Michael Veale

Associate Professor in Digital Rights & Regulation at University College London (#UCL), Faculty of Laws.
Not resigned to today's technological power structures (yet). Researching at the intersection of emerging technologies, law and policy; data protection; machine learning; PETs and cryptographic infrastructures; platform and infrastructural regulation. 🏳️‍🌈

administrating a small exoplanet in the fediverse :loading:.

Public Key

npub12axvtwmec3umzv4qt2dgz0mkpfymzsgw0fcz4z8vqzqdu8uzmppsz3esnt

NIP-05 Address

mikarv@someone-elses-computer.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs9wnx9hduug7d3x2s94x5p8amq5jd3gy885up23rkqpqx7r7pdssc4pt7n3

Author Public Key

npub12axvtwmec3umzv4qt2dgz0mkpfymzsgw0fcz4z8vqzqdu8uzmppsz3esnt

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Last Notes

2024-12-19 12:23:36

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@nprofile…fy4p @nprofile…egst Some of the adverts do target website owners rather than consumers, which is a better approach imo, not the one frederik posted

2024-12-16 23:35:22

perplexity’s got $1m to burn on a trump bribe but nothing to compensate the servers they’re pounding while ignoring robots.txt and lying about their ip address range https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-13/openai-ceo-perplexity-give-1-million-to-trump-s-inaugural-fund

2024-12-15 08:48:27

The only university with a top level domain name I am aware of is Monash U, which has .monash. Did they really pay $185,000 plus $25,000 a year… not to use it? How? Why? https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/registry-agreements/monash/monash-agmt-html-30sep13-en.htm

2024-12-05 13:48:17

@nprofile…ncxj creating constant risk of needing to rewrite parts of book with @nprofile…j4ml
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/113/600/526/831/531/907/original/1055ac314de6f9bb.png

2024-11-26 10:34:03

Extremely valuable plug-in.
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/113/548/801/487/930/964/original/b3bfa878f4e09f6e.png

2024-11-23 09:38:39

Swiss church creates virtual ‘AI Jesus’ talking booth, says 2/3 visiting have a spiritual experience.
eJesus starts off each time: "Do not disclose personal information under any circumstances, use this service at your own risk. Press the button if you accept."
https://www.dw.com/en/switzerlands-ai-jesus-answers-questions-of-faith/video-70737962

2024-11-20 09:11:52

Delicious chaos as another DAO found to be an inadvertent general partnership in CA https://gizmodo.com/judge-rules-decentralized-autonomous-organizations-arent-so-decentralized-in-the-eyes-of-the-law-2000526564
The nature of that kind of chaos (in England & Wales): unlimited liability for the partners, much of which cannot be contracted away; liability focussing on the the more visible partners, and inability for the DAO to hold assets without contract. https://cloud-platform-e218f50a4812967ba1215eaecede923f.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/sites/30/2024/07/DAOs-scoping-paper-110724.pdf
Someone who flagged this early on in the US is Carla Reyes in a 2019 article: https://www.gwlr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/87-Geo.-Wash.-L.-Rev.-373.pdf

2024-11-20 08:36:52

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@nprofile…d2su proprietary standards from the ESOs, no? (unless you want to try your hand with an access to information request and push the case law)

2024-11-20 07:34:04

Foursquare - perhaps surprisingly - release a large proportion of their geospatial place data (eg business and other Points of Interest), hoping it seems to challenge Google Maps’ proprietary data layer. https://location.foursquare.com/resources/blog/products/foursquare-open-source-places-a-new-foundational-dataset-for-the-geospatial-community/ (via @nprofile…tqdk)

2024-11-18 13:28:15

Bluesky has data portability issues. You can download your data, in *binary format*, — a '.car' file the firm describes as 'not the most accessible' even to devs. To even get a JSON file (also q inaccessible) you... improv poorly documented code. This is uh... not legal https://docs.bsky.app/blog/repo-export
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/113/504/189/881/479/611/original/f9aa65851062129c.png

2024-11-17 10:04:38

Microsoft offered free temporary cybersecurity services to lock the public sector into its platform forever? Say it ain’t so! https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-white-house-offer-cybersecurity-biden-nadella

2024-11-16 10:38:53

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@nprofile…hftj no, on yunohost, as the admin panel doesn’t support 2FA

2024-11-16 10:36:32

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@nprofile…hftj @nprofile…gg0f great! it’s outside of my skills but we need to find a volunteer who can put in 2FA/passkeys….

