Matt Hancock
U.K. health tech startup Babylon Health is pulling in its horns in its home market, blaming challenging global and macroeconomic conditions for the termination of a couple of multiyear contracts…
The U.K. government has announced a national AI strategy — its first dedicated package aimed at boosting the country’s capabilities in and around machine learning technologies over the longer term.…
Google confirms it’s pulling the plug on Streams, its UK clinician support app
Google is infamous for spinning up products and killing them off, often in very short order. It’s an annoying enough habit when it’s stuff like messaging apps and games. But…
UK names John Edwards as its choice for next data protection chief as gov’t eyes watering down privacy standards
The U.K. government has named the person it wants to take over as its chief data protection watchdog, with sitting commissioner Elizabeth Denham overdue to vacate the post: The Department…
UK’s MHRA says it has ‘concerns’ about Babylon Health — and flags legal gap around triage chatbots
The U.K.’s medical device regulator has admitted it has concerns about VC-backed AI chatbot maker Babylon Health. It made the admission in a letter sent to a clinician who’s been…
Europe seizes on social media’s purging of Trump to bang the drum for regulation
Big tech’s decision to pull the plug on president Donald Trump’s presence on their platforms, following his supporters’ attack on the US capital last week, has been seized on in…
Mark Zuckerberg threatened to end Facebook’s UK investment in private 2018 meeting with digital chief, warning over ‘anti-tech’ tone
Round of applause for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism — which fought for two years to obtain details of a closed door meeting between Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and the UK…
UK launches COVID-19 exposure notification app for England and Wales
The last two regions of the U.K. now have an official coronavirus contacts-tracing app, after the U.K. government pushed the button to launch the NHS COVID-19 app across England and…
UK gives up on centralized coronavirus contacts-tracing app — will ‘likely’ switch to model backed by Apple and Google
The UK has given up building a centralized coronavirus contacts-tracing app and will instead switch to a decentralized app architecture, the BBC has reported. This suggests its any future app…
Babylon Health admits ‘software error’ led to patient data breach
Babylon Health, a UK AI chatbot and telehealth startup which has been valued in excess of $2BN, has suffered an embarrassing data breach after a user of the app found…
UK’s NHS COVID-19 app lacks robust legal safeguards against data misuse, warns committee
A UK parliamentary committee that focuses on human rights issues has called for primary legislation to be put in place to ensure that legal protections wrap around the national coronavirus…
UK privacy and security experts warn over coronavirus app mission creep
A number of UK computer security and privacy experts have signed an open letter raising transparency and mission creep concerns about the national approach to develop a coronavirus contacts tracing…
UK public sector failing to be open about its use of AI, review finds
A report into the use of artificial intelligence by the U.K.’s public sector has warned that the government is failing to be open about automated decision-making technologies which have the…
Alexa, where are the legal limits on what Amazon can do with my health data?
The contract between the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and ecommerce giant Amazon — for a health information licensing partnership involving its Alexa voice AI — has been released following…
UK’s health data guardian sets a firm line for app development using patient data
The UK’s health data watchdog, the National Data Guardian (NDG), has published correspondence between her office and the national privacy watchdog which informed the ICO’s finding in 2017 that a…
The UK government has announced it’s rerouting £250M (~$300M) in public funds for the country’s National Health Service (NHS) to set up an artificial intelligence lab that will work to…
Social media firms agree to work with UK charities to set online harm boundaries
Social media giants, including Facebook-owned Instagram, have agreed to financially contribute to UK charities to fund them making recommendations that the government hopes will speed up decisions about removing content…
UK health minister leans on social media platforms to delete anti-vax content
Social media-fueled anti-vaxxer propaganda is the latest online harm the U.K. government is targeting. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today program this morning, health secretary Matt Hancock said he will…
Accurx raises £8.8M Series A for its messaging app for medical teams and patients
Accurx, the U.K. startup and Entrepreneur First alumni that has developed a messaging service for doctor surgeries, has raised £8.8 million in Series A funding, TechCrunch has learned. According to…
Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse
The UK government has said it could legislate to require age verification checks on users of dating apps, following an investigation into underage use of dating apps published by the Sunday…
Instagram’s Adam Mosseri to meet UK health secretary over suicide content concerns
The still fresh-in-post boss of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, has been asked to meet the UK’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, to discuss the social media platform’s handling of content that promotes…
Google gobbling DeepMind’s health app might be the trust shock we need
DeepMind’s health app being gobbled by parent Google is both unsurprising and deeply shocking. First thoughts should not be allowed to gloss over what is really a gut punch. It’s unsurprising…
Fake news ‘threat to democracy’ report gets back-burner response from UK gov’t
The UK government has rejected a parliamentary committee’s call for a levy on social media firms to fund digital literacy lessons to combat the impact of disinformation online. The recommendation…
UK health minister sets out tech-first vision for future care provision
The UK’s still fairly new in post minister for health, Matt Hancock, quickly made technology one of his stated priorities. And today he’s put more meat on the bones of…
The need for diverse development teams and truly representational data-sets to avoid biases being baked into AI algorithms is one of the core recommendations in a lengthy Lords committee report…
Digital minister’s app lands on data watchdog’s radar after privacy cock-up
The Matt Hancock app, which launched this week and quickly ran into a storm of criticism for displaying an unfortunately lax attitude to privacy, has caught the attention of the…
Uber data breach includes UK users — but it’s still not clear how many
The UK’s digital minister has said the October 2016 data breach that Uber disclosed this week does affect UK users — though it’s still unclear how many are impacted at…
A major update to the UK’s data protection rules will place new requirements and responsibilities on companies that process users’ personal data, including by making it easier for consumers to…
On data protection Brexit means mirroring EU rules, confirms UK minister
What does Brexit mean for UK data protection rules? Likely mirroring the major part of EU data protection law, according to UK digital minister Matt Hancock, who was giving evidence…