69%.
22% of UK respondents expect this increase in crime risk to be ‘significant’, below the global average of 26%.
Meanwhile, just 30% of UK respondents rate their financial compliance programme as ‘very effective’, which is in like with the global average (30%), and ahead of figures for the US and France (26%).
Well over half (62%) of surveyed global companies are expecting an uptick in levels of government regulatory enforcement actions in the next twelve months.
A third of UK respondents (32%) warned that ‘cybersecurity and data breaches’ will be the primary drivers behind the anticipated increase in financial crime risks followed by ‘financial pressures on companies or individuals’ (16%) and the ‘impact of remote working’ (16%).
These issues appear to be connected, however, as increasing financial pressures on employees due to the cost-of-living crisis have put companies blame disgruntled workers for data breaches.
Further, remote working can increase cyber risks by introducing more connected devices to networks, opening further avenues for hackers to breach internal networks and communication.
Haydn Jones, Global Head of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Solutions at Kroll, commented: “In the face of this dynamically evolving landscape, the role of the compliance function remains more crucial than ever.
“As we look toward the future, the complex interplay between technologies of all types, geopolitics, and financial crime, means specialist skills will be required to navigate what is essentially a data-based future.”
New Challenges
Globally, the report also found that firms are facing a raft of new challenges. The financial crime risk posed by cryptocurrency is a source of concern for 76% of global respondents, with almost a quarter (24%) globally listing it as a ‘significant’ concern.
Under a third of global respondents (31%) said that their compliance programmes currently cater for risks associated with cryptocurrencies.
Sanctions compliance was another challenge highlighted by the report. According to 48% of UK respondents, sanctions compliance poses a significant concern, with ‘geographic consistency’ identified as the top barrier.
The report also revealed that 73% of global respondents plan to dedicate more time towards enhancing supply chain controls or diligence, due to exposure to materials that originate from sanctioned countries or are subject to export controls.
Response from Businesses
To counter a potential uptick in financial crime, the report found that more than two thirds (68%) of UK respondents are planning to invest further in technology, while 62% will increase their cybersecurity budget.
Although artificial intelligence (AI) has already been implemented into financial crime compliance programmes by 56% globally, the respondents highlighted that it’s still relatively new in the majority of these cases.
This suggests that the technology’s full potential is yet to be explored by organisations.
David Lewis, Global Head of AML Advisory at Kroll, said, “The survey results show that firms are facing a perfect storm, as financial crime risks increase and get more complex. They are not fully confident in the effectiveness of their defences and will undoubtedly rush to embrace technology to solve all their problems.
“While organisations need to ensure that they land on the right technological solutions to manage risk, governance and growth in an ever-changing financial crime landscape, the value of skilled experts mustn’t be overlooked.”
The Responsible AI in Healthcare consortium focused on ethics and safety in their first meeting in London after calls to better regulate the use of generative AI in high risk settings.
The consortium is aimed at accelerating the responsible development and use of generative AI technologies through collective learning, experimentation, and policy advocacy and is built around a unique hands-on responsible generative AI testbed to enable members to actively experiment with and refine responsible generative technologies in a real-world healthcare context.
A diverse portfolio of experts across the NHS, Harvard Business School, Turing Institute, St. Edmund’s College at University of Cambridge and industry partners including Trustwise have allowed knowledge-sharing across the AI value chain across academia, policy makers, investors, and healthcare providers.
“We are in the middle of rapid advancements and adoption of generative AI and navigating the responsible AI landscape is proving to be a formidable challenge for all,” said Manoj Saxena, Founder and Chairman at RAI Institute.
“Now, more than ever, we need to work together to make AI safe and aligned with human values. The creation of our Responsible Generative AI Consortium, with its practical testbeds and GenAI Safety Ratings, is a vital step towards our mission of helping AI practitioners to build, buy and supply safe and trusted AI systems.”
The quality of AI systems has been under fire for some time as they can exacerbate issues of bias in data and, in the case of generative AI, their solutions are not auditable or repeatable.
A recent paper in Nature found that in healthcare settings, the use of AI to inform care options resulted in biased care results and options.
The World Health Organisation also called for the safe and ethical use of AI in healthcare settings as companies and governments pushed ahead with technological advancements.
In the UK, AI technology received a £16 million funding boost to fast-track applications into the NHS to speed up diagnoses.
Currently, the Scottish Health Board is testing AI algorithms to see if they improve earlier diagnoses of lung cancer.
While AI can offer many benefits to healthcare and potentially speed up diagnosis, the consortium plans to investigate its use to ensure it is safe, ethical, and effective.
The Responsible GenAI Consortium in Healthcare is the first in a series of industry-specific consortia and GenAI testbeds to be launched by The Responsible AI Institute, with others being planned for later this year and next.
The testbeds will incorporate the new Generative AI Safety Rating – a scoring system that grades the safety and reliability of generative AI systems, providing organisations, AI developers, policymakers, investors and other stakeholders a clear measure of system performance, fairness and compliance with rules and regulations.
The rating is based on the evaluation of metrics including but not limited to bias detection, model hallucination, IP and privacy protection, transparency and accountability.
Similar to the FICO credit score model, the numerical representation of the Generative AI Safety Rating will help guide improvements, enable progress tracking and foster a culture of responsible AI development and deployment.
Activists at #StopDataPorn, a collective of digital rights activists, have filed a complaint against Pornhub for breaches in GDPR.
Pornhub is one of the most popular websites in the world, and the most popular adult entertainment website in the world, hosting about 2 billion people a month. In 2022, the UK was the country with the second largest user base, topped only by the United States.
#StopDataPorn activists say that Pornhub flagrantly disregards GDPR, bringing charges against the pornography giant surrounding three main topics.
First of all, they claim that Pornhub does not ask for consent when processing user’s personal data which can be considered highly sensitive as it is related to their sex life and sexual orientation. Regardless of the sensitivity of the data, websites are obliged to ask for consent to process data under article 9 of the GDPR.
Activists claim that the trackers deployed by Pornhub are “virtually impossible to remove for an inexperienced user, and are designed to bypass any form of opt-out,” #StopDataPorn said in press release.
Next, digital rights activists have alleged that Pornhub shares user information with an unclear number of third parties, both outside their company and within its corporate conglomerate controlled by MindGeek, which also owns about 170 other companies, and was recently acquired by private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners.
This undisclosed dissemination of personal information constitutes an unlawful processing of data that is forbidden by the GDPR.
Finally, Pornhub feeds user data to a recommender system that unilaterally assigns sexual preferences to each individual user without their knowledge, without allowing users to contest this result. Activists say this classifies as unlawful profiling, which is conducted by exploiting users’ sensitive personal data for financial gain.
