This Safer Internet Day 2025, Handley Gill considers recent developments and reports on the UK government’s policy stance on the regulation of Big Tech and how Labour’s ambitions have been tempered since President Trump’s inauguration, particularly in relation to online safety and artificial intelligence, and even pandering to AI developers by taking steps toward reforming copyright laws restricting data mining for AI training.

Handley Gill’s specialist responsible AI consultants highlight the provisions of the EU AI Act coming into force on 02 February 2025 which ban certain AI practices within the EU, including manipulative or deceptive techniques, exploiting vulnerabilities, social scoring, predictive policing, facial recognition databases based on scraping, emotion recognition at school or work, biometric categorisation and real time biometric identification in public spaces for law enforcement, as well as new positive obligations on AI developers and deployers relating to AI literacy.

Handley Gill’s specialist responsible artificial intelligence (AI) consultants consider the requirements of the new Code of Practice for the Cyber Security of AI published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and highlight the implications of the Code of Conduct for stakeholders in the AI lifecycle.

Handley Gill’s specialist data protection consultants discuss the history of Data Protection Day and propose methods to utilise the celebration of the anniversary to further your organisation’s data protection compliance in line with this year’s theme ‘A New Mandate for Data Protection’ in light of emerging technologies and legislative change.

Handley Gill’s specialist responsible AI consultants consider the requirements of the government’s AI Management Essentials (AIME) self-assessment tool, and address their adequacy in response to the government’s consultation, their role in establishing responsible AI management systems and processes and informing public procurement of AI models and their interaction with the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard (ATRS).

Handley Gill Limited’s specialist responsible AI consultants summarise the UK government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan prepared by Matt Clifford CBE and published on 13 January 2025, identifying and analysing the key recommendations affecting data protection, AI regulation, intellectual property and copyright and, ESG.

Handley Gill’s specialists responsible artificial intelligence (AI) consultants consider the implications of the new mandatory public sector algorithmic transparency recording standard for public sector bodies deploying AI models and other algorithmic tools, as well as for AI developers who wish to retain the confidentiality of their commercially sensitive AI models.

Handley Gill’s specialist responsible artificial intelligence (AI) consultants summarise the UK government’s consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence and consider the implications of the proposed copyright reforms for rights holders.

In the first Parliamentary debate on police use of live facial recognition technology, significant concerns were raised in relation to the latitude afforded to chief officers in deploying the biometric artificial intelligence (AI) tool. Handley Gill’s specialist consultants, whose advice on the deployment of LFR was acknowledged during the debate, consider the implications of the new Labour government’s proposals to revisit the legislative and regulatory framework governing the deployment of live facial recognition by law enforcement.

Unlike the Chemical Brothers, Prime Minister Keir Starmer called on regulators to hold back in order to galvanise economic growth in his speech to the International Investment Summit on 14 October 2024. We consider the implications for UK regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), digital markets and data protection by the ICO, CMA and Regulatory Innovation Office, and forthcoming legislation.