Jen Persson🌻

#ICYMI on Oct 7, the ICO published its executive summary from a compulsory #audit of the Department for Education with implications for over 21 million people in the National Pupil Database in England ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/… #education #privacy #ChildRights #GDPR

@EPPGroup Legislation and duties *are* already in place. When people say “the tech already exists” they must be asked, which tech, used to do what? Or you keep planting your hope in delusion, to paraphrase Meredith Whittaker, doing harm as the unintended consequence of your blind spots.

Over 60% of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) is hosted on EU servers. Where is the accountability of tech companies? Tune in to the latest episode of EU Decoded to hear more. epp.group/s7e24

look china doesn’t even need to kill american labs. it only needs to compress expected returns enough that private (maybe soon public) capital stops financing training runs. american labs must eventually produce margins. china can treat frontier intelligence as strategic infrastructure & accept no direct financial return at all. in essence america prices financially. china prices geopolitically.

@deanwball Curious why, “strikes me as dystopian hellscape”? Future of today’s AI is unsustainable other than as "public digital infrastructure". No? Is Q not rather whether is provided by state as owner (CCP and by ext. govts in Africa / S Am) or state funding private biz. (Rest of world)?

Some observations on Kimi: 1. It's a very good model! I don't think its performance can be explained away by distillation or anything like that. In agentic coding sessions, it seems pretty much on par with the best public models of Q1 2026. In my fairly limited use, it also seemed very token hungry. It's not obvious to me that this model is actually that cheap to run. 2. I am personally surprised the Chinese state continues to allow the open sourcing of models this good, given potential risks. To be clear, I *myself* might be fine with models presenting this level of marginal risk being open weight, but I am surprised that China is fine with it. I suspect the reason they are is 75% explained by strategic blindness/lack of AGI-pilledness (the CCP is very Yann Lecun-y in its views of AI). The other 25% or so is their lack of compute for customer inference (making China's open-weight strategy an unintended byproduct of US export controls) and the normal Chinese strategy of aggressive exports. For the companies, as opposed to the government, the decision to open source is partially ideological and partially because they are behind, and they know that very few people would pay for sub-frontier models from China. 3. Open-weight models are inherently decelerationist, and I'm continually surprised to see the so-called "accelerationists" so excited about open-weight models. I suspect the reason they are is that they know open-weight models are effectively ungovernable, and they simply like the overall cloak of ungovernability open-weight models create over the whole of AI. It's not a bad strategy; it reminds me of James Scott's recounting of the hill people in "the art of not being governed." Still, in the end, open-weight models deter further AI capex. 4. One probable outcome of an open-weight-model-dominant world is full AI communism, which is precisely what China proposes: rather than a market product, AI is a "public good" which will ultimately be provided by the state as a kind of "digital public infrastructure." This future strikes me as a dystopian hellscape, but I've never met an open-weight models advocate who doesn't ultimately concede this is where things end. You'd be surprised how many 'accelerationists' lobbied me, while I was in government, to support an eleven or twelve-figure federally funded data center so that startups could train models at a subsidy and then give them away for free. There was no other way for AI to progress, they said. Perhaps this is the logical end state of things. Nonetheless, I find myself surprised to see supposed accelerationists excited about such an outcome. I think many of them just don't know what they're doing. Many accelerationists do not view the creation and serving of frontier models as a legitimate business. 5. I would guess that the Trump Administration will at some point realize that their best strategy here would be to create large amounts of regulatory risk around the use of open-weight Chinese models. You don't need to "ban open source" (one of the dumber motifs of AI policy discussion). You just need to direct every agency to issue soft law that creates FUD. "A Federal Reserve Advisory Bulletin found that there may be backdoors in Chinese AI models." It needn't be that well justified. You just create enough regulatory risk that every regulated enterprise backs off. You probably don't want to create so much regulatory risk that you scare off the hyperscalers from serving Chinese models; this will just drive startups to sketchier providers. There's a happy middle ground here. I'd assume they will do some version of this. 6. It's probably true that open-weight models of this capability make the world a bit more dangerous, but not so much more that you'll really notice. At some point the models will be capable enough that you will notice. "A nonliving, invisible, dangerous, and infinitely self-replicating agent escaped from a Chinese lab," you say? Color me shocked.

