Brexit – Temporary Data Adequacy Granted to the UK

Worries about the disruption of the flow of data and the effect of this on trade between the UK and EU countries with Brexit have been addressed by the granting of controversial, short-term data adequacy status to the UK. What Is Data Adequacy? For third countries, i.e. those outside the European Economic Area (EEA) of the…

Read More

New Competition Rules for Facebook and Google in the UK

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that Facebook and Google will face new rules next year to prevent abuse of their market dominance. The Issues For the CMA, the issues that were highlighted back in July and are now in the forefront again focus on the facts that: – A massive 80…

Read More

Trump Terminates TikTok

The Trump administration’s next high-profile target in its Chinese trade-war is the hugely popular video-sharing mobile app TikTok, which has been slapped with a 45-day ban in the U.S. from 20 September 2020. Executive Orders Chinese apps TikTok (from parent ByteDance) and WeChat (from parent Tencent) have received Executive Orders forbidding “any transaction by any person,…

Read More

Beware Fake Contact Tracer Messages

Just as you thought that cybercriminals had exploited every aspect of the pandemic with phishing, vishing, smishing and more, there are now warnings to beware of fake contact tracer messages. Contact Tracing in the UK Here in the UK, NHS contact tracers are now contacting those persons who are believed to have been in close contact…

Read More

Robot Food Deliveries in Milton Keynes During Lockdown

Delivery robots from U.S.-based company Starship Technologies have come into their own during the lockdown as a way of delivering food to the residents and workers of Milton Keynes. First Commercial Deployment in the UK The autonomous robot delivery Service operated by Starship Technologies is the first commercial deployment in the UK, and since the…

Read More

Featured Article – 5G Explained

5G (fifth generation) is essentially the next step up and the replacement for your current 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) connection.  The main benefits that this new generation of mobile broadband should bring are faster upload and download speeds and faster communication with wireless networks (latency). Spectrum Difference Most carriers currently use low-band spectrum or…

Read More

Worries About Huawei Persist

Security fears about Huawei products being used in the new 5G networks are still being expressed by the Trump administration, while Google has clarified its position on the matter. What’s So Bad About Huawei? Back in July 2018,  espionage chiefs from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. (the so-called ‘Five-Eyes’), agreed at…

Read More

EU Considers Ban on Facial Recognition

It has been reported that the European Commission is considering a ban on the use of facial recognition in public spaces for up to five years while new regulations for its use are put in place. Document The reports of a possible three to five-year ban come from an 18-page EC report, which has been seen…

Read More

£100m Fines Across Europe In The First 18 Months of GDPR

It has been reported that since the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in May 2018, £100m of data protection fines have been imposed on companies and organisations across Europe. The Picture In The UK The research, conducted by law firm DLA Piper, shows that the total fines imposed in the UK…

Read More

Eating Lunch At Your Desk Brings Health Risks

  Recent research by BUPA has highlighted how many UK workers don’t take a proper lunch break each day and end up risking their health and happiness and reducing their productivity by eating at their desks. The Number The research, which involved the study of the habits of 2,000 full-time workers revealed that almost two…

Read More