Iniziamo segnalando la presentazione di Assalto alle piattaforme di Kenobit (ed. Agenzia X) al CSOA Forte Prenestino, il 4 Febbraio. Nvidia ha preso molto del suo materiale di "training" da Anna's Archive; quella che sembra essere una pratica comune questa volta è stata confermata da documenti interni. Meraviglioso il modo in cui si sono difesi. Dopo il blocco di Internet durante le elezioni in Uganda, e il lunghissimo blocco di Internet in Iran, guardiamo ad alcuni report che segnalano l'utilizzo di Bitchat, una applicazione di messaggistica che sembra interessante per casi in cui la possibilità di comunicare via Internet è impedita. Ma non è tutto oro quello che luccica. Notiziole: * Microsoft perde la causa intentata da NOYB riguardo al tracciamento di persone minorenni tramite la sua suite Microsoft 365 Education, rivolta alle scuole. * la Corea del Sud fa (per prima) una legge sulla sicurezza della cosidetta intelligenza artificiale ad alto impatto. confrontiamola con l'AI Act europeo. * Nel Regno Unito il dibattito sulla perdita di posti di lavoro (per la verità ancora fenomeno la cui esistenza è dibattuta) dovuta all'intelligenza artificiale torna a far parlare di reddito di cittadinanza. * TikTok è passato a guida Usa, e gli effetti si vedono: la nuova privacy policy gli consente di raccogliere più dati di quella precedente * Il capo dell'agenzia per la cybersicurezza Usa ha caricato sul ChatGPT pubblico dei documenti riservati dell'agenzia stessa Infine, il quizzone: quando visitate un sito i cui server si trovano negli Usa, come fanno i dati inviati dal vostro dispositivo a raggiungere il server? A) con sistemi di trasmissione radio, come il Wi-Fi B) con sistemi satellitari C) con dei cavi La risposta esatta è la C: dei cavi sottomarini. Questo ci permette di parlare della continua espansione di questa infrastruttura (ormai esistono circa 600 cavi sottomarini, per un'estensione totale che supera abbondamentemente il milione di kilometri), ma anche della crescente concentrazione. A stendere sempre più tratte sono non tanto le imprese di telecomunicazioni, ma quelle di contenuto, come Google, Meta, ecc. insomma, le solite. Ascolta la puntata sul sito di Radio Onda Rossa

BRUSSELS — The European Union is pressing ahead with talks to grant United States border authorities unprecedented access to Europeans’ data, despite growing concerns about American surveillance. The European Commission is brokering a deal to exchange information about travelers, including fingerprints and law enforcement records, so the U.S. can determine if they “pose a risk to public security or public order,” according to official documents. Commission officials flew to Washington last week for the first round of negotiations, according to two people familiar with the matter. The Trump administration’s request for deeper access comes after the U.S. border agency in December proposed reviewing five years of social media history. Talks are happening as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service is under heavy scrutiny for its use of surveillance technology against protesters in cities such as Minneapolis. The negotiations should be “put on hold” until the security and privacy of citizens in the EU and U.S. can be guaranteed, liberal European Parliament member Raquel García Hermida-van der Walle said in an interview. Romain Lanneau, a legal researcher with surveillance watchdog Statewatch, said police databases in Europe could contain information on anyone from protesters to journalists who might be considered a “threat,” and that — under the deal being discussed — this information would be at the fingertips of U.S. border authorities who could refuse those people entry to the United States or even detain them. European regulators are “very cautiously looking at what’s happening in the United States,” Wojciech Wiewiórowski, the EU’s in-house data protection supervisor, told POLITICO. Europe “has to be careful” about how it allows the data of Europeans to flow to the U.S., he said.  Hermida-van der Walle in January co-signed a letter by six prominent lawmakers calling on the Commission to stand down given the “current geopolitical context,” despite Washington’s admonition that failure to reach a deal will mean Europeans lose access to its visa waiver program. UNPRECEDENTED ACCESS The U.S. is seeking access to information including biometric data such as fingerprints that is stored on national databases in European countries, according to an explanatory note sent to national experts. The data would be used to “address irregular migration and to prevent, detect, and combat serious crime and terrorist offences,” the note said. In an earlier opinion on the deal, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) — a watchdog that advises the Commission on privacy policies — noted the deal would be the first of its kind to enable “large-scale sharing of personal data … for the purpose