Research into the data tracking processes of Pornhub were conducted through the project pornhub.tracking.exposed, which gathered evidence using digital forensics tools and reverse engineering to expose the site’s recommender system, as well as scaping the data visible when navigating the platform.
The researchers not only found serious violations of user’s personal data, but bias in the recommender algorithm which researchers said reinforced a “heteronormative perspective on sexual desire and sexuality typical of heterosexual, white, and hegemonic masculinity.” While researchers found that the algorithm changed based on users’ self-declared gender and sexual interests, it still reiterated a white, male, heterosexual, and cis-gendered point of view.
According to Alessandro Polidoro, lead attorney of the litigation and digital rights activist, the abuses of data rights are occurring because Pornhub operates in the shadow that surrounds the porn industry in general.
“Platforms like Pornhub are hoarding information about everybody’s sexual orientation and trading it with business partners for a profit. They are capable of creating ‘lists’ naming who is gay and who is not, for instance, also knowing intimate secrets and kinks that people would not share even with their closest friends,” Polidoro said.
Pornography is rather ancient – depictions of sex go back to the Upper Palaeolithic, but despite the porn market earning around $35.17 billion globally a year, the industry is largely left in the dark due to stigma against sex work and sex in general.
Shoving the many issues of pornography under the rug enables it to become a necessary ‘evil’ of society rather than a regulated part of it, subject to the same laws and regulations as every other entertainment website.
Polidoro says this ‘shadow’ makes it difficult for the porn industry to be accessed by regulators, policy makers, and the research community. This ultimately leaves everyone – from sex workers to sex viewers – at risk.
He added: “It is mandatory to put this massive processing of sensitive data into compliance with data protection law. Why are we letting porn platforms harvest personal data without even asking for consent?!”
Currently, #StopDataPorn is taking their case to the Italian data protection authority, though a current legal fight is taking place in Cyprus, where Pornhub’s European legal seat is located.
#StopDataPorn is urging the data protection authorities of both countries to recognise what they view a a systemic violation of data protection law by Pornhub, and to conduct a thorough investigation of Pornhub’s business practices.
CivTech 8 Demo Day kicked off at the Roxy Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh’s Old Town, gargoyles looming over the stage as presenters showcased their solutions to CivTech’s challenges.
Scottish Minister for Small Business, Innovation, Tourism and Trade, Richard Lochhead, opened CivTech 8, remarking on the surroundings.
Edinburgh’s Old and New Town serves as an excellent example of the meteoric rise of the Scottish capital during the industrial revolution, and showcases Scotland’s part in creating world-changing innovations.
It also highlights the stark inequalities and dark history sparked by this transformative era – much of Edinburgh’s Old Town lies trapped underneath as riches ushered in new builds and new people, leaving much of the city’s inhabitants in decrepit damp.
Lochhead says there’s a similar revolution occurring now, but we need not repeat the same mistakes as the 1780s, where industrial progress and inequality went hand in hand.
Even since the last CivTech Demo Day, just five months ago, the world has changed.
The rise of generative AI large language models have created a flurry of new technological and ethical conundrums to face, bringing new hopes and fears to humanity’s problems.
The Scottish government itself has changed – Nicola Sturgeon stepped down, and Scotland has seen its first change in First Minister since 2014.
Still, many things are the same – the UK is still facing a cost-of-living crisis, energy prices are still strapping households and businesses, and the climate emergency has only become more urgent.
“The world at the moment is facing many challenges the likes of which we haven’t seen before,” Lochhead said, “and we don’t have a lot of time to tackle these.”
CivTech took a new focus this time round, facing some of Scotland’s, and the world’s toughest questions around the effects of climate change.
Scotland’s netzero and biodiversity goals are some of the most ambitious in the world.
By 2045, Scotland aims to be a netzero nation, meaning it will emit net zero carbon emissions.
Lochead lamented the “sense of urgency” surrounding these issues, but noted that “Scotland has creativity and ingenuity in abundance.”
CivTech’s unique approach – having public and third sector organisations challenge the private sector to use their skills and technology to solve problems facing the country – presents an opportunity to address these issues out with substantial economic pressures.
While solutions need to be viable, CivTech allows a foundational step in addressing oft-forgotten issues plaguing the public sector, which has implications to benefit the economy – and Scotland – as a whole.
CivTech took an environmental approach this round, highlighting their new Innovate for Nature initiative to create solutions to some of Scotland’s toughest challenges, including achieving net zero and biodiversity goals.
“A transition to a circular economy means a fundamental shift in the way we manufacture, use and view products, meaning we would have to recover and reuse as many products as possible,” Helen Laverty from Zero Waste Scotland explained.
A key driver for this solution was the “increasing interest and regulatory pressure around managing coproducts,” Justin Ord of South of Scotland Enterprise said.
Ord noted that increasingly, there are calls to classify waste as co-products, which would mean companies would have to consider the environmental impact of these waste products as part of their total production structure and strategy.
To mitigate waste, Looper took up the challenge, developing a life cycle assessment software to track and reduce the climate impacts of individual companies.
Many companies will publish their own statistics on their carbon footprint, but these can take costly and time consuming consultations, putting these reports out of reach for many SMEs.
Further, these are not always accurate, easy to understand, and are often not product specific.
About 95% of companies do not have the data to make accurate carbon footprint estimates of their products,” Looper CEO and Co-Founder Yiqiang Zhao said.
With Looper, however, companies can track the carbon footprint of a singular product throughout its lifecycle.
The platform starts with a blueprint of the production strategy, CTO and Co-founder Shashwat Ganguly explained. This allows companies to upload their own data on what products, raw materials, and process they use, which Looper then analyses with their thousands of data points to determine the carbon footprint of each product.
Looper also allows users to predict how changes in their product sourcing and strategies can change their carbon footprint, allowing them to make better, more informed decisions to achieve net zero goals.
Currently, Looper has about 24,000 carbon footprint data points, which is a good foundation, but admittedly “not enough,” Ganguly said. The company hopes that, as they expand and get more contracts, their carbon data will expand as well, allowing them to better and more accurately track carbon emissions for companies.
“Our mission is to make lifecycle design accessible for any business,” Zhao said. “This is a great starting point to prove that human beings are capable of handling climate change.”
Biodiversity: Land and Sea
Biodiversity was a hot button issue for two CivTech 8 Challenges, one dealing with land management of protected areas, and one dealing with the tracking and protecting marine natural capital.
