ICYMI: Interesting @theguardian.com piece on why people are turning away from big tech with new commentary from @rocher.lc @oii.ox.ac.uk @socsci.ox.ac.uk @ox.ac.uk.

We can laugh at the use of a piecewise regression to justify improvements post Palantir deployment. But also realise that so many public sector claims like that rely on shaky statistics and bad science, without any transparency of methods.

Bd science behind NHS push for Palantir “The evaluation used […] is a method known as interrupted time series (ITS) analysis. ITS looks at performance before an intervention, assumes that the performance trend would continue, and then attributes post-intervention change to the intervention itself.”

Many voters who use big, old platforms may rarely see age verification practices and not be aware of invasiveness, as such platforms (Apple already does) use age of account as a proxy and never check more. Younger users get no such benefit. good for data minimisation, but keeps people in a bubble.

Can you car walk up the stairs too?

I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.

UK Biobank health data keeps ending up on GitHub Tracking DMCA takedown notices filed by UK Biobank against GitHub repositories where researchers accidentally published participant health data.

This from @rocher.lc is very very funny
biobank.rocher.lc

A little less than a day to apply for this role: www.iccl.ie/digital-data...

Have a look at the impact of our work since 2021: www.iccl.ie/tag/artifici...

If you have an #AI implementation/enforcement idea that is not run-of-the-mill, you might be a good fit.

Apply!

Hey Bluesky friends, please check out and let us know what you think of 🌳 Bonsai, a new tool to create custom Bluesky feeds getbonsai.org

Story: www.cs.princeton.edu/news/what-ha...

Presented at #CHI2026 by @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social and @mariannealq.bsky.social

New BMJ Editorial out today from @rocher.lc and me: www.bmj.com/content/393/... - Biobank's response to the news that researchers have accidentally uploaded data to GitHub multiple times is insufficient & risks trust in the UK's health data ecosystem. Everyone needs to feel responsible for privacy.

UK Biobank DMCA Tracker Tracking DMCA takedown notices filed by UK Biobank against GitHub repositories where researchers accidentally published participant health data.

Author link to BMJ editorial: bmj.com/cgi/content/...

Link to interactive dashboard: biobank.rocher.lc

With @jessrmorley.bsky.social

We warn that institutions must demonstrate humility, a commitment to listening to privacy experts, and a willingness to learn. As the govt bets on health data and AI in its 10y health plan, which commits to making the NHS “the most AI-enabled health system in the world,” time is running out.

UK Biobank DMCA Tracker Tracking DMCA takedown notices filed by UK Biobank against GitHub repositories where researchers accidentally published participant health data.

After the Guardian successfully re-identified a participant from two pieces of data, UK Biobank has sought to downplay the importance of this exposure, stating that the data posted to GitHub are “de-identified”. This term has no legal meaning in the UK.

biobank.rocher.lc

New BMJ editorial w/ @jessrmorley.bsky.social ! A new privacy scandal has engulfed UK Biobank, one of the world’s most important biomedical research resources. Researchers have repeatedly & accidentally uploaded datasets to GitHub, forcing Biobank to issue 103 legal takedown notices as of today.

Next year, France votes for its President and National Assembly.

I'd like to start raising funds for JD Vance to come campaign.

Here's the map with 1/3rd of the votes counted. Tisza = blue; Fidesz = orange. The strength of the color tells you how far ahead the lead party is. It's a blow-out. Fidesz strongholds are falling to Tisza.

The image shows a photo of Chris Kenna. One side of his face is black and white and pixellated. The wording on the image says: "Tech entrepreneur Chris Kenna says he built data centres across the UK. We looked, but couldn't find any"

NEW: British tech entrepreneur Chris Kenna says he has built cutting-edge AI data centres across the UK

We can’t find them...

www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

LSE: We’ve filed a case over their investigation into sexual misconduct | Good Law Project The university fumbled their response to a series of complaints over sexual misconduct – so we’re pushing back

"When five women made formal complaints of sexual misconduct against a senior professor at the LSE, the university carried out a botched investigation and kept him in post."