of border and immigration control” with a non-EU country. The Commission would negotiate a framework deal that would serve as a template for bilateral agreements called Enhanced Border Security Partnerships (EBSPs), which national governments agree with Washington. EU countries in December signed off on the Commission’s request to start talks with the U.S. Washington is pressuring its EU counterparts by imposing a deadline for the bilateral deals to be agreed by the end of 2026. If countries fail to reach a deal with the U.S. they risk being cut from the latter’s visa waiver program. The U.S has made it mandatory for all countries that are part of the visa waiver program to have an EBSP in place. “The pressure which the United States is extorting on our member states, the threats that if you don’t agree with this we will cancel your access to the visa waiver program, that is an element of blackmail that we cannot let go,” Hermida-van der Walle said. The EDPS watchdog has cautioned that the scope of data sharing should be as narrow as possible, with clear justifications for every query; transparency around how the data is used; and judicial redress available in the U.S. for any person. Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert emphasised at a recent press briefing that the framework being negotiated will involve “clear and robust safeguards on data protection,” and will ensure “a non-systematic nature of the information exchange and that the exchange is limited to what is strictly necessary to achieve the objectives of this cooperation.”  US PRIVACY UNDER PRESSURE Access to the data is the latest issue putting pressure on a troubled relationship between the U.S. and the EU on data privacy. Since whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed U.S. mass surveillance practices affecting Europeans, the EU has tightened controls on how Washington handles Europeans’ data. Since the return of Donald Trump as president last year, officials and rights groups have deplored a move by the U.S. administration to gut a key privacy watchdog tasked with overseeing privacy safeguards in place to protect Europeans. The Trump administration has also been ramping up mass surveillance of citizens by federal agencies like ICE, including through contracts with Israeli spyware company Paragon, surveillance giant Palantir and other firms. Capgemini, a prominent French IT firm, on Sunday said it was selling off its American activities after it faced political backlash from the French government that its software was being used by ICE authorities. Civil rights groups, lawmakers and other watchdogs fear the new EU-U.S. data sharing deals would add to backsliding on privacy rights.    “The current initiatives are being presented as toward counter-terrorism, but a lot of them are actually adopted for the chilling effect [on political activism],” Statewatch’s Lanneau said. Hermida-van der Walle, the liberal lawmaker, warned: “If people have to go to the United States, if it’s not a choice but something that they have do, there is a risk of self-censoring.”  “This comes from an administration who claims to be the biggest defender of free speech. What they’re doing with their actions is curtailing the possibility of people to express themselves freely, because otherwise they might not get access into the country,” she said.

The three parties that have formed the new Dutch minority government have pitched raising the European minimum age for social media to 15, according to coalition plans unveiled on Friday. With the move, the Netherlands is the latest country to push for a de facto social media ban at 15, following France’s example. The three Dutch parties — the centrist D66, the Christian Democrat CDA and the liberal VVD — will still need to seek support for their proposals, as they hold only 66 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. The parties want an “enforceable European minimum age of 15 for social media, with privacy-friendly age verification for young people, as long as social media are not sufficiently safe,” they write in the plans. The current EU minimum age stands at 13. The coalition program also envisions a crackdown on screen time through prevention and health guidance, and stricter smartphone rules in schools, which will require devices to remain at home or in a locker. In June of last year, the previous Dutch government issued guidance to parents to wait until age 15 before allowing their children to use social media. Earlier this week, a bill to ban social media for users under 15 passed the French parliament’s lower chamber and could take effect in September. Australia paved the way by banning children from a range of platforms in December. The new Dutch government also is launching a push to become more digitally sovereign and to reduce “strategic dependencies” in areas such as cloud services and data. Eliza Gkritsi contributed to this report.