2024-11-16 09:04:30

Police sacked for accessing data on Sarah Everard’s case — yet the UK government has introduced a bill to remove the EU-wide obligation to log a justification when police access data in their systems. Sound sensible?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/15/met-officers-accessed-sarah-everard-files-guilty-gross-misconduct
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/113/491/828/190/902/764/original/4687617e463446ed.jpeg

2024-11-16 08:39:16

the article misses that the UK (at least E&W) has done this for years & years — OGRS & OASIS. Compared to many others systems they’ve been pretty well governed, and mostly in-house (two likely linked things!). This is not so much about magic prediction as a hollowing out of the state to data bros. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/nov/16/tech-firm-palantir-spoke-with-moj-about-calculating-prisoners-reoffending-risks via @nprofile…ysjz

2024-11-15 07:39:44

In response to OpenAI’s recent ‘A Student’s Guide to Writing with ChatGPT’, @nprofile…k2cp (maître de conferénces, Jean Moulin Lyon 3) writes a line-by-line rebuttal — A Student’s Guide to Not Writing with ChatGPT https://www.arthurperret.fr/blog/2024-11-14-student-guide-not-writing-with-chatgpt.html

2024-11-14 12:10:37

New draft General Purpose AI code of practice from the European Commission v naive on continued separation of AI systems & search engines (see Google, Perplexity etc…). AI systems are querying live to feed context windows (at huge cost to many websites). https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/first-draft-general-purpose-ai-code-practice-published-written-independent-experts
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/113/481/235/414/538/306/original/5611f7e5f29e93ff.png

2024-11-14 11:36:34

Maybe complex railcard fines about purchasing, not activating/uploading, etc could be avoided by abolishing the entire 18-25/25-30 railcard system and just… reducing fares for those people. Some lack age proof but appealing at least is straightforward https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89v08l99lgo

2024-11-11 22:23:27

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@npub198t…hasj @npub16zz…ltwx I thought Jitsi was only e2ee between two users or has that changed

2024-11-11 07:39:00

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@npub19lt…qfjk I think in terms of protecting small instances from external raids and similar esp when they link to controversial things, the balance is probably right and the upsides of revealing are q limited. it’s a pretty fragile network…

2024-09-11 11:29:47

Oh, I've never seen this before on @npub1n4e…j5qg — a link to the national judgment! https://curia.europa.eu/juris/liste.jsf?language=en&num=C-659/22
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/113/118/685/065/642/767/original/95e2b754de4907ec.png

2024-09-11 11:26:17

Presumably now there is no DPDI Bill, the Information Commissioner's Office can continue with its anonymisation guidance and 'unpause' it? https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/ico-and-stakeholder-consultations/ico-call-for-views-anonymisation-pseudonymisation-and-privacy-enhancing-technologies-guidance/ #eudp
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/113/118/669/951/814/994/original/c15e148c5d1bcc35.png

2024-09-09 17:13:54

Someone quantify the environmental cost of Apple’s “AI driven upgrade cycle” which could shift 240m phones? This is the cost of AI, just as much as model training or querying.
https://www.thetimes.com/article/ba84a4f4-4fe9-4b9e-b09a-7ed1e6c734c7?shareToken=527e091d79bff6c6ff50af6579188302
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/113/108/715/508/678/653/original/9d651236cc81b573.jpeg

2024-09-04 10:29:24

The Gikii conference is at UCL today and tomorrow - if you’d like a hybrid link you can message me here and I’ll PM it. Agenda: https://www.gikii.org/gikii-2024-programme/