Informed Solutions took the approach to harness existing and new data to better understand how protected areas on both land and sea are managed, using predictive AI to provide insights into ecosystem health and management decisions.
“The Scottish government is taking a world leading response to the climate emergency,” said David Lawton, Technical Director of Informed Solutions said.
The team appeared to be taking a holistic approach to managing protected areas, harnessing and creating instant access to all data, combining historical documents with the latest satellite imagery, using AI to create sotry models for a standard and robust presentation of how natural areas have changed over time, and may change with different management practices.
With three main capabilities, Informed Solutions are taking the very best of modern technology capabilities – the wrangling of massive data sets and coupling them with AI analytical and predictive capabilities, and underpinning them with local authorities, communities, and scientists to better understand how natural areas have been transformed by climate change, and how best to manage them going forward.
Connected to this collaborative effort, is the solution put forth by AECOM surrounding a challenge of connecting nature networks across Scotland.
Scotland has many protected areas, but these are often disconnected from each other, meaning animals and plants cannot move freely and safely between them. This can lead to a lack of biodiversity.
AECOM created a collaborative tool called Eco-Uplit, which allows communities, governments, and private developers to work together to better understand nature networks and land management.
By using available data, AECOM’s Eco-Uplift can inform stakeholders how to best manage and connect natural capital to allow for the free movement of animals and plant species.
What sets it apart from other platforms is the use of scientific research to understand how animals move through and use the landscape, providing insight into functional connectivity for more useful nature networks.
The platform offers a nature-based project optimiser, finding the right place for the right project to improve nature networks and marine natural capital.
It also offers a co-design hub, a collaborative platform for those interested in nature recovery, providing support for bottom-up grassroots environmental change.
For the management of marine capital, things are often a bit more complicated, as seabeds are not as easy to study from satellite imagery.
Tritonia offered up a solution to another CivTech challenge which wanted to track Scotland’s marine natural capital.
“We now have the tech to position robots underwater, enabling us to rapidly map seascapes in 3D,” Andrew Mogg, the photogrammetry lead of Tritonia said.
Using geospatial photogrammetry and underwater robots, Tritonia can map out the Scottish seabed, taking real pictures to track marine life, providing real-time tracking of marine natural capital like coral, oysters, and mussels.
The maps provide millimetre resolution, allowing for even the smallest of changes to be tracked as our oceans respond to a rapidly changing climate.
Tritonia is providing the underpinning data to better understand the amount of natural capital in Scotland’s marine environment, and how this changes overtime as they continue to investigate the seabed.
Looking Ahead: CivTech 9
At Demo Day, the challenges for CivTech 9 were announced, with many echoing the focus on Scotland’s natural environment.
With interests in helping wildlife rangers identifying animals, to mitigating the effects of pests and stress factors on wild plants, to using technology to better manage deer populations, CivTech 9 is clearly reflecting the urgency Minister Lochead mentioned in his keynote address.
Indeed as CivTech progresses into another round, Mark Elliot, Programme Director of CivTech, urges us to take action now: “Let’s not be there in ten years, trying to think of excuses.”
One in five employees think artificial intelligence (AI) would do a better job than their current human boss, according to a new survey.
The report, conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Business Name Generator, surveyed over 2,000 employees across the UK and US to see how they felt about employee management and AI.
While over 40% of employees say they would be scared if their boss was replaced by AI, many had a more nuanced response to the proposition.
With 37% of respondents saying they have left a job in the past due to their manager, it is no surprise that some employees would be willing to try an AI alternative.
Respondents had several different reasons for supporting AI over a human boss – 33.33% in the UK said a robot boss would ensure there was no favouritism, and 30.45% said a robot would be better at making unbiased decisions, and 29.65% saying they would ensure there was no discrimination.
While an AI-driven manager may mean less interpersonal bias and favouritism, AI has been shown to be rife with discriminatory bias. In job recruitment, AI has been known to select candidates that are most similar to top executives.
If the recruitment process itself is bias, discriminatory, and maintains favouritism for certain characteristics, then these issues will not even enter the workplace.
Workers had other reasons, though, for supporting an AI boss. 24.68% of UK employees surveyed said that an AI boss would remove workplace drama, and make it a fairer place.
Interesting, only 18.61% said that an AI boss would make the workplace more productive and efficient, and only 16.82% said it would lessen employee stress.
Overall, one in six respondents (16%) in both the UK and the US said they would be ‘happy’ if their boss was replaced by an AI robot. In the UK, nearly 18% of men would be happy, whereas 14% of women said they would be happy with the outcome.
Breaking it down by age, nearly one in three respondents aged 18-24 said they would be happy with a robot boss. Only 12% of people over the age of 55 would be okay with the switch.
In the UK, arts and culture was the industry most happy to replace their boss with a robot (30%), despite being perceived as the most distant from the tech world.
Human resources (HR), was the next industry most interested in an AI boss, with 23% saying they would be happy for their boss to be replaced by a robot.
More tech-heavy industries were further down the list, with 19% of respondents in Manufacturing and Utilities as well as in Finance saying they would be happy with a robot replacement.
17% of those in the healthcare industry said they would be happy with a robot boss.
Interestingly, AI seemed the appeal the most in less tech-heavy industries, and appealed not for it’s potential productivity benefits, but to mitigate the interpersonal challenges in a workplace.
In the UK, most issues with bosses tended to be on the interpersonal level – the number one issue UK employees had was a lack of appreciation (14%), followed by a lack of empathy (12.4%) and showing favouritism (12.2%).
Further, UK employees complained about a lack of clear expectations (12.1%), disorganisation (11.7%), micromanagement (11.5%) and unavailability to answer questions (11.4%).
These may not be solved by a robot boss, but the potential expectation may be removed if a job is managed by a robot rather than a person.
Major global brands are sharing advertisements on artificial intelligence (AI) -generated websites through programmatic advertising, unknowingly funding these unreliable news and information sources.
Analysis by NewsGuard discovered a major rise in what they call unreliable artificial intelligence-generated news information and news sites (UAINs), which are being funded by automatically programmed ads by major brands.
UAINs are sites which operated mainly via AI technology, producing news stories and information with little human oversight, making them often unreliable sources.
According to NewsGaurd, the number of UAINs has risen from 49 to 217 in just the last month.
These sites are mainly funded through programmatic ads by major brands – these ads are automatically programmed to be places on websites fairly indescriminately.
As UAINs can produce hundreds of bot-generated content a day, these are prime targets for these programmatic ads as they would algorithmically appear to be attracting more traffic due to such a high content output.
Companies still have to pay every site to run their advertisements, so these programmatic advertisements are inadvertently funding these unreliable, AI-generated websites.