Nel giugno 2024, noyb aveva presentato due reclami riguardanti Microsoft 365 Education nelle scuole presso il DSB austriaco. Il primo reclamo è stato deciso nell'ottobre 2025. All'epoca, il DSB aveva stabilito che Microsoft aveva violato il diritto di accesso ai sensi dell'articolo 15 del GDPR. Il secondo reclamo, ora deciso, riguardava l'uso di cookie di tracciamento illeciti in Microsoft 365 Education. Nella sua decisione più recente, il DSB ha nuovamente accertato che Microsoft ha agito illecitamente. Nello specifico, l'azienda ha installato cookie di tracciamento sui dispositivi di un minore che utilizzava Microsoft 365 Education. Secondo la documentazione di Microsoft, questi cookie analizzano il comportamento dell'utente, raccolgono dati del browser e vengono utilizzati per scopi pubblicitari. Il DSB ha inoltre ordinato a Microsoft di cessare il tracciamento del denunciante entro quattro settimane. Sia la scuola che il Ministero dell'Istruzione austriaco hanno affermato di non essere a conoscenza di tali cookie di tracciamento prima dei reclami di noyb. Felix Mikolasch, avvocato specializzato in protezione dei dati presso noyb : "Tracciare i minori è chiaramente contrario alla privacy. Sembra che a Microsoft non importi molto della privacy, a meno che non sia per le sue dichiarazioni di marketing e pubbliche relazioni". Fonte in inglese qui

The deal creating a majority-American board for TikTok’s U.S. arm puts President Donald Trump’s allies in charge of yet another driver of American culture. The wildly popular short-form-video platform now joins CBS and the social media giant X among the stable of key communication channels that have come under more Trump-friendly management in recent years. The president has also taken more modest swings at reshaping the zeitgeist, from placing his stamp on the Kennedy Center to weighing in on television programming to appointing conservative actors to be his “eyes” and “ears” in Hollywood. But TikTok, which is used by over 200 million Americans according to the company, stands out from the rest because of its huge appeal among teens and pre-teens who form the next rising blocs of voters. For Trump’s critics, that means years of worries about TikTok acting as a vector for Beijing’s propaganda are giving way to fears that its algorithm could soon serve up a flood of far-right, pro-MAGA content to impressionable users. “We’ve seen the platform transfer from one set of owners, where there was one set of concerns about propaganda and privacy, to a new set of owners, where now there’s a new set of concerns about propaganda and privacy,” said Evan Greer, director of the progressive tech group Fight for the Future. Katie Harbath, a tech consultant and former longtime public policy director at Meta, said Trump recognizes “the importance of trying to have friends in these different places,” including TikTok. She said the president “understands the influence it has on what people think — and then ultimately, how people vote.” Trump himself expressed hope late Thursday that the deal could cement his place in young voters’ hearts. TikTok “will now be owned by a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World, and will be an important Voice,” the president wrote on his social media network Truth Social. “Along with other factors, it was responsible for my doing so well with the Youth Vote in the 2024 Presidential Election. I only hope that long into the future I will be remembered by those who use and love TikTok.” Spokespeople for TikTok and the White House did not respond to questions about how the deal could impact TikTok’s algorithm or boost right-leaning content on the platform. The long-awaited deal, carefully brokered by the White House, is intended to satisfy national security concerns with TikTok. A bipartisan law passed in 2024 required the platform’s China-based parent company to sell it to U.S. owners or face a full-scale ban. At the forefront of TikTok’s new ownership structure is Larry Ellison, billionaire co-founder and executive chair of the tech giant Oracle and a close Trump ally. Oracle first partnered with TikTok during Trump’s first term, when the president helped broker a deal that tapped Ellison’s company to help run the app’s U.S. operations. An Oracle spokesperson declined to comment. Meanwhile, Skydance Media, a media conglomerate led by Ellison’s son David, made a deal last year that gave it ownership of CBS News, then began making programming and news decisions widely seen as steering the network in a more pro-Trump direction. Those included installing new leadership at CBS and delaying the airing of a report on “60 Minutes” that was critical of Trump’s immigration policies. A spokesperson for Skydance Media did not respond to a request for comment. David Ellison is now vying to purchase the parent company of CNN — and, according to The Wall Street Journal, offered assurances to Trump administration officials that he would “make sweeping changes” to the news network. After Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, he rebranded the social media site as X and ripped away safeguards meant to stop the spread of disinformation and hateful content, while reinstating the accounts of far-right users whom the company had previously