Royal Mail owner to be grilled by MPs over delivery performance Business The Czech Billionaire who took over the parent company of the postal service last year is expected to face questions about the company’s failure to meet performance targets. The Business and Trade Committee has called on Royal Mail owner Daniel Kretinsky to present evidence to MPs in response to “significant concerns” raised around the service’s [...]
Starmer closes chatbot loophole in Online Safety Act Tech Sir Keir Starmer is set to target AI chatbots with the UK’s Online Safety Act, warning tech titans that “no platform gets a free pass” following a deepfake scandal involving Elon Musk’s Grok. In a speech on Monday, the Prime Minister is expected to confirm plans to amend the Crime and Policing Bill, so that [...]
Landowners hit as government pushes through 5G rent cuts Tech Mobile network operators are set to cut rents on around 15,000 existing phone masts from April, City AM understands, dragging decades-old agreements into a new regime that has already allowed payments to landowners to be cut by up to 90 per cent. The move will bring legacy mast contracts, many signed with farmers, schools, hospitals [...]
ICO opens probe into Elon Musk’s Grok AI over sexualised content February 3, 2026 The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has opened investigations in relation to the Grok AI system and its potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content. The probe into the tech tool owned by Elon Musk’s Internet Unlimited Company (XIUC) and X.AI comes after the chatbot made headlines last month over the generation of explicit, [...]
Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla: Big Tech earnings set to test AI bets January 27, 2026 This week marks one of the most consequential stretches of tech earnings season, with results due from Meta, Microsoft, Tesla and Apple, four giants that sit at the heart of both the market rally and the debate over whether Big Tech’s vast AI spending will ultimately pay off. It is the second-busiest week of the fourth-quarter earnings season, with 103 [...]
WhatsApp probe casts shadow ahead of Meta earnings January 26, 2026 Meta heads into a crucial earnings week under mounting regulatory pressure, after the UK watchdog, Ofcom, opened a formal investigation into WhatsApp’s data handling. This comes just days after Meta paused access to its AI chatbots for teenagers worldwide, Britain’s communications regulator, Ofcom, said it is looking into whether the social media giant provided “incomplete or inaccurate” [...]
After Grok, should the UK opt for an Australia-style social media ban? January 13, 2026 When, in December, Australia enacted a nationwide ban of social media platforms for under-16s, critics called it heavy-handed, and easy to bypass. This week, as Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok flooded the social media platform, X, with AI-generated explicit photos of women and girls, some even involving minors, that argument begins to lose its legs. [...]
Ofcom investigation launched into Grok AI deepfakes on X January 12, 2026 The media and online safety watchdog has announced an investigation into Elon Musk’s X, to determine whether the platform has done enough to protect Brits from explicit deepfakes generated by its Grok AI. Ofcom pointed to “deeply concerning reports of the Grok AI chatbot account on X being used to create and share undressed images [...]
Trump official warns UK on ‘Russia-style’ X ban after Grok row January 11, 2026 A key Trump administration official has sent the UK a firm warning following speculation Elon Musk’s X platform may face a ban after a scandal around AI-generated images. Sarah Rogers, under-secretary for public diplomacy at the US State Department, issued a series of messages criticising the UK on the rumoured ban. Rogers said the UK [...]
Ofcom targets BT and Three as summer outages exposed emergency call risk December 15, 2025 The UK’s telecoms regulator has launched investigations into BT and Three after network failures this summer left customers unable to make calls, including to the emergency services. Ofcom said on Monday that the probes will assess whether the two operators complied with their legal dutiesm after separate incidents caused nationwide disruption. Telecoms giant BT notified [...]