NewsGuard identified 393 programmatic ads from 141 major brands in May and Jun 2023 which appeared on 55 UAIN sites across the US, Germany, France, and Italy.
While NewsGuard did not disclose the specific brands that appeared on the sites, they did include a wide range of advertisers, including major banks and financial services firms, appliance manufacturers, consumer technology companies, e-commerce companies, broadband providers, and a supermarket chain in Europe.
Over 90% of the ads viewed by NewsGuard were served by Google Ads, the largest online ad platform. Programmatic advertising follows users with targeted ads, so rather than being website specific, they are user-oriented.
This means most companies were likely unaware their ads were funding these unreliable sites, as they often go through third parties to monitor their advertisements. Further, while many advertisers do have mitigates to not advertise on certain sites, these appear to have not kept up with the rising number of UAIN websites.
The majority of UAIN sites were low-quality, according to NewsGuard, but did not contain misinformation or plagiarism. Still, some appeared to copy and rewrite articles from reputable news sites, and others appears to make unproven health claims.
Google’s ad policies actually state that their placement service will not allocate ads to “automatically-generated content.” Despite this, 90% of the ads NewsGuard found on UAIN sites were served by GoogleAds.
Further, Google places no limitation on the number of ad widgets – the pieces of code where developers can place their programmatic ads – on websites, meaning these UAIN sites can plaster ads across their pages, generating more money.
On one site, an AI-generated article has 15 accompanying Google Ad widgets, some of which were from reputable brands.
Google exults the ease of their programmatic ad service – all programmers have to do is to use their Google Adsense code in their website, and it will begin to work, filling with programmatic ads which they will then earn money from.
UAIN sites are likely more prolific than NewsGuard is even able to identify – analysis could only discern if a site was AI-generated if they had an AI-language model error message on their site.
There’s likely more out there that have remained unidentified. NewsGuard did reach out for comment from both the UAIN sites and the brands which had ads appearing on the sites – they received either no response or a decline for comments.
CX remains a top C-suite priority, with 95% of organisations now having a named C-suite executive responsible for this area of business, according to a new report.
NTT Ltd, an IT infrastructure and services company, released its 2023 Global Customer Experience Report, which also found that employee experience (EX) has risen in importance to become a top three priority for CEOs.
The report interviewed 1,442 CX and EX decision-makers in various business roles, across 25 countries, covering different 14 sectors.
The importance of CX and EX have driven investment and implementation of Cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies across companies.
The report found that the majority of CEOs agree that improvements in CX (92%) and EX (91%) will directly affect their net profit.
However, there is room for improvement, as over 80% of organisations agree that CX and EX are currently a weak link for them, leading to a negative impact on their business.
Top-performing organisations, according to the survey, were almost twice as likely as others to be in an advanced state of digitilisation. Cloud-based technologies and AI automation and machine learning feature prominently in these top performers’ CX and EX strategies.
AI
AI was voted the number one enabler of future CX and EX strategies across the companies, with AI interfaces rising to become the norm for four in five organisations within the next 12 months.
Companies seem satisfied with their investments in AI, with 77% saying that AI is meeting or exceeding their expectations for delivering CX results, with 80% saying the same for robotics.
Further, 80% of operations managers say AI and automation are making a significant impact on removing drudgery from agent interactions.
Cloud is becoming increasingly common across industries – 95% of organisations saw cloud enablement is vital to CX and EX outcomes.
Further, cloud is listed as the top enabler that will positively help reshape future CX capabilities.
However, there are concerns with cloud implementation: security was the number one consideration for organisations moving to the cloud, according to the survey.
Security itself is a major concern among IT decision-makers.
46% of respondents agree strongly that current cybersecurity controls are effectively in protecting and enabling their employees where they work.
Still, top performers were nearly three times more likely to fully involve their cybersecurity teams in decision making.
The EU is checking on a ‘stress-test’ put in place to track the compliance of major tech companies with regulations set out in its new Digital Services Act.
EU official Thierry Breton is currently visiting Silicon Valley to check in with Twitter, among other big tech players, regarding their compliance with the new law, which sets out stricter regulations calling on media platforms to crack down on harmful content that’s published on their sites, such as hate speech and disinformation.
The Digital Services Act, which will come into effect on 25 August, has specific regulations regarding larger tech companies to protect users and dispel disinformation.
Large tech companies will have to offer users “a system for recommending content that is not based on profiling” which would include algorithmic recommendations based on key characteristics like age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion.
Further, they will be liable to analyse and mitigate the risks they create, regarding the spread of illegal content, materials which infringe upon fundamental rights, effect electoral processes, encourage gender-based violence, and affect user mental health.
Other stipulations that will affect all online platforms, large and small, will include protecting child data from being tracked, limits targeted advertising based on personal data, and bans practices intended to mislead audiences.
In the stress-test, Twitter will have to prove they are protecting a safer online platform for children, and are capable of taking down hate speech and misinformation.
Combatting disinformation is a legal requirement under the new law, and Musk did say to the France 2 TV channel that “Twitter will obey the law” if passed.
Breton is set to speak to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman regarding the new digital laws, as well as the EU AI Act which is set to go through its final legislative stages soon.
Violations of the law could incur fines of up to six percent of a company’s annual global revenue or even bans from operating in the EU.
A trio of chemicals that target faulty cells linked to a range of age-related conditions were found using the artificial intelligence (AI) method, which is hundreds of times cheaper than standard screening methods, researchers say.
According to scientists at the University of Edinburgh, they’ve used an AI algorithm to discover new drugs that can target and combat faulty cells linked to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and declines in eyesight and mobility.
The faulty cells – known as senescent cells – could be safely removed with the new drugs discovered via AI.
While previous studies into senescent cell drugs have shown early promise, few chemicals that can safely eliminate senescent cells have been identified – until now.
Previous senolytic drugs are often highly toxic against normal, healthy cells in the body, researchers say, making them unsuitable for treatment.
Now, the team led by Edinburgh researchers has devised a way of discovering senolytic drugs using AI.
They developed a machine learning model by training it to recognise the key features of chemicals with senolytic activity, using data from more than 2,500 chemical structures mined from previous studies.
Then, the team used the models to screen more than 4,000 chemicals, identifying 21 potential drug candidates for experimental testing.
“This study demonstrates that AI can be incredibly effective in helping us identify new drug candidates, particularly at early stages of drug discovery and for diseases with complex biology or few known molecular targets,” Dr Diego Oyazún, a researcher from the School of Informatics and School of Biological Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, said.