banned. (Twitter’s old management had even kicked Trump himself off its platform following the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill insurrection in 2021.) Several studies have since suggested that Musk’s changes prompted an increase in hateful content, pro-Trump content and pro-GOP content across the platform. A spokesperson for X did not respond to a request for comment. Now, some observers on both sides of the political divide say the same phenomenon could repeat under TikTok’s new owners. “What I’m more interested in is just sort of the cultural vibe shift that the change in ownership will bring,” said Harbath. She said TikTok’s fate could mirror what happened when Musk took over Twitter — “before he even made changes, there was kind of a mass exodus of people, particularly on the left, who left Twitter and went to Bluesky.” Only time will tell if TikTok goes the way of X under new management. Tilting its algorithm toward far-right content could cause users to flee the platform, potentially undermining its profitability — a fate some of TikTok’s new owners may be keen to avoid. “I haven’t heard anything to suggest that this is necessarily going to go in the Elon Musk direction,” said Lindsay Gorman, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s technology program. “Many of these investors were previous investors of TikTok originally.” Alex Bruesewitz, a Trump political adviser and head of X Strategies — the firm that manages the Team Trump TikTok account — said the president “has always been popular on TikTok,” and that people shouldn’t worry that the new owners will tweak its algorithm to boost Republicans. “The Democrats are the party that likes to dictate what social media companies do with their algorithms,” said Bruesewitz. “I don’t think that’s something that the Trump White House is interested in doing. I don’t think that they want to tell platforms how to run their businesses.” Amanda Carey Elliott, a Republican digital consultant, expressed discomfort at the notion of a “Republican billionaire pulling the levers of TikTok in our favor,” fearing it could drive moderates and independents off the app. “That said, you also have to understand where Republicans are coming from on this,” said Elliott. “For years and years, we were subjected to online censorship by platforms controlled by liberal Silicon Valley. Expecting to be censored has literally been built into our DNA, so you’ll probably be hard-pressed to find any Republican clutching their pearls at the thought of the left suddenly waking up one day to find themselves on the wrong side of an algorithm.” John Hendel contributed to this report.

La partnership di Ring con la società di sorveglianza Flock, avviata nell'ottobre 2025 , non si limita più a condividere i filmati con la polizia locale, ma si collega a un'enorme rete di dati federali che le forze dell'ordine per l'immigrazione già utilizzano per tracciare milioni di americani. I contratti standard di Flock con la polizia garantiscono alle agenzie federali l'accesso a dati condivisi per "scopi investigativi". Secondo rapporti documentati, una parte significativa dei clienti delle forze dell'ordine di Flock si è iscritta al loro "National Lookup Tool" , un sistema che aggrega i dati di sorveglianza di migliaia di agenzie in tutto il paese. I tuoi filmati volontari di sorveglianza di quartiere diventano parte di qualcosa di molto più grande. Si tratta di fatto di sorveglianza di massa attraverso la partecipazione volontaria dei cittadini. L'accesso documentato dell'ICE alle reti Flock trasforma le decisioni di polizia locale in strumenti di controllo dell'immigrazione. Ring si propone come un'organizzazione che promuove l'empowerment delle comunità, ma questa partnership con Flock rivela come il capitalismo della sorveglianza trasformi le buone intenzioni in infrastrutture di controllo. La notizia non è presente sui media italiani, si può leggere qualcosa qui

American investors have closed a $14 billion deal giving them control of the U.S. version of TikTok, raising a host of questions about what’s next for the social media app and its tens of millions of users. Under the new ownership structure, a group of investors led by Silicon Valley giant Oracle and the private equity firm Silver Lake will own more than 80 percent of the company, which draws 66 million daily users in the United States. The deal is intended to insulate the social media company from influence by China, avoiding a ban that Congress had mandated in 2024. TikTok released some information about the deal in a Thursday night announcement, but further details have yet to be made public, including whether it complies with the 2024 law. It is also uncertain whether the agreement sufficiently allays U.S. lawmakers’ concerns that the app endangers national security. Here are five crucial questions remaining about TikTok and its future: WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE ALGORITHM? TikTok’s algorithm has been key to the app’s success, as it’s remarkably effective at curating a continuous feed of videos that keep users scrolling. Lawmakers have expressed concern that the Chinese government could use the algorithm to push propaganda or surveil users, a key reason Congress passed