UK
In short: the AI transparency code of practice is now the EU-wide route to demonstrating compliance with Articles 50(2), (4) and (5) of the EU AI Act. The European Commission concluded on 8 July 2026 that the code is adequate, and the AI Board agreed on 9 July 2026. Signing is not a safe harbour,…
In short: Web scraping for AI training is lawful under the GDPR only where a data controller has a lawful basis for it, and in practice that means the three-part legitimate interest test in Article 6(1)(f). On 8 July 2026 the European Data Protection Board adopted draft guidelines on web scraping for generative AI, out…
In short: the EU cybersecurity and AI action plan, published by the European Commission on 7 July 2026 (COM(2026) 577 final), sets nine actions to make frontier AI safe for cyber defence, harden critical infrastructure under NIS2 and the Cyber Resilience Act, and build sovereign AI capacity. The UK pursues the same goals without a…
In short: The EU DSA hosting exemption protects an online intermediary from liability from what its users store, but only while it stays neutral. On 16 June 2026, in Case C-190/24 Coyote System, the Court of Justice held that an intermediary whose algorithm decides how and in what order user content is disseminated, in its…
In short: On 25 June 2026 the European Commission told Amazon and Microsoft that it provisionally regards AWS and Azure as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act. That preliminary view is the first move towards DMA cloud gatekeeper designation of a cloud service. The UK looked at the same two firms and chose a lighter…
In short: Ofcom satellite spectrum proposals, published on 16 June 2026, open two consultations. One gives Viasat and EchoStar a three to five year transition in the 2 GHz MSS band after their May 2027 licence expiry, plus flexibility for new entrants. The other adds Ku and Ka band uplink for ships and aircraft. Responses…
In short: AI Act transparency obligations apply from 2 August 2026 under Article 50 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689. The European Commission published draft guidelines on 8 May 2026 explaining who must disclose chatbots, mark synthetic content and label deep fakes. Penalties reach €15 million or 3% of worldwide turnover. UK businesses serving EU users are…
In short: The EDPB data breach notification template, adopted in draft on 8 June 2026 and in public consultation until 5 August 2026, gives data controllers one structured form for notifying personal data breaches to EU supervisory authorities under Article 33 GDPR. UK reporting to the ICO is unchanged; the template matters where a breach…
In short: geographic market definition CMA practice asks where customers would switch if a hypothetical monopolist raised price by 5 to 10 per cent. The CMA’s 21 May 2026 Welltower decision found competition concerns in 30 local catchment areas. The CMA reaches the finding through postcode-level overlap mapping and drive-time isochrone analysis, a methodology that…
In short: Competition law and data protection are no longer enforced as separate regimes. The EDPB and the European Commission announced joint guidance work on 28 April 2026, the latest in the EDPB’s cross-regulatory programme. The UK reached the same starting point in May 2021 through the CMA-ICO joint statement and runs the convergence through…
In short: The European Commission’s first review of the Digital Markets Act, published on 28 April 2026 as COM(2026) 178 final under Article 53 of the Regulation, concludes that the law is working and proposes no legislative amendment. Cloud computing and AI are named as the next enforcement focus. The UK runs a separate regime…
In short: the draft EU merger guidelines data and digital deals reset puts ecosystem theories of harm, killer acquisitions and innovation competition at the centre of the substantive test, and introduces an Innovation Shield that protects most start-up acquisitions subject to conditions. The CMA reached similar ground in case practice on Microsoft Activision and Adobe…