Regulatory Watch – June 2025

‘No excuse’ for regulators falling behind the market

Enforcement of competition rules must take place at much greater pace according to competition law expert, Lord Bellamy KC. Speaking at an event at the UK’s House of Lords marking the re-launch of the Digital Policy Alliance, Lord Bellamy said that while it was difficult to keep pace with developments in the market, regulators had no excuse for not making every effort to do so. Implementation of policy was essential to enabling the growth of smaller and mid-sized companies and the ‘slow pace of government’ could not be allowed to prevent UK competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority, from taking action ‘fast’. He also raised a concern that, in its efforts to promote growth, the DSIT (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) was in danger of getting too close to the big tech companies.

EU waters down green deal legislation

The European Commission has announced that it will withdraw the ‘greenwashing’ proposal contained in the Green Deal policy. The initiative was designed to ensure that companies’ environmental claims were independently verified and was originally presented as part of the European Green Deal legislative framework in March 2023. The move is the latest in a series of rollbacks of the Green Deal following the adoption of the EU’s simplification agenda contained in the Omnibus papers. A spokesperson said that the greenwashing proposal would have placed an undue burden on 30 million micro-enterprises.

US reverses cybersecurity orders

A new executive order has removed many of the cybersecurity requirements placed on US government agencies at the end of the Biden administration. In an accompanying statement, the previous directives were described as an attempt to ‘sneak problematic and distracting issues into cybersecurity policy’. The orders relaxed or dropped include mandating quantum-safe encryption, a secure software development framework (SSDF), the adoption of phishing-resistant regimens and the encouragement of digital forms of identity. The administration has directed the National Institute for Standards and Technology to create a reference security implementation for SSDF, but without further attestation critics say it will be easy for contractors to skirt around it.

BBC threatens Perplexity AI with legal action over scraping

The BBC has accused US based AI start-up Perplexity of training its model using the broadcaster’s content. In a letter to the company, the BBC claimed it has evidence that its content has been used and threatens the US-based start-up with an injunction unless it ceases scraping all BBC content and deletes any copies of BBC material held for the purposes of developing its AI systems. The letter also outlines a ‘proposal for financial compensation’ for the alleged infringement of its intellectual property. This is the first time the BBC has made such a claim and reflects a wider concern that the public sector broadcaster’s content, which is widely and freely available, is being abused by AI companies.

‘No significant barriers’ to age verification technology

Using software to enforce a teenage social media ban can work, according to the head of the world’s biggest trial of the technology. The view from the Age Assurance Technology Trial, commissioned by the Australian government, is seen as a boost to Australia’s plan to require social media platforms to block under-16s from their platforms. Some industry groups have questioned whether the ban would be effective due to the use of workarounds like virtual private networks (VPNs). But Tony Allen, CEO of the Age Check Certification Scheme which is overseeing the trial, said that it could be done ‘privately, efficiently and effectively’, although he noted that there was a risk that some firms could be ‘inadvertently over-collecting information’ and that ‘no solution worked perfectly in all departments’. The Australian ban comes into force in December 2025.

Sources:  The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bird and Bird, APNews, Euronews, CNN, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Bloomberg, Economic Times, Ars Technica, Reuters, BBC, Politico, Telecompaper