legislation in 2024 requiring TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to spin off an American version of the app. In announcing the deal Thursday, TikTok said that the new owners “will retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on U.S. user data.” Those measures may allay some of the national security risks associated with the algorithm, but it’s unclear if they go far enough to satisfy the 2024 law, which prohibits “cooperation” between ByteDance and the U.S. version of TikTok on operating the algorithm. Previous reports indicated that the U.S. version of TikTok would license the algorithm from ByteDance, which could be another legal stumbling block if the agreement involves continued coordination between the two companies. “The central issue is whether the TikTok U.S. entity actually owns and controls the recommendation system, or whether it is merely licensing it,” said Chris Krebs, former director of the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “A license means ByteDance still retains leverage over what the U.S. platform shows its 170 million users.” WILL TIKTOK STILL BE BANNED ON GOVERNMENT DEVICES? Former President Joe Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act in 2022 to prohibit the use of the app on federal phones, tablets and other devices, and at least 39 states, including California and New York, passed similar bans. The House and Senate also have their own rules banning TikTok on federal devices. (President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, the White House and California Gov. Gavin Newsom all have active TikTok accounts, however.) Even with the deal in place, reversing the government device bans would require new legislation from federal and state lawmakers, which could prove to be a tall order. “The state bans presumably still can stay,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a former attorney adviser in the Justice Department’s national security division under President Barack Obama. “From a legal perspective, the president can’t overturn [the federal law].” COULD COMPANIES ENABLING TIKTOK STILL FACE CRIPPLING FINES UNDER A FUTURE ADMINISTRATION? TikTok temporarily went dark in the United States in January 2025 after the law forcing a sale or ban took effect. The app came back online a short time later after then President-elect Trump promised that no company, such as app stores or internet service providers, would face the law’s daily fine of $5,000 per user for flouting the ban, a penalty that could quickly add up to billions of dollars. But legal experts have consistently said an executive order or presidential promise doesn’t trump a law, especially one already upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. According to Rozenshtein, the 2024 law leaves open the possibility that a future administration could declare the new arrangement illegal. There’s a five-year statute of limitations for the government to challenge violations of federal laws. “Imagine a situation in which the new venture sells itself back to ByteDance — obviously you’d want the next president to be able to say you’re clearly not divested anymore,” Rozenshtein told POLITICO. “If a [future] president had those powers, then presumably the president would also have the powers to say: ‘This thing that my predecessor did was a lie to begin with, so obviously I’m yanking it.’” DOES THE DEAL ADDRESS THE NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS? A White House official previously told POLITICO that the deal would resolve Congress’ national security concerns because the Chinese government would not have access to American users’ data, and because ByteDance would have less than 20 percent ownership of the U.S. app. Even so, congressional Republicans have vowed to review the deal to ensure it follows the law. “I don’t know what the framework says — but anything short of that, the president would be violating congressional intent,” Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told POLITICO in September. St. John’s University internet law professor Kate Klonick said the law has enough wiggle room, and gives enough deference to the president, that the deal could pass muster for the time being. “The [deal] is probably sufficient for the law, because the law was sufficiently vague — but for the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law,” she said. “What people thought at the time were serious national security concerns [in 2024] now seems to kind of have been forgotten.” HOW DOES THE DEAL ADDRESS CONCERNS ABOUT CHINA ACCESSING PEOPLE’S DATA? Under the 2024 law, ByteDance and TikTok can’t enter into any data-sharing agreements. Thursday’s announcement says the new American venture will store user data in Oracle’s cloud, where it “will operate a comprehensive data privacy and cybersecurity program that is audited and certified by third party cybersecurity experts.” That might be enough, according to Adam Conner, vice president for technology policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “The data sharing question operationally should be solved by this [deal],” he told POLITICO. However, Conner noted that particulars around the operation of the algorithm and advertising may lead to violations of the law.

