Inline Insights

The December 2019 General election will be the fourth election or referendum to take place in the UK in the past five years. Yet despite the unusual timing and general voter fatigue, the stage is set for a high-stake drama: voters are given a last chance to determine whether Brexit ‘gets done’ under UK Prime Minister Johnson’s (Conservative) terms or if a change in direction is warranted.

Inline Policy was launched five years ago as the vision of our Founder, Shomik Panda. In this blog, Shomik reflects on the challenges of starting a business from scratch and some of the highlights of the past five years.

This week saw one of the first examples of significant engagement by UK politicians in determining the future of regulation for immersive technologies.

Yesterday (12 February 2019) the UK Transport Minister Nusrat Ghani announced significant new developments in the regulation of taxis, private hire vehicles and ride-hailing, following an independent review of the sector known as the “Task and Finish Group”.

After all the talk about GDPR implementation last year, we are starting to come to the crunch point where companies' data practices are being tested by the regulators. The results could create continued regulatory headaches for data-intensive businesses.

Innovators in the public sector are already beginning to use drones to enhance the capabilities and efficiency of public services, but there is still a great deal of untapped potential.

While discussions continue on the European Commission’s proposals for a harmonised Digital Services Tax, a number of different approaches to taxing online service providers and platforms is emerging across Europe.  With the UK the latest EU country to consider going it alone, we look at who is proposing what when it comes to digital services taxes.

TechCrunch estimates the immersive tech industry will be worth $108 billion in 2021. Citi estimate $569 billion by 2025. But despite these staggering projections, many people’s understanding of the technologies fails to extend beyond the viral sensation of Pokemon Go.

Yesterday the UK Government's panel conducting a review of competition in digital markets met for the first time at the Treasury in London. The terms of reference, which were published to accompany the meeting, provide initial questions that illustrate the breadth of this review and why the tech sector needs to take it seriously.

In his keynote address to the TUC Congress, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has called for gig economy workers to be given full employment rights. He promised that a Labour Government would go beyond all the “positive recommendations in the Taylor report” and extend sick pay, parental leave, or protections against unfair dismissal to gig economy workers.

Back in May of 2018, Her Majesty’s Government announced to great fanfare that the maximum permitted stake on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) will be cut from £100 to £2. This was hailed as an important move towards protecting the most vulnerable problem gamblers that frequent high street betting shops.

Jeremy Wright MP succeeds an unquestionably pro-technology Secretary of State for Digital, but his lack of previous interest in the sector may actually be a good thing for the tech industry.

As the 29 March 2019 deadline for when the UK is due to leave the EU gets closer and closer, a lot remains to be finalised. In this diagram we have mapped the various paths to ‘exit day’ and explore the range of potential outcomes.

MEPs ask thousands of questions to the European Commission each year and during the 2009-2014 term of the European Parliament, over 10,000 questions were tabled. At Inline, our job is to cut through the noise, so here are the five most important questions for the tech sector from the past 12 months.

While many see Theresa May’s regular battles with both wings of her party as the government lurching from crisis to crisis, it is starting to look more like a deliberate strategy. What does this tell us about Downing Street’s strategy for the negotiations with the EU?

Governments all over Europe are crafting policies and regulations that will lead to electric vehicles almost entirely replacing diesel and petrol cars within thirty years. In the UK, national policies are focused on creating the infrastructure for the electric vehicle revolution, but other policy initiatives and conflicting local priorities could impede the wider public policy goal.

In a modern world that is churning out technological innovations in sectors that did not even exist 20 years ago, many people will have common conceptions of what constitutes ‘disruptive technology’: the rise of robots, smart cities and self-driving cars. And yet, equally disruptive are the technologies that are developing within sectors that have prospered for centuries.

Another day, another report on artificial intelligence? Not quite. 

Published today, the 180-page volume by the House of Lords’ Select Committee is more than just the latest contribution to the emerging debate about the opportunities and challenges of AI. Led by experienced lawyers such as Baron Clement-Jones and renowned scholars like Lord Anthony Giddens, former director of the London School of Economics, it might well prove influential both in the UK and beyond.

Are large online businesses paying their fair share of tax? This was the question debated on Tuesday 27 March by MPs in Westminster Hall, the small debating chamber in Parliament.