Inline Insights

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.

The many and varied ways in which drones have already been deployed to aid the public sector are often overlooked. Some of the most significant examples include emergency services, environmental monitoring and protection, and infrastructure maintenance and inspection. 

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.

The UK Government has positioned itself an avid supporter of the immersive tech sector. It is nurturing the fledgling domestic industry through a range of mechanisms, including funding, tax incentives, mentorship and practical support.

The UK Government has engaged a panel to review competition in digital markets, and one of the key themes is the concentration of 'big tech'. With the panel tasked with consulting industry and reporting by early 2019, companies seeking to influence the panel's thinking need to get started as soon as possible.

In May of 2018, Her Majesty’s Government announced to great fanfare that the maximum permitted stake on fixed-odds betting terminals will be cut from £100 to £2. But what of online gambling, the largest and faster growing segment of the gambling market?

Jeremy Wright MP has big shoes to fill, succeeding an unquestionably pro-technology Secretary of State for Digital, but might his lack of previous interest in the sector 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 in 2018.

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. 

Prime Minister Theresa May put data protection at the heart of the UK’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU when she delivered her latest set piece Brexit speech on 2 March.

The London Assembly’s Transport Committee has today published ‘Future transport - How is London responding to technological innovation?’

The UK Government has published its long-awaited response to the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech yesterday to the World Economic Forum in Davos saw her repeat calls for international action to regulate aspects of the tech sector that are disrupting the established economic players and norms.

The UK Government has released a position paper stating its desire for a future customs arrangement with the EU27. The release of this paper before an agreement on the EU’s priority areas is a statement from the UK that it is determined to start talks on the issue.

This summer, Londoners will have noticed the addition of new bicycles parked in various locations across Britain’s capital. Closer inspection of these bikes reveals that they are ‘oBikes’ - a bicycle which you can unlock with an app on your phone and use at very little cost, without the need to park at docking stations.