@cjsnowdon Too much argy-bargy holding things up

Three minutes injury time when there’s a three minute hydration (commercial) break 🤷‍♂️

Privacy is not a workaround. Minister confirms VPNs are out of scope in emerging #OnlineSafety measures and #SocialMediaBan policy plans. Our response: We welcome this news, and that government has listened to expert voices opposing any #VPN restrictions defenddigitalme.org/2026/07/15/pri…

The reported contract does not exclude mass surveillance, and it keeps paths open that could extend to autonomous policing. These don't defend us against foreign adversaries. They shift power from citizens toward the state, in ways that are very hard to reverse.

@tes @AQA Then he might want reconsider his position, as this demonstrates either a lack of competence or lack of care. AQA affects life-changing outcomes for which there’s no impact assessment and mitigation plan over time. Fix what’s already broken before breaking more, might be better.

Exclusive: There is ‘almost no downside’ to the introduction of digital exams, says @AQA boss Colin Hughes, calling for more urgency in moving to on-screen assessment, despite recent problems with traditional exams tes.com/magazine/news/…

@AmnestyTech Suggestion of stepped ages from 3-18 is dire however, for privacy for everyone having to prove they’re not a child or at which age, and normalisation of ‘selfies please’ to do anything in the digital environment. Linked “supervised” accounts likely impinge on family privacy too.

The EU institutions & member states should now focus their efforts on supporting a robust common framework of digital regulation, by ensuring the effective implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the DSA, the AI Act and the forthcoming DFA.

🚨NEWS: The EU's Special Panel on Child Safety Online is right to recommend further action to tackle the harmful design of social media platforms, emphasizing the need for children to participate in a safe online environment. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

@Paul__Walsh I don’t understand how they can say don’t use ID docs or biometrics in age checks on p.108 and simultaneously require age gating between differently aged teenagers? I don’t think ZKP means what they think it means across the whole process and / or even at each check point in time

Ursula von der Leyen has confirmed that everyone in the EU will need to use the EU's app for identity authentication before being able to access or post on social media websites. 🇪🇺 As an expert in online child safety, I am here to expose the misinformation and misdirection in von der Leyen's statements. Today von der Leyen said: "This is not about whether children can access social media, it is about whether social media can access our children". 💡The first part is true. This isn't about children. It's about surveillance and combating political dissent. A state that can't control its own citizens is more dangerous than a state rife with criminals. The second part is a PR soundbite that politicians are using like a campaign slogan straight out of 1984. 🇪🇺"The question is no longer if children face risks online, but what can we do to give children a safer start online". 💡No. You can't give children a "safer start" online any more than you can offline. In the offline world, the government doesn't enforce curfews or ban children from entering liquor stores, bars or restaurants. That's a parent's responsibility. The digital world should be no different. 🇪🇺"The age verification app is one of the tools to get it done". 💡This is a contradiction because she also said "It won't be foolproof". 🇪🇺"It's easy to use, it is privacy preserving and it is open source". 💡The app was compromised as soon as it was released. "Privacy-preserving" age verification is an oxymoron. You can't verify a person's age without verifying their identity. Where or how that age is shared afterwards is irrelevant. 🇪🇺"This is basically about putting back the power into the hands of parents". 💡More from 1984. The EU is doing the opposite. Parents are having their authority stripped by politicians who think they know better. Many parents are capable and unaffected by peer pressure, and they know how to use parental controls to block any app classified as 13+. Some teens are safe, their parents trust them, and the state has no business overruling that trust. 🇪🇺"We don't give our children keys to the car before they have their licence" 💡Comparing an app to a car is a false equivalence used to justify mass surveillance. Governments don't decide when a young person is ready for car keys, guardians do. 💡Forcing every adult and child into a biometric checkpoint just to use an app or website is not licensing drivers. It's the state seizing everyone's keys, locking the garage, and forcing every driver to ask a private company for permission to take a drive. 💡 This is a gross, unethical overreach that strips authority from parents while imposing state sanctioned identity verification on every adult who doesn't even have a child. 💡Additionally, people who pass a test, obtain a licence and drive a car aren't forced to use an app to constantly authenticate their suitability to drive. 🇪🇺"We do not let them buy alcohol until they are legally allowed" 💡False equivalence. We don't force every person to show ID at a shopping mall entrance just because a few people might buy alcohol with a meal at a restaurant. Some parents are okay with their 12 year-old going to the mall with friends while others aren't. Either way, it's their choice. Whatever irresponsible decisions some parents might make, every adult in the country shouldn't be forced to pay the price. 🇪🇺"It won't be foolproof" 💡This is all the proof we need to show that the EU and every government know that banning social media for teens won't protect them. When pressed by journalists about VPNs being used to circumvent a ban, politicians always state the ban isn't a silver bullet and will take time. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan went as far as to say "we know it's not the solution". 💡Either age verification works, or it doesn't. As a technical expert in this space, I can tell you there are no additional steps to take and no progress to be made. Either the approach does what it is supposed to do, or it's not fit for purpose. If they claim a bulletproof solution is coming, it can only mean one thing. They intend to ban or restrict VPNs to people who verify their identity. 🇪🇺"It will take time to invite the cultural change that is already taking shape in our society, just as it took time to outlaw drink driving, just as it took time to use seatbelts in the cars. Great change never happens overnight, but when it comes to our safety it is always worth it". 💡Comparing a social media ban and age verification to seatbelts is a completely broken analogy. Seatbelts are a safety feature that protects children while allowing them to travel in a car. A ban doesn't give kids a seatbelt. It kicks them out of the car entirely. 💡Instead of supporting parents who want to guide their own children through the digital world, this heavy-handed law strips away parental authority by banning the apps and websites that many parents are perfectly fine with and actively monitor. 💡Furthermore, enforcing these bans requires biometric age verification, which means forcing millions of adult citizens to scan their IDs, faces or credit cards just to browse the internet. That isn't a common-sense traffic law. 💡It's a digital checkpoint on every street. True safety means teaching kids how to navigate the digital world safely with real guardrails and parental guidance, not burning down digital spaces for everyone under the guise of protection. 🇪🇺☠️ The EU wants to ban teens from social media so every person is forced to verify their identity before they can read, share or post anything online. In their words, this is to protect children from dangerous content. 🇪🇺☠️ The EU wants to enforce "Chat Control" so every app has to monitor everything people say privately inside it, including apps with end-to-end encryption. In their words, this is to protect children from dangerous criminals. 💡Where this ends 🇪🇺 "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever". George Orwell, 1984.