"We’re supporting one woman as she takes action over the way they bungled her complaint."

Thanks @emollick.bsky.social! We found that older generations of models already did well on benchmarks and very simple evaluations, but fared poorly in conversations.

The obvious takeway is that evaluating AI models is not easy and cutting corners results in poor, harmful evaluations of risks.

Enforce is hiring: AI Expert How data about European defence personnel and political leaders flows to foreign states and non-state actors

Enforce at the @iccl.bsky.social is hiring.

Full-time role. Remote in the EU.

Apply early. Deadline 5pm Dublin time on 15 April 2026.

www.iccl.ie/digital-data...

#AI #AIPolicy #EUAIAct #DigitalRights #TechPolicy
@abeba.bsky.social @rocher.lc @techpolicypress.bsky.social @leevisaari.bsky.social

“The scale of the nightmare in Gaza and the West Bank is vast. It is her job to somehow absorb and relay it to the rest of the world. That costs her profoundly — more than any American sanctions.”

Technology Researchers Ask Court to Block Trump Policy Threatening Deportation for Work on Social Media Platforms

Lawsuit update: @knightcolumbia.org & @protectdemocracy.org have filed a preliminary injunction motion on behalf of @thecoalition.bsky.social asking the court to block a U.S. immigration policy targeting noncitizen researchers who study online safety. 🧵

knightcolumbia.org/content/tech...

UN expert warns torture has become ‘state doctrine’ in Israel, making prisons instruments of genocide and torture GENEVA – Israel’s systematic torture of Palestinians, long shielded by decades of impunity and political cover, has become a defining instrument of ongoing genocide in the occupied Palestinian territo...

Albanese's latest report on the systematic, ubiquitous, soul crushing, permanent torture of Palestinians by Israeli authorities, soldiers & settlers is one that we can only turn our eyes away from at the price of losing what is left of our souls. END THE GENOCIDE. NOW! www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

Too many students are convinced by their own universities, by some of their teachers and professors, and by the AI companies themselves that ‘using ai to study is getting ahead of the game’
But the process they seek to get ahead of is the point.

‘It beggars belief’: MoD sources warn Palantir’s role at heart of government is a threat to UK’s security Experts say that claims UK data remains under government ownership miss the point that the company has the capability to build its own detailed picture of the British population, and even infer state ...

"Palantir, the US AI surveillance and security firm with hundreds of millions of pounds in UK government contracts, poses 'a national security threat to the UK', according to two anonymous high-level sources working with the Ministry of Defence."

Confidential health records from UK BioBank project exposed online Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds data from flagship medical research leaked dozens of times

UK Biobank records on hundreds of thousands have been exposed online, and will keep being exposed as students and researchers accidentally re-upload data.

I reviewed several of these datasets for The Guardian and can attest to the severity of the data exposed.

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Anonymization: The imperfect science of using data while preserving privacy Safe anonymization and sharing of personal data will be achieved by combining formal privacy methods with red-teaming.

Colleagues and I have spent years showing that stripping names or addresses isn't enough to protect privacy. It seems like lessons are not being learned, which means public health research will continue to suffer from a genuine lack of trust.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

It's nearly impossible to go through life without sharing details like a birth date or a workplace injury. Just this could identify a colleague or neighbour in UK Biobank data. Once identified, their records could reveal a psychiatric diagnosis, an HIV test result, or a history of drug abuse.

Confidential health records from UK BioBank project exposed online Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds data from flagship medical research leaked dozens of times

UK Biobank records on hundreds of thousands have been exposed online, and will keep being exposed as students and researchers accidentally re-upload data.

I reviewed several of these datasets for The Guardian and can attest to the severity of the data exposed.

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

ChatGPT Edu feature reveals researchers’ project metadata across universities (exclusive) A configuration in Codex Cloud Environments lets thousands of colleagues see repository names and activity linked to ChatGPT accounts.

Glad to see this made public today. I responsibly disclosed with OpenAI that high-level information about the private work of students and staff using ChatGPT Edu at several universities can be viewed by thousands of colleagues across their institutions. No fixes were issued after one month.