Federation Against Software Theft

In this bulletin, we will explore the latest legislative updates in the UK in the form of the Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill, and we will provide a progress update on the Data Use and Access Bill which we covered in our last edition.

In this bulletin we delve into a variety of topics, including the outcome of the King’s Speech in the form of two new bills: the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, and the Digital Information and Smart Data Bill. This issue also covers recent cyber incidents, including the high-profile CrowdStrike outage and the cyberattack against the NHS. Finally, we turn to a recurring focus of these updates, namely developments in the artificial intelligence space; we consider potential action that may take place following DSIT’s call for evidence and the EU AI Act now having entered into force.

In this bulletin we delve into a variety of topics, including the recent Court of Appeal judgment in Parker-Grennan v Camelot UK Lotteries Limited, the perils of generative AI in the court room and the disruption of LockBit, a well-known ransomware enterprise. Also discussed are what the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (‘DPDI Bill’) might mean for the UK and its future ‘adequacy’ in an EU data protection context. Finally we turn to the government’s response to a call for views on software risks for businesses and organisations.

We have focussed much of this edition on recent developments in AI law. There have been two important cases on AI which we have explored below: Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller General (Is AI a computer program for the purposes of the Patent Act 1977?), and Thaler v Comptroller General (Can AI be an inventor?). There have also been some important legislative developments in AI since my last bulletin. So, we will also look at the EU AI Act and at the AI Bill going through Parliament at the moment. On the privacy front we look at YouTube’s ad block being a breach of EU privacy law.