Ofcom has mandated that telecoms providers ensure British Sign Language (BSL) users have access to a free, round-the-clock service across the entire the country that will enable them to contact emergency services when required. In addition to this, emergency SMS and text relay services will remain in operation. This requirement is from 17th June 2022.…
Ofcom published its statement on the future of telephone numbers, and has decided to remove the requirement on telecoms providers to provide local dialling.
The Wiesbaden Administrative Court in Germany has referred a case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on whether the obligation to include fingerprints on government ID cards is legal. The German court argues that such storage obligation is not compatible with Articles 7 and 8 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on the protection of…
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) has issued Meta (Facebook’s parent company) with a £1.5 million fine for failure to comply with an Interim Enforcement Order (“IEO”) imposed under the CMA’s investigation of the company’s acquisition of Giphy. The fine follows an earlier fine of £50.5 million imposed by the regulator in October 2021.…
On 28 January 2022, the final version of the international data transfer agreement (“IDTA”) and the international data transfer addendum to the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses (“SCCs“) for international data transfers has been laid before the UK Parliament. This follows the ICO’s public consultation which was launched in August 2021. If there are no…
On 27 January 2022, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) officially launched a market study into the music and streaming market, publishing a Market Study Notice along with a Statement of Scope (“Statement”). The Statement outlines the areas the CMA intends to investigate to determine whether competition is working as it should in the…
It has been announced that a group of large German publishers and advertisers have filed a formal complaint with the European Commission against Google’s “Privacy Sandbox” proposals. The Privacy Sandbox is the name given by Google to a group of proposed browser changes to the Chrome browser and Blink/Chromium browser engine. The proposals include blocking…
UK leads European fintech space with investments growing over 217% to $11.6bn in 2021, according to figures from Innovate Finance, the UK fintech industry body. The UK brought almost half of the total investments across Europe, which overall saw $24.3bn of investments. London continued to lead with $9.2bn of total investment. Additionally, the UK had…
On 14 December 2021, the CMA published an interim report in its Mobile Ecosystems Market Study. The market study looks at how the mobile ecosystem market is functioning, in particular in relation to Apple and Google’s mobile operating systems. The report sets out the CMA’s interim findings. We set out below some commentary on the…
On 30 November 2021 the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ordered Facebook’s owner, Meta, to divest Giphy, a gif website. The purchase of Giphy was completed on 15 May 2020. The CMA issued an interim enforcement order on 9 June 2020, preventing the parties from further integrating their businesses pending investigation. A merger inquiry…
