Inline Insights

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve at pace, the UK faces a difficult balancing act: how to support AI innovation while protecting the rights of creators. This tension boiled over in the debate over copyright and AI training as part of the Data (Use and Access) Bill passage. 

With policymakers, tech firms and the creative industries still far apart — and the government yet to clarify its position — finding a workable solution is expected to be one of the UK’s most challenging digital policy issues over the next few months.

So what’s getting in the way?

This post looks at the key barriers to — and potential solutions for — a fair and enforceable copyright framework for AI.

This blog will explain the background to the UK High Court’s recent decision in Wikimedia Foundation v Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and will outline lessons learned for firms wishing to influence future policy (regarding the OSA and beyond). It does not constitute legal advice, but instead emphasises the advantage of consistent, politically-conscious messaging when engaging legislators. The blog therefore focuses in particular on the first and second limbs of the claim, which were largely based on Ofcom’s advice to the Secretary of State — advice in itself informed by prior stakeholder engagement. Our conclusion, given Wikimedia’s example, is that companies may be best served by showing, pre-emptively, how burdensome regulation can harm their business and the public good, defined in political terms, rather than by making a more purely technical argument about the letter of the law and then hoping for favourable advice from an already overstretched regulator.

Crypto-asset ownership in the UK is growing, comprising as much as 12% of the population according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The UK government, judging from recent financial-services announcements, certainly hopes crypto can supports its Plan for Growth. And yet industry remains concerned the UK is falling behind the US, Brazil, South Korea and others in taking advantage of these new technologies. This blog considers influences and likely scenarios for the crypto sector.

We are now a year into a Labour government in the UK, with digitalisation and technology playing a central role and forming a key part of the Plan for Growth. The government has placed tech at the heart of building a digital-based economy across its 5 core missions: safer streets, clean energy, economic growth, breaking down barriers and making the NHS fit for the future.

The government continues to prioritise tech policy in the UK with London Tech Week, the Spending Review and AI Summit London all highlighting the important role government expects tech to play in driving economic growth. Here are some reflections on what it may mean: 

This blog identifies some of the key recommendations made in each of the recently published AI Opportunities Action Plan’s sections (investing in the foundations of AI, pushing on cross-economy AI adoption, and securing the UK’s future with homegrown AI), highlighting those which offer the most promise to AI developers or adopters. It will then consider how Inline is well-positioned to leverage its tech expertise and relations with government to assist businesses in realising their AI ambitions.

On 17 July, King Charles III delivered the King's Speech, outlining the government's legislative programme for the new parliamentary session. The government has announced 40 bills which aim to unlock growth and ‘take the brakes off Britain’. This blog examines the proposals affecting the tech, climate, and energy sectors, and what business should expect as the government introduces legislation.

The electorate has given Labour the second-largest majority (after Tony Blair in 1997) in British parliamentary history since Clement Atlee led a Labour Government in 1945. While the result needs to be qualified by the low voter turnout (at an estimated 60%, it was the second-lowest in post-war history) and the low share of the vote that Labour obtained (at only approximately 34%), the size of its majority means the party will have a largely free hand in pushing its agenda through parliament. Now that the UK has a new Prime Minister, a new parliament, and, shortly, a new cabinet, we look at what Labour’s victory could mean for the tech as well as the climate and energy sectors.

In advance of the General Election on 4 July, Parliament has been formally dissolved. This Parliament, constituted following Boris Johnson’s landslide election victory in December 2019, has passed several pieces of important tech legislation, though some others have fallen by the wayside in the rush to finish business before dissolution. In this blog, we examine what the 2019-24 Parliament, and the government which commanded a majority within it, did for the tech sector. 

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act establishes a new regime for digital competition in the UK. The Act also updates the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) powers to enforce existing competition law and resolve consumer disputes, and protects consumers from unfair commercial, subscription, prepayment and saving schemes. The Act received royal assent on 24 May. In this blog, we discuss the new ex-ante competition regime established by the Act and what companies should expect as the CMA begins to enforce the legislation. The blog examines how the UK general election might influence the enforcement timeline. 

The prime minister has announced that he is calling a general election on 4 July. Here is what happens next.

As political institutions slowly emerge from their Christmas hibernation, we look at the key unresolved issues in tech regulation in the UK and the EU. 

In November 2023 the UK Government outlined its regulatory intentions for the cryptocasset industry. In this blog, we summarise the UK Government’s plans for the future regulation of cryptoassets and explain the next steps.

The Online Safety Bill was introduced in March 2022 to make the UK the ‘safest place in the world to be online’. After a long journey through Parliament, the Bill passed its final parliamentary stages on Tuesday 19 September and was granted royal assent on 26 October 2023, meaning it is now enshrined in law as the Online Safety Act (OSA). However, companies will not have to comply with most of the Act’s provisions immediately. Rather, many details are yet to be set out via secondary legislation and guidance. In this blog post, we take a look at the next steps under the UK’s new online safety regime.   

This is one of a series of blogs on how public policy is made in the UK. In this first blog, we look at how policies are created and what happens before they are brought to Parliament as a legislative bill.