2024-08-02 14:44:56

Dutch judge uses chatGPT to answer a *factual question* about the lifetime of solar panels which was used in determining the extent of compensation. Really. Really. https://www.nu.nl/tweakers/6323110/rechter-gebruikt-chatbot-chatgpt-in-een-uitspraak.html @npub1x76…2qpx

2024-07-29 14:35:35

Really interesting new paper in New Media and Society on the mechanics of Chinese content moderation; how content is flagged based on who views it, what kind of comments are made about it, and how it goes upwards through a more experienced bureaucracy the more 'hot' it becomes https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448241263933

2024-07-28 16:53:14

UK is sitting on billions of confiscated cryptocurrency. Arguments for or against selling it for public services? https://on.ft.com/3LF85Ya

2024-07-10 23:03:16

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@npub1hx9…lyhl the last document appears that they grant you access but your ongoing challenge is that they should set aside copyright and publish all these in the OJ? Is that what you mean by saying no?

2024-07-10 07:11:36

Question: @Panopto, the uni lecture recording software, does not offer destructive editing. If you press pause, it doesn't actually pause recordings. If you edit a section out, it just skips it in the viewer not removes it from server. How can this meet DP law? Do unis know?

2024-07-04 11:45:57

Do you hate Microsoft's spammy email 'reactions'? While far from perfect, you can forbid people from reacting on your emails by adding the 'x-ms-reactions: disallow' header to all your emails. In Thunderbird, this can be done in the config editor. Mileage w other clients may vary.
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/112/728/051/272/083/352/original/27e1900a56875d23.png

2024-05-22 09:02:08

#CPDP Friday 0845AM Music Room, Nahide Basri and I are facilitating a very interactive workshop on privacy, data protection law in surveillance–heavy occupation contexts.
It's early, but the only CPDP panel we know of concerning Palestine 🇵🇸 — please get up! https://www.cpdpconferences.org/cpdp-panels/data-protection-during-occupation-is-a-feasible-protective-and-accountable-model-possible

2024-05-17 13:30:15

UK gov: Britain is a leader in AI tech companies
Also UK gov: there are so few AI companies in Britain we have to give out a £1m tender for 3 months work entirely uncontested to Faculty
https://www.politico.eu/article/dominic-cummings-faculty-ai-safety-british-government-procurement-contracts/

2024-05-08 08:14:15

absolute chaos on a new unmoderated listserv this week as tens of people used the ‘thumbs up’ feature in outlook, which apparently now sends an email, causing an unstoppable torrent

2023-12-07 10:19:05

Firefox has a new hidden setting auto-rejecting cookie banners (not just hiding them eg Brave). Piloting in 🇩🇪 in Private Browsing but anyone can enable:
Go to the URL about:config
Set cookiebanners.ui.desktop.enabled ->True
Go to Settings->Privacy, turn on Cookie Banner Blocker.

2023-08-21 09:30:03

Dutch DPA publishes damning advice about the government’s attempt to require skin perspiration alcohol meters for those subject to an alcohol ban. Objects to data being transferred to the United States and the high-level of false positives in the system. https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/uploads/2023-08/Advies%20alcoholmeter.pdf #eudp #gdpr #LawEnforcementDirective
https://inside.someone.elses.computer/computer/media_attachments/files/110/926/611/788/366/171/original/6004b8f1b9daa589.jpeg

2023-08-14 11:53:46

Kenya's Office of the Data Protection Commissioner seeks a court order to both stop collection of further personal data by #Worldcoin and preserve that already collected for investigation into its illegality https://www.citizen.digital/news/data-protection-office-says-worldcoin-likely-to-tamper-with-data-from-kenyans-seeks-courts-intervention-n325472

2023-08-01 13:11:12

While #genAI firms are being faced with criticism for their models containing detailed personal data about individuals, and thinking of how to mitigate this, UK intelligence #SIGINT agencies (e.g. #GCHQ) are seeking powers to effectively lower their oversight in building models precisely to be able to draw unstructured data into personal data about people, claiming that AI firms can do it (whether or not legally!) but they can't https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/aug/01/uk-intelligence-spy-agencies-relax-burdensome-laws-ai-data-bpds?CMP=share_btn_tw #IPA16