Round-up of the latest industry news – May 2023

The BBC has launched ‘BBC Verify’, a brand aiming to build audience trust by showing how its journalists know what they are reporting is true. Verify will be a ‘team of investigative journalists’ located in a physical area inside the newsroom. BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness said that Verify will ‘showcase the advanced editorial tools and techniques BBC News journalists are using to investigate, source and verify information, video, and images’.

The EU has fined Meta, owner of Facebook, 1.2 billion euros for privacy violations and ordered to suspend transfers of user data to the US. The fine was handed down by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, and is the largest in the EU’s history. The commission said that Meta’s response to a previous ruling by the European Court of Justice hadn’t addressed ‘risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms’ of its data transfers. Meta described the decision as ‘flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies looking to provide services in Europe’. In a separate judgement, the EU general court has ruled against Meta in a claim that documents required by the EU for an antitrust investigation went ‘beyond what was necessary’.

The GSMA and telecoms operators’ association ETNO are seeking fees from online companies that account for over 5 per cent of a telco’s average peak traffic as part of ‘fair contribution’. In a ‘summary of the joint telecom industry response to the EU consultation’ the groups proposed the 5 per cent threshold to ensure that only ‘large traffic generators’ were in scope. They suggested that other criteria could include meeting the threshold in at least three member states, to reflect the overall impact on European networks.

President Biden has announced Anna Gomez as his choice for the fifth commissioner of the FCC. Gomez is currently a senior advisor for International Information and Communication Policy at the State Department. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel congratulated Gomez on the nomination, describing her as having a ‘wealth of telecommunications experience’. The announcement comes after previous nominee Gigi Sohn withdrew after opposition from Republicans in the Senate.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has urged the US and Europe to work together on developing regulation for AI. Describing the technology as ‘at an inflection point’ he said AI is ‘too important not to regulate, and too important not to regulate well.’ He went on to say that ‘the US and Europe are strategic allies and partners. It’s important that the two work together to create robust, pro-innovation frameworks…’ The company, he said, will continue to work with experts, scientists and entrepreneurs on ‘both sides of the Atlantic’. Following a meeting with Pichai, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton committed to creating an ‘AI Pact’ involving European and non-European countries before rules to govern the technology are established.

India is due to publish a draft of the ‘Digital India Bill’ in early June, updating a previous act from 2000. The new bill is expected to cover changes to ‘safe harbour’ regulations for social media platforms, as well as new rules on user harms, including misinformation, cyberbullying, doxing and identity theft. Plans are also expected for an adjudicatory mechanism to resolve cyber disputes.

Sources:  The Financial Times, Wired, Euronews, Forbes, CNN,  TechCrunch, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Bloomberg, Economic Times, Ars Technica, Reuters, BBC, Politico, telecom.com, telecommpaper.