Regulatory Watch – October 2025

Plans to limit AI weapons opposed by the US and Russia

Proposals by the UN to insist on human oversight of AI weapons technology met stiff resistance during a Security Council debate. The Council was discussing the creation of a legally binding treaty by 2026 that would ban lethal autonomous weapons that operate using AI without human control. A US spokesman said that his country ‘totally rejects all efforts by international bodies to assert centralised control over the governance of AI’, while the Russian representative to the UN said it would oppose the proposals, describing AI as a ‘crucial element of national security’. UN Secretary General António Guterres has previously described AI weapons as ‘morally repugnant’.

EU to target ‘homegrown AI’ with new strategy

The EU must promote the creation of European artificial intelligence platforms and reduce reliance on foreign providers. This is the aim of the bloc’s new ‘Apply AI strategy’ which looks to boost EU AI competitiveness particularly in healthcare, defence and manufacturing. The strategy involves leveraging existing programmes such as Horizon Europe and the Digital Europe Programme, and will be funded with a 1 billion euros public investment, which is expected to attract further co-financing from member states. The strategy is designed to complement the EU’s AI Act.

Meta accused of failing to police illegal content

The European Commission has issued a stark warning to Meta, saying that Facebook and Instagram did not have an easy and accessible mechanism for users to flag illegal content, including child sexual abuse and terrorism material. The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) requires large platforms to police their platforms aggressively under threat of massive financial penalty. Meta refuted the suggestion that it had breached the DSA and said it was continuing to negotiate with the European Commission.

25 EU states sign ‘Jutland Declaration’ on child protection online

All but two EU member states signed a commitment to fully implement the child protection measures contained in the Digital Services Act and explore what further action may be necessary. The Jutland Declaration was drafted by Denmark, which currently holds the EU presidency. But there was no agreement to follow Denmark’s plans to ban social media for under 15s.

Australian competition regulator sues Microsoft over AI-linked price rises

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has taken legal action against Microsoft, accusing the company of misleading customers over its new Microsoft365 software. The ACCC alleges that Microsoft suggested to its 2.7 million customers that they had to move to new plans that had bundled the software with Copilot, Microsoft’s AI product, with an increase in price of up to 45 per cent. The company, says the ACCC, failed to tell customers that the cheaper ‘classic’ plan, which doesn’t include Copilot, was also available unless consumers began the cancellation process. The regulator argues that this is a breaches Australian consumer law by creating a false impression of available choices. The ACCC is seeking penalties, consumer redress, injunctions and costs from Microsoft.

Faulty DNS update the cause of major disruption to online services

A range of online services were disrupted when an Amazon Web Services (AWS) database crashed on 20 October. The Wall Street Journal reports that the outage was caused by a fault in a minor update to the DNS (domain name services) system that meant the world’s largest database, DynamoDB, was fed incorrect addresses. AWS’s biggest hub in Northern Virginia crashed out of action for 14 hours, resulting in a cascading set of failures of websites around the world ceasing to work and thousands of flights being cancelled. The effect spread well beyond users of AWS. The WSJ suggests that the failure raises questions of the vulnerability of systems that are now, effectively, critical international infrastructure.

 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