| Good morning! The UK's newly updated enforcements for the Online Safety Act (OSA) are worth having a conversation about, this week. Most of the online media coverage would lead you to believe that it's a new act that’s been passed into a new law, but it isn’t — the Online Safety Act received Royal Assent on 26 October 2023, some provisions came into force on 10 January 2024, while additional elements took effect on 1 April 2024. We’re talking about this now, because the critical age verification requirements took effect on 25 July 2025, which means all online platforms accessible in that part of the world are legally required to implement "highly effective" age assurance measures. In fact, this will not have a UK-only fallout, because it could potentially reshape the digital landscape globally, much in the way the GDPR or General Data Protection Regulation of 2016 has had on how online platforms and services collect and handle user data, in subsequent regulations worldwide. The mandatory age verification measures that came into place late last month, are meant to provide a substantial legal assurance of a user’s age and consent, the idea being to reduce access to content such as pornography, or anything that encourages self-harm, suicide or eating disorders for instance, on the World Wide Web.  There are two sides to this coin. Tech companies and content creators are alarmed by the OSA's new sweeping requirements. If any site accessible in the UK—including social media, search engines, music sites, and adult content providers— does not enforce age checks to prevent children from seeing harmful content, they now face potential fines up to 10% of their revenue for non-compliance. This could very well pressure them into implementing invasive verification systems. Depending how a specific platform does it, methods include scanning your face, credit card, or an identity document, if you want to access content. UK’s regulators have been at it for a while, a recent case in point being the Investigatory Powers Act, which we decoded in my Tech Tonic column recently which would have forced tech companies to disable active encryption methods, putting user data at significant risk. There are privacy and access implications of this, something digital rights advocates warn about, detailing that these measures have the potential to create an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure, with these massive databases of personal and biometric information inevitably vulnerable to breaches and misuse. Users must now choose between privacy and access, fundamentally altering the internet's traditionally open nature. “The Act, which is now coming in enforcement stages exemplifies how well-intended laws can cause unintended consequences on other aspects of technologies. The mandatory use of accredited technology is bound to weaken end-to-end encryption which is the hallmark of a free digital society without which commerce or personal communications systems cannot work. Any of the current age verification methods cannot be imposed without addressing biometric surveillance creep, data breaches and misuse, and increased centralization of user data,” explains a spokesperson of Software Freedom Law Centre India (SFLC.in), in a conversation with us. “The OSA’s age assurance rules require platforms to use facial scans, upload IDs, or verify age through banking or telecom data. These measures raise serious privacy concerns and discourage online anonymity. Larger platforms are testing third-party software for this, but the risk does not disappear, it spreads. User data could now sit with multiple external vendors, increasing the chances of leaks or misuse,” points out Vikram Jeet Singh, Partner at BTG Advaya, a law firm. Possible global implications cannot be ignored, considering the OSA's impact extends far beyond British borders, potentially influencing online speech frameworks worldwide. There can be an argument that while it is effective in some form, it breaks the right to privacy and free speech, while also compromising cybersecurity. Countries such as India, already grappling with content regulation challenges, are likely to be closely watching the UK's approach as a potential model, or cautionary tale. The precedent set by Britain's age verification requirements could normalise similar measures globally, which alongside a fragmented internet where access to information depends on geography, also depends on a willingness to submit to digital surveillance. This is something the SFLC.in spokesperson details, “Such laws generally have global ripple effects like the GDPR. Companies may choose to adopt UK-compliant policies to avoid the costs related to fragmentation. Countries will emulate such provisions to curb dissent and justify surveillance under the guise of child protection or moral regulation by the state.” What’s the way forward? The UK's now complete Online Safety Act effectively represents a watershed moment for internet governance, confronted with often opposing scenarios of fundamental questions about digital rights and any government’s commitment to protecting children. The intent of the UK government is commendable, in terms of what it is trying to achieve — the internet as a safe space for children. However, the immediate surge in VPN downloads in the UK on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store suggest, citizens aren’t likely to play along. Does that potentially undermine the Act's effectiveness? |
| EMOTIONAL SUPPORT OpenAI says that they are updating ChatGPT (irrespective of which model you use specifically) giving it an ability to detect mental or emotional distress. The AI company wants ChatGPT to work better for users when they want guidance and perhaps a pep talk, than pure facts or information. “I’m feeling stuck—help me untangle my thoughts” is an example OpenAI mentions, among others, to indicate the GPT models will be more capable of listening to the reasoning of a user’s thoughts, rather than just tokenise those words into a response. Newly added are also gentle reminders during long sessions to encourage breaks. OpenAI isn’t building this out of its own hat, but instead suggests they’ve worked with over 90 physicians across over 30 countries (including psychiatrists, paediatricians, and general practitioners) to build custom rubrics for evaluating complex, multi-turn conversations, as well as engaging human-computer-interaction (HCI) researchers and clinicians to give feedback on how well they’ve identified concerning behaviours, as well as convening an advisory group of experts in mental health, youth development, and HCI. The company admits they haven’t gotten it right earlier, case in point being an update earlier this year, which made the model respond in a tone that was too agreeable, bordering on saying what sounded nice instead of what was actually helpful. |
| MEET’S GETTING SMART Google Meet is getting a rather interesting new feature, and it may seem like there’s some sorcery to it, instead it is more of attention to details. Google says that if you are now joining a Meet call from your own device such as a laptop, the video meeting platform can detect when you may be doing so in a large conference room-esque physical space. In an attempt to reduce or totally eliminate the problem of sound echo on such a call, Meet will suggest joining the call using something called a “Companion Mode”. Mind you, this presently only works if you are joining a meet call from your laptop on the Google Chrome web browser — and rolls out for all Google Workspace customers with Google Meet hardware devices. Meet uses your laptop’s microphone to intelligently know when you are in a room using an ultrasonic signal. “This wayfinding feature helps ensure a seamless, echo-free start to your meeting. When you join using the highlighted Companion mode button, you will also be automatically checked into the correct room,” says Google, in an official post. Basically, this will require your Google Workspace admins (basically, your organisation’s IT folks) to enable “Proximity Detection” that will allow that hardware to detect nearby devices, as a feature on the Google Meet Hardware installed in a conference room (for this I am sure there will be typical inertia reasoned around “compatibility” and “security” to mask ineptitude). At this point, based on my experiences with IT folks, easier said than done. End of the story. |
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