Lab tests in human cells revealed that three of the chemicals – called ginkgetin, periplocin and oleandrin – were able to remove senescent cells without damaging healthy cells.
All three are natural products found in traditional herbal medicines, the team says. Oleandrin was found to be more effective than the best-performing known senolytic drug of its kind.
“This work was borne out of intensive collaboration between data scientists, chemists and biologists,” said Dr Vanessa Smer-Barreto, from the Institute of Genetics and Cancer and School of Informatics.
“Harnessing the strengths of this interdisciplinary mix, we were able to build robust models and save screening costs by using only published data for model training. I hope this work will open new opportunities to accelerate the application of this exciting technology.”
The study, published in the journal of Nature Comunications, was supported by the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Spanish National Research Council.
It also involved researchers from the University of Cantabria, Spain, and the Alan Turing Institute.
Increased investment in AI has lead to companies restructuring – opting for more educated junior employees and cutting out middle-management and senior positions.
AI adoption has sparked fears across that it’s adoption within industry will lead to major job losses, with lower-level positions expected to take the greatest hit.
“Most execs will take the opportunity to rethink how their organisations are structured and where the greatest savings and productivity gains will be had,” Theo Priestly, a futurist, commented.
He added: “This means that most low-level work can be automated using AI agents to complete simple to moderately complex tasks.”
But a research paper painted a much different picture occurring in the US among companies integrating AI into their systems.
The paper notes how emerging technologies have transformed working modalities in the past: computer software and robots displaced low and medium-skilled workers, replacing human ‘calculators’ and many manufacturing jobs. Other technologies, like electricity, completely re-organised production processes.
Cloud technologies also transformed businesses and the way data was stored and managed, but even this technology holds no bearing to the impacts of AI.
“The major impact of cloud was enabling easier remote access, and while it changes the way systems are hosted and run, it doesn’t change how end users work with their systems,” Richard Marshall, PhD, Senior Analyst at The Skills Connection and a former Gartner analyst said.
He added: “AI, however, changes how the work is done. This is equivalent to the introduction of power tools to the construction industry – AI is revolutionising how the actual steps or work are done, not how you access existing tools.”
And this restructuring of the process appears to result in a restructuring of the workforce.
The research team, composed of Tania Babina (Columbia Business School), Anastassia Fedyk (University of California at Berkeley), Alex He (University of Maryland Business School), and James Hodson (AI for Good), found that with increased AI investment came an increase in structural changes.
Two of the most notable changes found were: hiring a more educated junior level workforce, and less emphasis on middle-management and senior level roles.
This would create a more educated and flatter workforce structure, which is in line with what AI requires.
As a predictive technology, AI can help in decision making – we have already seen its capabilities in recruitment and hiring processes, concerning as they may be.
Results
Firms which invested in AI tended to adopt a more flat structure, with less senior and middle management level roles, and a widening bottom-level.
The paper described the shift as fast, and likely to do with AI adoption, as this was not an overall trend across US companies.
To explain the predicted increase in junior level roles, as well as the reduction in middle management, the paper claimed that “technologies that improve predication and decision-making, such as AI, will give lower-level workers more autonomy and require fewer managerial layers in firms.”
Further, the paper found that junior-level hires tended to be more educated: an increase of one standard deviation in AI investment was found in association with a 3.7% increase in college-educated workforce, a 2.9% increase in employees with a masters degree, followed by a 0.6% increase in those with doctoral degrees.
In correlation, the amount of employees with no college education dropped by 7.3%.
The researchers claim that the overall workforce does not reflect the same level of upskilling – the amount of workers with advanced degrees, masters and doctoral – is relatively flat compared to the amount of higher-educated employees in AI.
In addition, it seemed that technical skills were also in demand among junior-level employees, with an emphasis on STEM and IT/analytical degrees and skills.
The resulting workforce structure consisted of a well-educated, bottom-heavy foundation with a flattening hierarchical structure.
Can we expect to see these results in the UK, and across the world, as AI’s implementation continues?
“The roll out of AI is going to take decades – Bill Gates famously and accurately said that we overestimate the immediate impact of technology while underestimating the long-term impact,” Dr Marshall said.
“I sincerely hope that top-down structures will vanish, empowering all levels of staff to create more fulfilling jobs, but it will take a long time, and surely some other changes will come along. Just as there are people invested in commercial real estate loudly complaining that all their minions should be back in the office, there will be those who call for immediate return to their old power roles.
“This is an opportunity for true meritocracy to be put in place, for new corporate structures to evolve with increased flexibility. There are always insecure management that feel threatened by flexibility.”
And what does this mean for education levels across the board?
“Less educated graduates, or those leaving school before higher education will struggle to enter the workforce in many industries as a result of AI and automation removing those entry level roles and jobs,” Priestly predicts.
He adds: “It may mean that blue collar work becomes the only safe haven and job choice for many until general purpose robotics start to enter the world. What governments need to consider is how to support those willing to learn and to cope with the disruption.”
Dr Marshall does not expect the shift to a more educated workforce to continue to be so drastic, however.
“Education is always necessary, and the collapse of continuing education/training in the workforce is a major problem that has been building for the last few decades. Training has been seen as a cost by the accountants while it should be considered an investment. However I would not rush to the conclusion that the introduction of AI will change the people being employed to do the work.
“Introducing AI and managing the data requires new skills, but in most cases work will evolve to include AI just as we’ve all accepted the use of autocorrect. As with all kinds of technology changes some jobs will die out, others will appear. Beware companies using AI – and remote work – as an excuse to shed workers.”
Marshall also challenges that AI is the only culprit leading to a thinning of the managerial herd.
“I think we are in the middle of several huge changes in the structure of businesses and AI is only one of the factors,” Marshall said. “Remote work has exposed that there is a huge layer of management that does little except sit in meetings, and this is driving structural change.”
Marshall stops short of calling this shift in workplace structure a revolution, so far: “It is more similar to offshoring of manufacturing than to revolution.
“There will be people who struggle to cope with new arrangements, some comfortable people will be unquestionably disturbed, but there are also many opportunities to balance it out.”
A broad coalition of tech and digital businesses, charitable foundations, trade associations, and consumer advocacy organisations have called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to unleash the full potential of the UK’s digital economy by maintaining a robust and flexible appeals process in the new regime for digital markets.
The coalition, which includes organisations such as the News Media Association, Reset, Coalition for App Fairness, and Skyscanner, are calling on the Prime Minister to maintain the Judicial Review standard for appeals within the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill.
The Bill aims to provide the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) with the power to enforce a stronger code of conduct for some of the biggest tech companies to ensure market fairness and competition is maintained.
