As part of our Data Fortnight in the run-up to GDPR, we are bringing together the Observatory’s resources on data in a series of digest pieces. This digest covers reports and articles on the risks to privacy and security and ways to mitigate these.

As part of our Data Fortnight in the run-up to GDPR, we are bringing together the Observatory’s resources on data in a series of digest pieces. This digest covers reports on European frameworks for data rights and the future of data protection regulation.

As part of our Data Fortnight in the run-up to GDPR, we are bringing together the Observatory’s resources on data in a series of digest pieces. This digest covers reports on health data.

As part of our Data Fortnight in the run-up to GDPR, we are bringing together the Observatory’s resources on data in a series of digest pieces. This digest covers reports on public attitudes to data and privacy.

When it comes to dealing with crime, it seems as though everyone has an opinion about what needs to be done. Certainly, the criminal justice system must continually adapt to respond to and manage criminal behaviour. Yet crime statistics are an area where governments are not moving with the times.

The basic building blocks of a quantum computer are fundamentally different to their classical counterparts. Whereas a classical computer relies on the ‘on’ or ‘off’ of an electrical current, quantum computers rely on particular properties of microscopic particles that are observed to be in only one of two possible states.

Ever-present internet access and the ubiquity of smart phones have allowed real-time traffic apps like Waze and Google Maps to thrive. However, news headlines reveal some unintended consequences emerging due to the prevalence of these apps.

It's the end of techUK’s AI week (23-27 April), and we've been scanning many of the blogs, contributions and commentary published this week. Here's our personal selection of 10 of the best, for an exclusive AI Observatory digest.

Tracking online behaviour has become central to the business model of many online services. By collecting and analysing large amounts of data online retailers offer advertisements tailored to individuals. Offline retailers are facing a serious disadvantage as they cannot reap the benefits of this very valuable information. However, they have found a different way of inconspicuously collecting useful data about their customers’ behaviour: Wi-Fi tracking.

Despite recent progression in gender equality, the technology sector is still lagging behind. Women struggle to reach the same technological access and opportunities as men; 250 million fewer women than men are online worldwide. Women in rural areas of less developed countries are often those which are most affected by this gap. 

To support techUK’s AI week (23 April), we are bringing together the Observatory’s resources on AI in a series of themed digest pieces. This article brings together all the recent reports focusing on the ethical and security issues relating to AI.

To support techUK’s AI week (23 April), we are bringing together the Observatory’s resources on AI in a series of themed digest pieces. This post brings together all the recent reports focusing on the potential impact of AI and automation in the UK.

There is one technology that shows particular promise in providing trust in the legitimacy of electoral processes and results: blockchain (see our earlier article on why everyone is talking about blockchain). Estonia’s successful implementation of internet voting, over a decade ago, has sparked new interest in using technological solutions to improve democratic elections.

Over the past year cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin in particular, have been hitting headlines around the world. The meteoric rise of cryptocurrency has led many to question whether it may one day replace government-backed money as we know it today.

According to the Alzheimer’s Society 850,000 people in the UK have dementia, with this figure predicted to rise and reach more than 1 million by 2025 and 2 million by 2051. One person every three minutes will develop dementia in the UK and a new dementia diagnosis is made every 4 seconds worldwide. Dementia is a broad term to describe a variety of brain disorders with the Alzheimer’s Society describing symptoms including “memory loss, confusion and problems with speech and understanding”.

A new model for research dissemination has been borne out through Open Access (OA): an international movement to make academic publications and data generated from research to be freely available online.

Where would someone buy a gun? Or Class A drugs? Or false identification documents? If this were 20 or 30 years ago, the first port of call might have been the local dodgy-looking pub, but today there is a new place to go to shop around for the latest range of illegal goods, and that’s the dark web.

According to the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, one in five working age people in England has a mental health condition at a given point in time. Mental ill-health affects not just an individual’s health but it is also associated with high costs to the UK economy recently estimated between £74 billion and £99 billion per year.

The primary motivation behind the push for more sustainable transport is to mitigate externalities associated with private car use and urban sprawl, of which there are many. These negative societal impacts include traffic congestion, road incidents, air pollution, noise pollution, climate change, soil and water pollution, increased costs to provide municipal services, and energy dependency.

Even before the digital revolution, social movements have been taking advantage of modern technologies, such as the radio and fax machines, to connect members and spread their message to a broader audience. Since its development, the internet has been used to widen the scale of social movements, connecting activists around the world to tackle social and political challenges.

Access to the internet is taken for granted by billions of people around the world and has become an essential part of everyday life allowing connection, communication and collaboration. However, many rural and remote communities have been left behind and therefore cannot benefit from the opportunities that the internet offers. This has led to digital divides with remote communities encountering unique challenges to become connected.

Airbnb’s rise in popularity since its establishment in 2008 has shaken up the hospitality industry. In London Airbnb listings have risen from 1,000 in 2013 to over 20,000 per week. Despite the benefits of Airbnb’s success, there are a number of externalities – negative consequences borne by wider society and not the users of the system themselves – that receive widely varying degrees of attention depending on the locale.

As connected and autonomous systems enter the mainstream, policymakers are faced with new challenges to ensure citizens’ safety and security in day-to-day activities. Non-embedded software is increasingly available for smart systems and could potentially make the maintenance and security of those systems more difficult. Non-embedded software is downloadable on a device and does not come integrated into a product at the time of the product’s placement in the market. For example, apps or software updates on smartphones, tablets or personal computers are widely known examples of non-embedded software and can be produced by third-party developers to customise users’ devices.

Christmas is one of the most prominent UK holidays and the average Brit spends between £350 and £500 on gifts each year. In recent years, toys have become more sophisticated, computerised and connected but have at the same time increasingly been subject to privacy and security concerns.