Le richieste assurde di Musk ad OpenAI mostrano che il business dell'IA potrebbe essere più fragile di quanto sembra; una puntata in cui tutto sembra girare intorno ai voleri delle grandi aziende statunitensi, dagli emendamenti europei al GDPR a... la violazione del copyright? Elon Musk cerca di destabilizzare OpenAI - rivale della sua xAI - tramite una richiesta di fondi smisurata. Non è detto che ci riuscirà, ma è un altro dato che ci conferma che le dinamiche azionarie prevalgono sulla reale capacità di queste aziende di fare profitti tramite la cosiddetta Intelligenza Artificiale. Anna's Archive incassa alcuni provvedimenti contrari: viene tolto il suo dominio dal DNS, e viene ordinata la cancellazione dei dati provenienti da WorldCat. Cogliamo l'occasione per fare qualche riflessione sull'uso di Anna's Archive da parte delle Big Tech nel contesto della configurazione degli LLM. Nell'Unione Europea, il Digital Omnibus si dimostra sempre più un provvedimento a misura di grandi aziende, con molti provvedimenti frutto del lavoro di lobbying. In contemporanea, la Francia spinge la commissione europea a ricercare soluzioni open source per sviluppare soluzioni tecnologiche che non dipendano dagli Stati Uniti. Notiziole: * In California una nuova legge sulla privacy rende più facile cancellare i dati presenti e futuri. * I tagli di Trump portano la CBS (corporation finanziata dal pubblico che raccoglieva le emittenti radio e tv pubbliche) all'autoscioglimento. * Il Vietnam vieta gli spot non-skippabili più lunghi di 5 secondi * Nell'Idaho, USA, una legge per cercare nuove materie prime nel sottosuolo include una lunga lista di minerali, tra cui alcuni inesistenti * Nel North Dakota, USA, il servizio meteorologico sperimenta l'uso di Intelligenza Artificiale, e si ritrova con le previsioni per città che non esistono * Roblox prova ad usare un sistema automatico per verificare l'età dell* utenti, ma il sistema fallisce in un gran numero di modi Ascolta la puntata sul sito di Radio Onda Rossa

LONDON — China has triumphed in its long-running battle to build a new mega embassy in London. Its opponents are already in fightback mode. Housing Secretary Steve Reed on Tuesday approved plans for the 20,000 square meter complex near the Tower of London days before U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to visit China to boost economic and diplomatic ties with Beijing. But with MPs across the spectrum still harboring concerns about the project — from the potential for espionage, to the targeting of Hong Kong and Uyghur exiles who have sought sanctuary in the U.K. — Tuesday’s decision is unlikely to mark the end of the saga. A local residents’ group opposed to the embassy is lining up senior lawyer Charles Banner, who has previously advised the U.K. government on different planning matters, to mount a legal challenge. And some of the prime minister’s own Labour Party lawmakers are considering offering their support, given it is realistically the only route left for them to oppose the plan. “The decision is now final unless it is successfully challenged in court,” Reed said in a statement announcing the decision on Tuesday. “MPs will be supportive of legal review,” said one Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal party discussions, said. “Many people, including ministers, are very uncomfortable on our side,” another MP added. In the House of Commons, critical MPs have repeatedly raised concerns about Chinese espionage efforts. They have highlighted reports that one of the dozens of secret rooms beneath the sprawling complex at Royal Mint Court would be a secret chamber sitting directly beside fibre-optic cables that not only transmit financial data to the banks of the City of London, but email and messaging traffic for millions of the capital’s internet users. The U.K. housing ministry said in a letter accompanying the decision that there is “no suggestion” the development will interfere with the cables. With allies of U.S. President Donald Trump also voicing concerns about the plan, there remain diplomatic dangers ahead for the U.K. government in approving China’s plans. In an interview published Sunday Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson said security concerns over the embassy “seem real to us.” The Trump administration has raised concerns with British diplomats behind the scenes, according to one U.K. official, granted anonymity like other officials quoted in this piece because they are not authorized to speak on the record. “They have been clear on their objections,” they said. THE ROAD TO APPROVAL China bought the vast site that once smelted British currency for £255 million back in 2018, under its plans for a grand expansion from its existing mission. The project was thwarted in 2022 when Tower Hamlets Council, the local authority responsible for granting planning permission, rejected its first application to develop the site, citing safety and security concerns. Beijing was furious, and sought to apply political pressure on the then-Conservative government. There remains suspicion that the U.K.’s own request to rebuild the British embassy in Beijing, which is “falling to pieces,” is being blocked in a tit-for-tat battle, according to a former senior official. Intermittent water supply problems at the U.K.’s Beijing embassy have been seen by some in London as an attempt to apply political pressure. “They thought what they needed to do was hold us to ransom —give us the planning for ours otherwise we won’t let you do yours in Beijing,” the former official said. After Starmer’s Labour Party won the U.K. general election in July 2024 China resubmitted the embassy plans without significant changes, and in October that year ministers “called in” the plans to make a quasi-judicial decision.  