Part of the legislation will give special authority to the Digital Markets Unit (DMU), a CMA branch, to identify large companies with market influence that need to be closely monitored and regulated to maintain fair market competition.
Currently, major tech companies are lobbying to have the bill delayed since its introduction in April.
Their main concern appears to be the judicial review process for cases against them – major tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Meta would like to contest decisions in a full review, which would require the entire case to be reheard.
As the bill currently stands, businesses can request a judicial review of the case, which would simply review if the DMU upheld its own regulations in regards to the specific case.
The joint letter urging legislators to continue with the bill as is said that changing this part of the bill would allow Big Tech to delay major regulatory rulings, reading:
“Judicial Review is a tried and tested mechanism for appealing regulatory decisions across forward-looking regulatory regimes in the UK, including the CMA’s existing merger control and market investigation powers. Subjecting the CMA to a different standard would undermine the autonomy of the CMA and create regulatory confusion.
“The need for speedy decision-making and enforcement is one of the key reasons that ex-ante regulation in digital markets is essential, to make them fair and keep them fair. Judicial Review will ensure that the CMA can act swiftly, allowing designated firms and challengers to plan ahead with certainty.”
Further, letter also highlighted the expansive legal budgets of large tech firms, and how they could afford to drag out a “full merits” based market competitions case, delaying enforcement.
A new study produced by Stanford University has revealed that most major AI models do not comply with new regulations in the EU AI Act which is set to pass through it’s final legislative stage soon.
The European Parliament has adopted a draft AI Act which will then be deliberated by national bodies before it can be formalised into law.
Researchers at Stanford University investigated some of the most popular AI models, from OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Meta’s LLaMA, to see if they complied with the proposed legislation.
Across the board, the ten investigated models all failed to some degree to be fully compliant, meaning the EU legislation would lead to major changes across the use of genrative AI large language model creation and rollout.
The Research
The ten models investigated included: GPT-4 (OpenAI), Cohere Command (Cohere), Stable Diffusion v2 (Stability.ai), Claude (Anthropic), PaLM 2 (Google), Bloom (Big Science), LLaMA (Meta), Jurassic-2 (AI21labs), Luminous (Alpha Alpha), and GPT-NeoX (Eleutherai).
Researchers gave each model a point score based on their compliance under several key categories, including data, compute, model, and deployment.
Under data, AI models would have to describe the data sources used to train their foundation model, use data that is subject to data governance measures like suitability, bias, and appropriate mitigation to train the model, and summarize any copyrighted data used to train the foundation model.
For compute, the companies would have to disclose the model size, computer power, and time used to train the foundation model, as well as measure the energy consumption used in training.
Under the model category, companies had to take several factors under consideration, from describing capabilities and limitations for the foundation model, and describing any foreseeable risks and mitigations.
Further, they would have to benchmark the foundation model with public and industry standards, and report the results of internal and external testing on the model.
Under deployment, models would have to disclose when content from a generative model is machine generated and non human generated, disclose to EU member states where the foundation model is on the market, and provide sufficient technical compliance for downstream compliance with the EU AI Act.
Based on these requirements, researchers gave each model a score from zero to four for each requirement based on their level of compliance.
Results
The results provided a wide range of compliance, with some providers scoring less than 25% compliance, including AI21 Labs, Aleph Alpha, Anthropic) and only one provider scoring 75% compliance (BigScience).
BigScience’s Bloom was the only AI model to have only one zero score, in the matter of making clear to EU member states where in the market their AI was – companies across the board struggled with this section as well, with only GPT – 4 (OpenAI) and Claude (Anthropic) scoring two, and Luminous (Aleph Alpha) scoring one.
Four areas the research identified with persistent challenges and some of the poorest scores were copyrighted data, compute/energy, risk mitigation, and evaluation/testing.
In the case of copyrighted data, this has been an issue since the prolific rise of generative AI models like ChatGPT and many art generators. Few providers disclose information regarding the copyright status of training data, especially since most train on data sourced from the internet, which has a large proportion of copyrighted data.
The legal ramifications for training on copyrighted data has yet to be decided, but the EU would require companies to at least disclose the copyrighted date they use in training the models.
Uneven energy reporting was also a noted issue – this could be, as the paper noted, that reporting energy consumption for training foundation models is currently contentious. Therefore, reporting, even if done, can prove unreliable.
The research also revealed that companies are not adequately disclosing their risk mitigation protocols to the EU. The EU has classified certain applications of AI models as ‘high-risk’ such as those that are for the targeting of political ads, and even those used for hiring purposes.
A Time investigation purported that OpenAI lobbied the EU to exclude their general AI model from being classified as ‘high risk’ which would require it to follow more stringent rules regarding transparency, explainability, and responsibility.
The report found that relatively few models share how they mitigate risks associated with AI, and the efficacy of these mitigations.
Further, the research discovered an absence of evaluation standards or an auditing ecosystem.
Foundation model providers were found to rarely audit a models’ performance, even when it came to intentional harms. This becomes a great issue when investigating generative AI systems, which cannot simply be audited, and the answers they produce cannot be explained or traced.
Recommendations
Despite no AI model studied currently meets the EU’s requirements, the Stanford researchers believe compliance is feasible.
Foundation model providers can look to those already with best practices to improve their compliance. Researchers identified “low-hanging fruit” in terms of improvements as being making documentation available to downstream developers.
Further, creating an industry standard by working with those outside the AI industry, like those in academia and civil society.
The researchers also targeted the EU AI Act to clear up some of its ambiguity – such as detailing what is necessary to disclose to comply with a ‘description of a model’s performance.”
Researchers also noted the technical expertise necessary to properly audit these AI models, and that the EU must make technical resources and talent available to member states as they try to enforce compliance.
Since its launch, the NCSC has received 21 million reports of malicious emails leading to the website removals, as reported by Computer Weekly.
SERS, which was launched in collaboration with the City of London Police, also received 7,726 reports of suspicious texts, resulting in 54,000 text messaging scams being removed.
The reporting service is free to use, allowing users to directly report suspicious texts and emails to the NCSC, streamlining the process of removing malicious scams.
Launched in 2020, SERS became a vital tool during the pandemic as online phishing increased while people turned even more to e-commerce and online communication during lockdowns.
The SERS reporting tool can even be added as a button to Office 365 emails to simply and easily report suspicious emails to the NCSC.
A majority of the scams reported are phishing scams, attempting to trick users into submitting card details or other credentials to bad actors, or even asking them to pay for a fake service.
Phishing emails target both individuals and businesses – just since February, there been a 163% rise in HMRC phishing scam emails targeting individuals.
