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12 Sep - Commercial Awareness - Tech sector

FT link: https://www.ft.com/content/770e58b1-a299-4b7b-a129-bded8649a43b

Topic: Tension between tech regulators and Big Tech in the context of Data Privacy


WhatsApp threatened to pull out from the UK because the proposal of protecting users actually threatened to infringe on users’ privacy.


Regulators want access to BigTech’s data. Taking WhatsApp as an example, Ofcom regulators want to scan users’ messages to detect harmful content such as child sexual abuse content.


However, there’s no technology that would enable regulators to achieve this. The existing technology has wrongly identified safe content as harmful, flagging this to human monitors, thereby increasing the costs of maintaining data privacy. Second, current technology used to scan end-end encrypted messages will undermine users’ privacy at the same time. Third, child abuse campaigners want Big Tech to be responsible for the abusive materials shared on their platform, but it is questionable whether the Online Safety Bill – in its final stage of Parliament – will be able to hold Big Tech accountable.


Interview questions:


  1. What does Ofcom stand for? What does it do?

Ofcom stands for the Office of Communications. Ofcom is the regulator and competition authority for the UK TMT industries. It regulates the TV and radio sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, etc


  1. What are the regulatory challenges that Big Tech currently face?

Refer to the news above.


  1. What is an end-end encrypted message?

Security technology that only allows the sender and recipient of messages to view them.


That’s my sharing today, thank you for reading! Please feel free to add extra information, correct me if you’re an expert in tech. I wish to reiterate that I consider myself a newbie in commercial awareness so make sure you do not rely on my thread as a reliable source.


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