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— DSIT and the Foreign Office are unveiling the U.K.’s first international tech strategy this morning. It touches on everything from AI to autocrats.
— Ofcom boss Melanie Dawes tells us the Online Safety Bill is not about trying to police content.
— DSIT Minister Paul Scully has been defending the work of the government’s controversial disinformation unit.
Good morning and welcome back to a torrent of tech news.
Send your news, tips and views to the team: Annabelle Dickson, Mark Scott and me on email. You can also follow us on Twitter @TomSBristow @NewsAnnabelle @markscott82.
TECH DIPLOMACY: Michelle Donelan and her FCDO counterpart James Cleverly will be at Samsung’s HQ in King’s Cross early doors this morning to launch the International Tech Strategy. It is the first to set out how the U.K. will use tech to further its global aims and counter repressive regimes.
Taking on the tyrants: Tech has been exploited by tyrants and used as a tool of repression, the government said in its Integrated Review last week, but ministers believe the U.K. can offer an alternative by promoting democratic values with tech and sets out how it plans to do so in the strategy, which should appear here this morning. Cleverly said the plan “takes a stand against the malign influences that seek to use tech against us.”
Numbers game: The strategy has three reasons, four principles, six priorities and 10 actions, so strap in.
Three reasons why: The aim of the game is to give the U.K. a strategic advantage over competitors, help it in its global leadership ambitions and outline the relationships it wants with other countries.
Principles first: The government says the strategy is underpinned by democratic principles and it makes a big show of the strength of those values to counter what larger competitors like China are doing abroad. Those principles are having tech which is open (but also secure), resilient and responsible.
Aligned: The fields it prioritizes are the same as DSIT’s domestic focus: AI, quantum, semiconductors, engineering biology and future telecoms. There will also be a section on data.
Old friends, new friends: The strategy wants to build on partnerships with current allies, but will also look at partnerships with like-minded smaller countries, which might have niche interests. Donelan said: “We are a top-class breeding ground for emerging tech, but being a superpower means working with our international partners to turn these nascent technologies into global industries.”
Not alone: The U.K. will work with the OECD’s Global Forum on Technology “to engage with the international community on how to better use technology,” the strategy says. It also wants to focus more on a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunications Union.
Four more: Its other priorities are creating a “values-based” regulation through forums like the OECD, supporting the developing world to adopt new tech, driving economic growth for the U.K. and protecting national security.
Our man in San Fran: Currently the U.K. has a single tech envoy in San Francisco, Joe White, but the role will be replicated in other countries to establish “the world’s most extensive tech diplomacy network.” A tech envoy for the Indo-Pacific region was announced at the start of this month, so expect one in India and other parts of North America.
Spreading the knowledge: Other actions include creating a Technology Centre of Expertise which will use some of the development budget to provide tech experts to developing countries. Those experts will support countries to “transform their economies in a sustainable and inclusive manner.” Pilots start later this year.
Get your house in order: Closer to home the FCDO wants more technology experts in the diplomatic service by training diplomats and offering secondments with the tech sector.
A word on semiconductors: The semiconductor strategy (I’m fed up of calling it long-awaited) has been pushed back to come out after this launch. It’s now expected by the end of this month, so next week.
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AI CONFERENCE TAKE TWO: It’s day two of the Alan Turing Institute’s AI U.K. conference at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre. Today’s agenda includes discussions on regulation, public health, finance and the environment.
**A message from Google: What do parents really want to know about online safety? Google and Mumsnet invited the 8 million-strong Mumsnet community to share questions for experts and MPs at a recent roundtable. The takeaway? Helping families start conversations is key. Learn more here.**
GOING VIRAL: Italy’s consumer protection regulator is investigating TikTok for failing to oversee viral videos that it says may harm teens, POLITICO’s Clothilde Goujard reports.
PINDUODUO: Google has blocked downloads of Chinese e-commerce app Pinduoduo over security concerns, the Wall Street Journal reports.
OFCOM’S BOSS SPEAKS: For someone soon to be in charge of the Online Safety Bill, Melanie Dawes is clear about one thing: the upcoming rules aren’t about policing content. That may come as a surprise to many of us who thought policing content was central to these rules that <<checks notes>> are about policing content. But Dawes told Morning Tech: “It’s not really a regime about content.” Read more from our interview here.
So then what’s it about? For the Ofcom boss, this is all about the wonkery of how regulation works in practice. The big platforms will have to carry out lengthy risk assessments about where potential pitfalls may be — and then prove to the regulator that they are doing something to fix that. “They’re going to need to look at who their users are and think of the children on their platforms,” she told us. “What are the particular risks that they could be creating for their users, and then they’ll need to put in place mitigations.”