For businesses, the issues of email compromises appear to be on the rise – large businesses expect the threat of business email compromise to increase by 43.3% over the next 12 months, according to a new report.
In 2021, it was found that a third of untrained employees risk falling for a phishing attack, but now it appears that businesses are concerned even clued-up employees can put businesses at risk.
With the cost of living crisis, businesses are worried that disgruntled employees – frustrated over hard working conditions and pay not keeping up with inflation or the cost of living – are neglecting their cyber safety protocols.
Recent research by Apricon showed businesses in the UK saying around 21% of their staff were caught by phishing emails, putting their companies at greater risk of scams, fraud, and data breaches.
Reporting suspicious emails and texts is therefore a vital step for individuals and businesses to practice to increase cybersecurity and avoid scams and fraud, according to the NCSC.
The number of women entering STEM roles is declining in spite of pursuing education in the field, according to new LinkedIn data.
According to the data, the percentage of women in STEM drops by 18% on average between graduation and employment in the UK.
The graduating class of 2022 experienced a drop off of women in STEM from university to careers of 18.2% compared to 19.3% of the class of 2017.
This 18% average has been relatively consistent since 2017, despite a flurry of initiatives to support women and girls in STEM over the last half decade, such as the multi-million pound ‘Gender Balance in Computing’ research project.
Ngaire Moyes, UK Country Manager at LinkedIn, says: “Unfortunately, the latest numbers on female representation within STEM careers will surprise exactly no one. However, what is surprising – and concerning – is the 18% drop-off we are seeing between the number of women who achieve a STEM degree, and those entering the workforce into a STEM role.”
Globally, the data revealed that the UK is among the highest drop-offs between graduation and entering the workforce, but generally on par with other European countries.
For instance, the French drop off is 24%, with a 22% drop in Germany.
Conversely, in Italy, where this is a less significant gender disparity within STEM careers, the drop-off is just 7% on average.
The data – which comes as graduates across the country prepare to enter the workforce – reiterates the challenges women face in converting their STEM degree into a full, life-long career.
A lack of representation is an oft-cited obstacle for women to enter STEM fields, especially in director and c-suite levels.
Chika Njoku, Junior Project Manager at Mace Group. BEng Mechanical Engineering 2020, related her experience: “During my degree, I was one of very few women and Black people in my cohort and unfortunately, I often felt like my intellect and opinions were disregarded or downplayed because of this. This was one of the more challenging parts of my degree.
“Now, I work as a project manager in construction and the sector is very male dominated. I have had to learn how to be more assertive and dominant to effectively do my job; I’m proud to say most of this comes down to personal and professional growth, but sometimes you just have to fake it till you make it.”
While women account for 40.7% of leaders at the director level in non-STEM roles, this drops to just 27.7% in STEM industries.
At the VP level, the numbers drop to 13.4% for STEM roles, versus 24.1% for non-stem roles.
Further, women account for only 15.1% of C-suite roles within STEM careers, but this figure only rises to 28.7% in all other roles.
In addition to a lack of representation in organisations, a percieved skills gap was also revealed.
Men were twice as likely to list a STEM skill than women on LinkedIn – only 13.7% of women listed a STEM skill, versus 30.5% of men on the website.
While women are pursuing STEM in education, there appears to be a disconnect to getting into the industry, which women in STEM agree is on the onus of companies.
Issues in education can be “exacerbated” by the industry for women and non-binary people, Pam McGee of STEM Women said. “It’s essential that STEM employers design inclusive recruitment practices, put support structures in place throughout women’s career journeys and highlight representative role models within their businesses.”
Amy Heineike, VP of Engineering at 7bridges, said it was important for companies to think outside the box from traditional CVs and expected skills.
“Anecdotally, I’ve observed that many of those women had followed slightly “non-traditional” career paths – for example coming to engineering via computational sciences,” she said.
“They found niches that were interesting and welcoming to them along their journey and we benefited from the skills they brought. I believe that for many difficult and important STEM challenges, we need to bring a wide range of skills and perspectives together to make progress, and teams that include people from different paths are stronger as a result.”
The National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), operated by the University of Strathclyde, has now opened its new flagship facility at the heart of the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland (AMIDS) in Renfrewshire.
Acting as a magnet for advanced manufacturing in Scotland and across the globe, the heather coloured, 11,500m2 operationally carbon neutral campus next to Glasgow Airport will support manufacturing, engineering and associated technology businesses of all sizes.
Innovative R&D aims to help them become more productive, tap into emerging markets, embrace new technologies, and achieve net-zero targets.
Scotland’s manufacturing sector employs over 179,000 people and is responsible for more than 50% of the country’s international exports and 47% of business expenditure on R&D.
The new facility will be home to the NMIS Manufacturing Skills Academy, fully connected Digital Factory, and publicly accessible collaboration hub.
The Lightweight Manufacturing Centre (LMC) – which is also part of the NMIS group – will relocate from its current based in Renfrewshire, splitting its operations between the new building and NMIS’s founding centre the University of Strathclyde’s Advanced Forming Research Centre (AFRC).
Featuring a variety of technology zones dedicated to growth areas, the NMIS Digital Factory will include a food and drink cyber-physical demonstrator, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) connected shop floor, a factory command centre, and a hub dedicated to helping manufacturers embrace the circular economy and extend the life of their products and systems.
The factory demonstrates the vast potential of digital technologies in helping manufacturers improve their products and processes in the drive towards a net-zero economy, while still increasing productivity.
The building was opened by Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf at a ceremony this morning alongside NMIS CEO Chris Courtney; Professor Sir Jim McDonald, Chair of the NMIS Board and Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Strathclyde; Katherine Bennett, CEO of the UK’s High Value Manufacturing (HVM) Catapult; and Adrian Gillespie, CEO of Scottish Enterprise, along with senior delegates from across industry, academia, and the public sector.
The facility was built by Morrison Construction, part of the Galliford Try Group, and designed by Glasgow-based HLM Architects. It features clean, low-carbon solutions to mitigate its impact on the environment, including a large-scale rooftop solar array for electricity generation, access to at low-carbon district heating network, and rainwater harvesting system.
First Minister, Humza Yousaf said: “The opening of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) is an exciting moment – it will ensure that Scotland’s long history of innovation and engineering continues, and also supports our drive to net zero.
“Scotland is one of the most innovative nations in the world. By bringing together research, industry and the public sector, this facility will allow companies of all sizes to embrace creative manufacturing techniques and support cutting-edge research. Manufacturing is critical to our long-term economic recovery and this centre, which the Scottish Government provided funding of £75 million towards, will support that.