Before the decision was made, the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned Britain would “bear all consequences” if it was rejected. That decision was published on Tuesday ahead of Starmer’s long-planned trip to China. Reed stressed the “quasi-judicial” decision had been made “fairly, based on evidence and planning rules.” LEGAL THREATS LOOM  But a local residents’ association opposed to the embassy plan has already indicated it plans to request a judicial review. It is fundraising for its legal challenge, and hopes to lodge an appeal within weeks of the government decision. Mark Nygate, treasurer of the Royal Mint Court Residents’ Association, which represents 100 leaseholders who live in neighboring apartments, said: “We are going to have to fight our corner and attempt to do a judicial review. “We’re really concerned about our safety and privacy — and whether we’ll be moved off the land,” the 65-year-old added. The group is unlikely to apply for a review before Starmer returns from China, as they will first have to comb through the report published with the decision. Nygate said the group is considering arguing the decision was “pre-determined” by the government before the review. Ministers deny any political interference.  But one option the group has, Nygate explained, is to point to Starmer’s remarks, caught on camera during his first meeting with China’s Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Brazil in November 2024, in which the U.K. PM noted that the Chinese president had raised the embassy with him during their August 2024 phone call. “And we’ve since taken action by calling in that application — now we have to follow the legal process and timeline,” the PM said.  Nygate said: “All along the line it seems the government’s finger prints have been on this.” Banner, who, according to two people involved in legal challenge plans, is being lined up to lead the action, has previously advised the government on how to reduce the time a judicial review can take on infrastructure projects. Yet even if the residents’ legal challenge is unsuccessful, the judicial review could still prevent building work starting for years as the challenge makes its way through the courts. With all Labour’s main political rivals opposing the embassy, the political climate could change after August 2029 — the deadline for the next general election.

The Trump administration is lashing out at foreign laws aimed at clamping down on online platforms that have gained outsized influence on people’s attention — while trying to avoid launching new trade wars that could threaten the U.S. economy. Over the past month, U.S. officials have paused talks on a tech pact with the United Kingdom, canceled a trade meeting with South Korean officials and issued veiled threats at European companies over policies they believe unfairly penalize U.S. tech giants. Several tech policy professionals and people close to the White House say the recent actions amount to a “negotiating tactic,” in the words of one former U.S. trade official. As talks continue with London, Brussels and Seoul, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is pressing partners to roll back digital taxes on large online platforms and rules aimed at boosting online privacy protections — measures U.S. officials argue disproportionately target America’s tech behemoths. “It’s telegraphing that we’ve looked at this deeply, we think there’s a problem, we’re looking at tools to address it and we’re looking at remedies if we don’t come to an agreement,” said Everett Eissenstat, who served as the director of the National Economic Council in Trump’s first term. “It’s not an unprecedented move, but naming companies like that and telegraphing that we have targets, we have tools, is definitely meaningful.” But so far, the administration has shied away from new tariffs or other aggressive actions that could upend tentative trade agreements or upset financial markets. And the new tough talk may not be enough to placate some American tech companies, who are pressing for action. One possible action, floated by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, would be launching investigations into unfair digital trade practices, which would allow the administration to take action against countries that impose digital regulations on U.S. companies. “I would just say that’s the next level of escalation. I think that’s what people are waiting for and looking for,” said a representative from a major tech company, granted anonymity to speak candidly and discuss industry expectations. “What folks are looking for is like action over the tweets, which, we love the tweets. Everyone loves the tweets.” Trump used similar investigations to justify raising tariffs on hundreds of Chinese imports in his first term. But those investigations take time, and it can be years before any increases would go into effect. Greer has also been careful to hedge threats of new trade probes, stressing they are not meant to spiral into a broader conflict. Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last week, he floated launching a trade investigation into the EU’s digital policies, but said the goal would be a “negotiated outcome,” not an automatic path to higher tariffs. “I don’t think we’re in a world where we want to have some renewed trade fight or something with the EU — that’s not what we’re talking about,” Greer said. “We want to finish off our deal and implement it,” he continued, referring to the trade pact the partners struck over the summer. Greer also raised the prospect of a trade probe in private talks with South Korea earlier this fall, saying the U.S. might have to resort to such action if the country continues to pursue legislation the administration views as harmful to U.S. tech firms. But a White House official clarified that the U.S. was not yet considering such a “heavy-handed approach.” Even industry officials aren’t certain how aggressive they want the Trump administration to be, acknowledging that if the U.S. escalated its fight with the EU over their tech regulations, it could spark a digital trade war that would ultimately end up harming all of the companies involved, according to a former USTR official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. President Donald Trump has long criticized the tech regulations — pioneered by the European Union and now proliferating around the globe. But he’s made the issue a much more central part of his second-term trade agenda, with mixed results. While Trump’s threat to cut off trade talks with Canada got Prime Minister Mark Carney to rescind their three percent tax on revenue earned by large online platforms, his administration has struggled to make headway with the EU, UK and South Korea in the broader trade negotiations over tariffs. The tentative trade deal the administration reached with the EU over the summer included a commitment from the bloc to address “unjustified digital trade barriers” and a pledge not to impose network usage fees, but left the scope and direction of future discussions largely undefined. The agreement fleshed out with South Korea this fall appeared to go even further, spelling out commitments that regulations governing online platforms and cross-border data flows won’t disadvantage American companies. But none of those governments have so far caved to U.S. pressure to abandon their digital regulations entirely, and the canceled talks and threatening social media posts are a sign of Trump’s growing frustration. “You won’t be surprised to know that what we think is fair treatment and what they think is fair treatment is quite different and I’ve been quite frankly disappointed over the past few months to see zero moderation by the EU,” Greer said Dec. 10 at an event at the Atlantic Council. Last week, Greer’s office amped up the rhetoric further, threatening to take action against major European companies like Spotify, German automation company Siemens and Mistral AI, the French artificial intelligence firm, if the EU doesn’t back off enforcement of its digital rules. The threat came a week after the EU fined X, the company formerly known as Twitter, $140 million for failing to meet EU transparency rules. Greer’s office also canceled a meeting planned for last Thursday with South Korean officials, as South Korean lawmakers introduced new digital legislation and held an explosive hearing on a data breach at Coupang, an American-headquartered e-commerce company whose largest market is in South Korea. The South Korean Embassy denied any relationship between the Coupang hearing and the cancellation of the recent meeting. “Neither Coupang’s data breach, the subsequent investigation by the Korean government, nor the National Assembly’s hearing played a role in the scheduling of the KORUS Joint Committee,” said an embassy official. The canceled meetings and frozen talks are significant — delaying implementation of bare bones trade agreements and investment pledges inked in recent months. But the Trump administration has shown little interest in blowing up the deals its reached and reapplying the steep tariffs it threatened over the summer, which could trigger significant retaliation and, as concerns about affordability and inflation continue to simmer in the U.S., prove politically dicey. Launching trade investigations at USTR or fining specific foreign companies could be a less inflammatory move. “What is happening is that these issues are starting to come to a head,” said Dirk Auer, a Director of Competition Policy International Center for Law & Economics, who focuses on antitrust issues and recently testified before Congress on digital services laws. “At some point the administration has to put up or shut up. They need to put their money where their mouth is. And I think that’s what’s happening right now.” Gabby Miller contributed to this report.