Date for the diary: Gill Whitehead, the former Google executive, will take charge of the newly-created Online Safety Group on April 1 whose tasks will include direct supervision of the big platforms. Her job “will be to engage with the platforms as the regulator from day one,” Dawes told us. “We can use our information powers almost immediately to get more information about what’s really going on under the bonnet, to go deeper than we’ve been able to go before.”
So what will be the initial focus? Dawes said that consultation documents — about online protections for kids and related to terrorist content — were ready to go as soon as the Online Safety Bill came into force. “It’s about how is child sexual abuse material dealt with? What protections are there against … terrorist material?” she added.
What about encryption? Under the upcoming rules, Ofcom will have the power to force encrypted messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal to check if their platforms are being used to spread illegal material, particularly related to children. But Dawes said the regulator would only use those powers as a last resort. “Ofcom would need a high bar of evidence in order to be able to require that a technology that went into an encrypted environment and scanned for particular types of content was required,” she said.
ICO’S APPROACH TO ENFORCEMENT: Regulators are like city buses. You wait around for one, and then two show up at once. After talking to Ofcom’s Dawes, Morning Tech was given an exclusive read-out from the ICO’s boss discussion with Global Counsel, a consultancy. Here’s what John Edwards had to say:
On the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill: “I’m perfectly comfortable standing up in Europe or anywhere else and saying the ICO is as independent as any data protection authority in the world.”
On UK vs European Union: “We do have to make compliance easy for organizations. We can scare the pants off them with enormous fines… but it’s well-studied and documented that the single most important determinant of regulatory compliance is ease of compliance.”
On fining Big Tech: “I will not hesitate to use fines to the maximum amount I’m allowed where companies have profited from putting people’s data at risk of harming people.”
On Matt Hancock’s WhatApps: “If these essential elements of the decision-making process [are] left in personal devices on corporate apps, they may be deleted, they may not find their way into the official record, and that can potentially harm transparency.”
PROMOTION: Niamh Fogarty has been promoted from director to partner at Hanbury Strategy.
‘NO ESPIONAGE HERE’: Tech minister Paul Scully launched a forthright defense of the U.K. government’s controversial Counter Disinformation Unit (CDU) when he faced MPs yesterday. The organization at the heart of Whitehall is not tracking individuals, and not deleting content, he insisted when quizzed about the opaque way it operates. “It’s not espionage. It’s a trend measurement tool to tackle misinformation and disinformation,” he told the DCMS committee inquiry into misinformation.
No to rapid rebuttal: Asked about the prospect of the unit expanding and creating a “rapid rebuttal” operation, Scully was dismissive. It couldn’t be resourced, and could go down “quite a difficult slope” if it involved tracking individuals, he said.
Don’t poo poo us: MPs couldn’t pass up the opportunity to quiz Scully on Twitter’s new approach to press inquiries — replying with a poo emoji. A bemused Scully told MPs he wasn’t sure where Twitter owner Elon Musk’s “sense of humor ends, and where that sort of sense of propriety starts.” He was “not aware” Twitter had responded to any U.K. government comms with a poo emoji, he told MPs. He promised to write to the committee if that changed.
But but but: Scully said the U.K. government had a “pretty good relationship” with Twitter. “We can’t ask them to censor stuff. They won’t just censor stuff which we ask them, but we can bring things to them. We have a reasonably mature relationship to bring disinformation and misinformation to them, and they have responded,” he said.
TikToker? Scully admitted he is among the U.K. ministers with a TikTok account, but said he had never used it, and quickly clarified that it was not on any of his government devices (complying with the recent ban.) On whether his department would continue to use TikTok to communicate with the kidz, Scully said he didn’t know, but if it was still to be used it would be on a standalone phone. Watch this space.
THINK TWICE: Lindy Cameron, CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, has told Times Radio that people working in government should think carefully about having any social media (not just TikTok) on their work phones, to prevent security risks.
GAMER: DSIT minister Julia Lopez has welcomed the expansion of gaming company, Dream Games, to London, saying it “further underlines the truly global pull of our creative industries.”
Morning Tech wouldn’t happen without editor Oscar Williams, Emma Anderson and Grace Stranger.
**A message from Google: Parents understand the joys and pitfalls of family life online better than anyone. So Mumsnet and Google invited parents from the Mumsnet community to share their most pressing questions about online safety, for MPs and experts to discuss at a policy roundtable event. Experts including Paul Scully MP, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy, Internet Matters CEO Carolyn Bunting, and broadcaster and “Honest Mum” author Vicki Broadbent looked at how policy can help protect children online. One of the main takeaways from the discussion was the shared responsibility of government, schools, and parents. Legislation can help create the right conditions for a safer internet, and teachers can help support good habits, but only parents know the right balance for their family online. Google offers tools to help parents start the conversation with their children. Learn more here.**