“Today we are publishing the first annual progress report on our National Strategy for Economic Transformation. NMIS is a tangible example of the partnership working it promotes, showing our commitment to delivering for both business and people.”
Since 2019, the NMIS has helped deliver over 150 R&D projects for 142 different customers and partners.
It has already upskilled and reskilled more than 1,300 people, placed more than 80 graduate trainees in Scottish manufacturing, and supported more than 100 internships.
Chris Courtney, CEO of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS), said: “A facility of this scale and ambition doesn’t happen by chance. Thank you to our colleagues and partners, who have worked together tirelessly for many years to make it a reality. It’s been a truly collaborative effort – from creating a shared vision of NMIS to delivering our world-class new building.
“We now move into a phase of delivering on those ambitions through intense collaboration with industry and providing innovative solutions to their most challenging problems.
“Scotland has a strong manufacturing sector – supporting world-renowned capabilities in the maritime industry, renewable energies, food and drink, the satellites and space industry and many others. We also benefit from world-leading universities and a growing number of ambitious technology entrepreneurs.
“NMIS can play a crucial role in harnessing this potential to impact what we make and how we make it more sustainably and efficiently. There is a real industrial demand for greener, innovative technology solutions that harness the power of digitalisation, along with the future skills that we all need to thrive.
“We will work with our industry partners, talented team and the wider ecosystem to deliver this brighter manufacturing future.”
Despite relief among businesses believing the Great Resignation is finally over, over a quarter (26%) of employees say they plan to quit their jobs in the next 12 months, but from 19% last year.
The survey drew responses nearly 54,000 workers in 46 countries and territories, including 2,000 from the UK.
A quick review of the major findings reveals a tumultuous picture.
One third of workers say their company will not be economically viable in ten year’s time if it continues on its current course – comparable to 39% of CEOs who said the same in PwC’s 26th Annual Global CEO Survey.
Breaking this down by age, Gen Z workers were found to be the most pessimistic with 49% saying their company will not survive another decade without change.
Employees appear to be restless, based on the findings that 26% say they are likely to change jobs in the next year. Younger employees are more likely to jump ship, with 35% of gen Z and 31% of millennials planning to make a switch.
This ties into the continuous struggles of employees: 14% say they struggle to pay bills ever month, with a further 42% saying once they cover their expenses, they have little to nothing left over, and increase from 37% in 2022.
Further, one in five respondents say they have an extra job in addition to their primary one.
Despite having multiple forms of employment, employees are concerned about the skills gap.
53% of employees say their job requires specialist training, up from 49% last year. Workers without specialist training are more likely to face financial difficulties than specialist workers, and are less likely to understand how their skills will change.
Further, those without a specialisation were less likely to seek a raise or promotion, and found less value in pursuing soft skills like problem solving, flexibility and resilience – key factors employers are seeking.
Those without specialisms often struggle to upskill, as they are more likely to take on a second job to pay their expenses during the cost-of-living crisis. Meanwhile, those already with specialisms and higher pay grades find it easier to expand their skills sets via training initiatives.
Finally, workers appear to be unafraid by AI, unlike a lot of fearmongering predictions thought.
Respondents in the survey more often cited the positive impacts of AI more frequently than they do the negative ones, with 31% saying ‘AI will help me increase my productivity/efficiency at work.’
Still, to dissuade any lingering fears among workers, and explain how AI will transform their workplace, companies have should implement a ‘future of work’ strategy so employees can understand how their company will transform, and how their skill requirements might change.
The research suggests the majority (82%) of British businesses have an appetite to embrace more AI technology, with over half (65%) agreeing that stricter regulation of AI will impede competitiveness.
New research from Gong, the revenue intelligence platform, has revealed how 500 SME business leaders feel about the state of AI in business and what they hope to see from government regulation.
Censuswide surveyed 500 SME decision makers on behalf of Gong to understand their AI business practices.
This comes as the UK is closing its AI white paper consultation to the public on 21 June, 2023.
The evolving business landscape coupled with economy uncertainty, has created a mind field of issues leaders will need to address, and technology will be crucial to finding the solutions.
As of today, driving new sales continues to be a problem for a third of businesses (33%), according to the research – other challenges include managing or cutting costs (40%) and recruiting new talent (37%).
AI technology is already playing a role for the majority of companies in the UK (89%) with over a quarter (28%) using it to boost sales, a third using it to improve marketing (33%), and to improve customer support (28%).
Business leaders are rushing to see how best they can benefit from AI, with 30% of those surveyed saying that adopting AI is crucial for their businesses to thrive, and 40% believing it will be imperative to the future of their business.
Lesley Ronaldson, EMEA Senior Director at Gong said: “AI technology doesn’t just impact a business’s profitability, but also makes employees more efficient and effective at what they do. 77% of a seller’s time is spent on non-selling activity, so it’s no surprise that the biggest motivation for adopting AI (46%) was to improve productivity. With employee burn-out being high on the agenda for many leaders, another top motivation was to take pressure off sellers.”
AI Regulation
AI regulation is a top concern across the globe, as there are polarising opinions on how to handle the rapidly developing technology. Regulators are still attempting to fill knowledge gaps in the field, and many have become more concerned over potential risks with AI rather than potential rewards.
The EU has just voted on a landmark AI regulatory act, which is set to be deliberated with member nations before fully approved. The act would limit certain uses of AI among law enforcement, and marks certain applications of the technology as ‘high risk’ – including its use in social media algorithms and in recruitment practices.
In the UK, politicians continue to deliberate putting the breaks on innovation for regulation to keep up – Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is set to host an international AI summit in the autumn, all the while promoting the UK as a AI heavyweight.
Despite the government releasing an AI whitepaper, over half of SMEs (52%) are still seeking clarity on rules and regulation, as well as regulatory protection (47%) in their AI ventures, according to Gong’s survey.
The Scottish Government Minister for Small Business, Trade, and Innovation, Richard Lochhead, previously voiced his concerns about the UK government’s “hands off” approach to AI regulation, noting the current non-statutory regulatory approach currently in place.
Despite these regulatory concerns, 65% of SMEs surveyed believe that strictly regulating how and when businesses use AI will impede the competitiveness of British businesses.
Ronaldson continues: “Businesses face a severe challenge with boosting sales in a hybrid workforce and declining economy that no longer supports traditional sales tactics. The potential that AI has for the future of sales across industries is tremendous.
“Retaining a competitive edge is a top motivation for businesses wanting to adopt AI into their current models. It therefore should be a consideration for the UK government as they endeavor to assert the UK as a science and technology superpower by 2030.”
