The UK government is giving tech companies three months to activate on-device content scanning and age verification across all smartphones and tablets sold in Britain – or face fines and potentially criminal liability. Framed as a child safety measure, the proposal has drawn fierce criticism from privacy advocates, civil liberties groups, and free speech lawyers who warn it amounts to building a mass surveillance infrastructure under the pretext of safety. Signal has already said it will not comply – will others follow?
Marc Sidwell speaks with Preston Byrne, free speech lawyer and counsel to some of the internet’s most controversial platforms, about what this proposal actually represents beneath the child-safety framing – and what it could mean for Britain’s tech sector.
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With Donald Trump back in the White House, tariffs have become front-page news, and advocates for free trade find themselves on the back foot. Is this a passing phase, or a permanent shift? Soumaya Keynes and Chad Bown argue that with great powers now using trade as a weapon, there can be no simple return […]
From the progressive left to the nationalist right – in Washington or Westminster – a new consensus is forming. It argues that government should play a larger role in the economy, and that using industrial policy to achieve the economic outcomes we want is just common sense As president of the American Institute for Economic […]
Britain is paying more to borrow than any other major Western economy. So why is Labour preoccupied with internal power struggles? In a special live address, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride delivers his account of Britain’s fiscal predicament and the Conservative Party’s plan to fix it. Our borrowing costs are the highest in the G7, higher […]
