Regulatory Watch – March 2025

Legal challenges mount against UK’s ‘back door’ demand

Human rights groups have launched a legal challenge after the UK government issued a ‘technical capability notice’ requiring access to iPhone back-ups for law enforcement agencies. Apple had already launched its own appeal, which Privacy International and Liberty argue should be heard in public. In addition, they say that ordering the company to compromise the security of its products breaches free expression and privacy rights. In a statement the activist groups said: ‘people the world over rely on end-to-end encryption to protect themselves from harassment and oppression. No country should have the right to undermine that protection for everyone’. Apple has suspended its iCloud Advanced Data Protection System (ADP) in the UK. ADP stores data with end-to-end encryption, with the company is unable to access it.

Court blocks California law on children’s online safety

Trade group NetChoice won a preliminary injunction as a federal district court ruled that the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act could violate free speech rights under the constitution’s First Amendment. The group claimed the law would have made its members, including Amazon, Google, Netflix and Meta, ‘censor the internet under the guise of privacy’. The law was signed by California Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022. It requires businesses to take steps to reduce the risks to child users, including estimating the ages of child users and configuring privacy settings for them.

Meta to test X’s Community Notes

Meta will begin testing a new crowd-sourced Community Notes approach after announcing the end of its third party fact-checking programme in January. The new system will allow 20,000 US contributors to write and rate notes across its Facebook, Instagram and Threads platforms. The company is using X’s open source algorithm as the basis of its system. In a blog post, Meta says that it expects Community Notes to be less biased than the third party programme it is replacing, partly because the new system requires agreement between different people as opposed to depending on expert organisations. Third party fact checking will remain in place outside the United States.

UK’s Online Safety Act comes into force

Social media platforms in scope of the UK’s Online Safety Act will now face significant fines for failing to implement safeguards as the Act’s new provisions come into force. From 17 March, sites  are required to take steps to ensure that illegal content doesn’t appear or to take it down once it goes online. See Ofcom’s announcement here.

European Commission warned not to soften AI rules

Members of the European Parliament have written to the European Commission’s digital head, Henna Virkkunen, to urge that rules contained in the EU’s new AI Act are not compromised. The commission is thought to be considering making some of the requirements in the Act voluntary rather than compulsory following intense lobbying from the US administration and big tech companies, who argue that the code of practice currently being drafted would impose ‘unworkable and technically unfeasible requirements’. The signatories to the letter, who include many of the architects of the AI Act, argue that accommodating these demands is ‘dangerous, undemocratic and creates legal uncertainty’. The new code of practice is set to be adopted by the commission in May.

Vietnam to allow trial of Starlink

The government of Vietnam has announced that will allow SpaceX to launch its Starlink service in the country. In a trial lasting until 2030, the service will be limited to 600,000 subscribers. The decision is seen by some observers as a move designed to avoid the imposition of US tariffs. Starlink operates in over 120 markets worldwide.

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