“This was the plan all along” in Australia's Minimum Age #SocialMediaBan defenddigitalme.org/2026/07/12/thi… Expanding on Haidt's 11/07 tweet; -making a market over 10 years; -mandatory AV via govt-issued ID is undemocratic; -starting softly was deliberate towards the final destination.

Nutbourne Vineyards in West Sussex!!🍾🥂

#Greece might ban children under 15 from social media platforms. The Child Rights International Network explains why making online spaces for children requires rights-based solutions rather than such blanket bans. Read more: web.civicus.org/CRIN #CIVICUSLens #DigitalRights

NEW: What should the future of data and digital regulation look like? Today we've opened the consultation on our draft corporate strategy that will shape our work in the years ahead: ico.org.uk/corporatestrat… The consultation closes on 23 August 2026.

What every #DigitalRights civil society org has been warning of—the Australian #SocialMediaBan was always intended to be a publicly acceptable ratchet, from age assurance to age verification, to build a market, and the final destination is inevitably compulsory state #DigitalID.

Another massive data breach exposed millions of driver’s license numbers techcrunch.com/2026/07/08/ano… via @techcrunch

@guy_herbert All of them all the time. I’ve learned, and now book a writing-only week in July (see next week). And each looks at a part of a process as if it stands alone and no one consults on it or takes responsibility for the before-and-after or outcomes —then wonders why it doesn’t work—.

@TheABB Amazing, ain't it, how often public consultations open at the start of some holiday season and close shortly after it is over.

The intentional normalisation and scope creep of digital #surveillance of learners’ behaviour and activity in #education, into the monitoring of employees in the workplace, is now open for consultation — gov.uk/government/con… #AI #privacy #DataProtection Closing September 30th.

For the UK to deliver its economic aims built on world-leading sci, tech and innovation; and promote critical thinking and democratic society; diplomacy built on humanities and languages; govt must address failure of consumer model imposed on Higher Ed lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/… #AI

Game on, Nige.

@LBC Government must not #AgeGate #VPN access or ban VPNs for anyone.