The unintended consequences of the Online Safety Act | Letters
George Billinge says that many age assurance technologies delete their personal data after age has been confirmed, while some providers of virtual private networks (VPNs) sell their data to brokers (Everything the right – and the left – are getting wrong about the Online Safety Act, 1 August).But there is a key difference: we can choose which VPN to use, but the choice of which age assurance technology to use is with the platform.When a platform I use to talk to my friends insisted I verify my age, I wasn’t given a choice about which age verification service would get my driving licence.I was expected to trust that the platform had made a good decision with my best interests at heart.That’s a pretty big ask.
Instead, I elected to sign up for a VPN.I then paid for it with a payment processor of my choice, one with a proven security record.I spent several days considering and comparing the numerous options before selecting one that doesn’t keep any data – with audits and court successes to prove it.At every step of the process, I was able to choose who I was trusting with my personal data.I might consider going through the age verification process later – when I get the choice about which service to show my driving licence to.
Assuming, of course, that requiring age verification for a group of adults in their 40s to share pet photos and complain about work is ultimately deemed to be within the scope of the legislation,Age verification on porn sites sounds reasonable, but it seems that many platforms are using the Online Safety Act as an excuse to conduct a data grab on a massive scale,We should be wary about who is asking for our ID when the spirit of the law is being so blatantly abused,Alex TrerythSt Austell, Cornwall George Billinge’s focus on tech companies such as Facebook unfortunately echoes the flawed thinking behind the Online Safety Act itself,While the act tries to distinguish between large tech companies and smaller independent sites, most of the legislation was only written with Meta and their like in mind.
In practice, this means that any site that contains user-submitted content, be that a volunteer-run hobbyist forum or a recipe blog with a comment section, is subject to the same rules (and same fines) as Facebook or X.However, unlike these companies, these smaller sites do not have the teams of lawyers to pore over Ofcom’s 1,700-plus pages of guidance, and instead are choosing to either block UK visitors or shut down entirely.Rather than curtailing the power of big tech, as Billinge suggests, the Online Safety Act only entrenches their power further, by making it impossible for anyone else to comply.Jonathan CoatesBristol
UK car drivers: share your memories and photos of your convertible
According to a new study, convertibles have dwindled to a 25-year low with only 16 new models for sale across the UK’s most popular car manufacturers. SUVs are taking the rap for the decline of convertibles in Britain as people move towards favouring bulkier vehicles.Data from CarGurus UK found that in 2024 there were only 12,173 new convertibles registered in the UK compared to 94,484 in 2004. One of cinema’s most iconic cars is probably the 1966 Ford Thunderbird convertible that Thelma and Louise drove on their their adventures.We would like to hear from people who have, or previously had, a convertible
OpenAI in talks on share sale that would price it above Elon Musk’s SpaceX
OpenAI is reportedly in early talks about a sale of shares held by current and former employees that would value it at half a trillion dollars, overtaking Elon Musk’s SpaceX.If the transaction goes ahead, the value of the ChatGPT developer would rise by about two-thirds, from $300bn (£225bn).Musk’s rocket companyis currently worth $350bn and is reportedly circling a $400bn price tag in a new fundraising.Bloomberg, which first reported the OpenAI talks, said existing investors, including Thrive Capital, have approached the company about buying employee shares. Other investors in OpenAI, which is based in San Francisco, include the Japanese investment company SoftBank, which led the $300bn financing, and Microsoft
Lib Dems call for urgent regulation of YouTube ads after wave of scams
The Liberal Democrats are calling for urgent regulation of YouTube advertising after scams including deepfakes, impersonated public figures and fraudulent investment claims were found to be spreading on the platform with little oversight.The party said YouTube’s adverts remain largely unchecked by independent regulators, despite new data from Ofcom showing the platform has overtaken ITV in weekly UK viewership and continues to dominate children’s media consumption.Among the recent scams onYouTube was a series of ads using an AI-generated voice and likeness of the consumer champion Martin Lewis to promote a cryptocurrency scheme, despite Lewis having no involvement. The videos, which have drawn thousands of complaints on Reddit and X, mislead users into thinking they are receiving financial advice from a trusted source.Other viewers have reported false product claims, scam diet pills and fake competitions
OpenAI takes on Meta and DeepSeek with free and customisable AI models
OpenAI is taking on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Chinese rival DeepSeek by launching its own freely available artificial intelligence models.The ChatGPT developer has announced two “open weight” large language models, which are free to download and can be customised by developers.Meta’s Llama models are available on a similar basis, and OpenAI’s move marks a departure from ChatGPT, which is based on a “closed” model that cannot be customised.Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, said the company was excited to add to a stack of freely available AI models “based on democratic values … and for wide benefit”.He added: “We’re excited to make this model, the result of billions of dollars of research, available to the world to get AI into the hands of the most people possible
Tech’s trillion-dollar binge, Palantir’s empire and women’s privacy under attack
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. This week, tech companies are spending amounts of money that stretch the limits of the imagination. Donald Trump’s administration is spending more money with data analytics and surveillance firm Palantir. And women on both sides of the Pacific face the extreme difficulty of keeping intimate moments private online.In last week’s edition of the newsletter, my colleagues wrote about the upshot of Google’s earnings call: lots of money earned, but, more importantly lots of money spent on AI
Tesla shareholders sue Elon Musk for allegedly hyping up faltering Robotaxi
Tesla shareholders sued Elon Musk and the electric vehicle maker for allegedly concealing the significant risk posed by company’s self-driving vehicles.The proposed class-action suit, which accuses Musk and Tesla of securities fraud, was filed on Monday night. Tesla conducted its first public test of its self-driving taxis in late June near the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. That test showed the vehicles speeding, braking suddenly, driving over a curb, entering the wrong lane and dropping off passengers in the middle of multilane roads. The National Highway Transit Safety Administration (NHTSA), the main transportation regulator in the US, is investigating the Robotaxi’s pilot test
Does Jeremy Corbyn know his potatoes? | Brief letters
Starmer declines to rule out election pledge-breaking tax rises in budget after claim Treasury must fill £40bn deficit – as it happened
Labour accused of using Jimmy Savile’s name to ‘bait’ Nigel Farage
Keir Starmer plays down warnings that taxes will have to be raised in autumn
Rachel Reeves needs to put up taxes to cover £40bn deficit, thinktank says
Labour thinktank offers sponsorship packages to meet and influence ‘key policymakers’