FIPR has submitted a response to the Ofcom consultation on its work plan for 2026, arguing that the UK needs an ambitious programme of technically-informed work on the digital rights, privacy, and information policy issues that we currently face. We outline key challenges for 2026-27 in relation to AI and communications services, emerging cross-jurisdictional flashpoints and ‘digital sovereignty’, age checks with regard to user-to-user regulated services, and debate and policy on social media and children. Across these policy areas, we suggest that Ofcom engage in further consultation with technical expert groups, including FIPR, on the benefits and negative consequences of potential technical designs, and what is possible — in technical terms — for the implementation of desired government policy, rather than leaving crucial decisions in the hands of industry or for post-legislative implementation.
We emphasise the importance of policymakers and regulators’ engagement with technical stakeholders and expertise from outside the platform and ‘big tech’ industries, and of renewed consideration of the negative consequences of potential technical designs and restrictions. It is particularly important to consider the challenges — differing technical consequences, effects on rights, and harms — posed for marginalised groups who, in the context of a global resurgence of far right politics, face both the most acute harms in online spaces and the most immediate potential for negative consequences from intensified digital surveillance. We recommend that Ofcom commission further research work on currently proposed technological approaches to regulating platform-based public communication. FIPR is committed to the production of non-partisan expertise in technology and information policy, and would be delighted to support Ofcom in this role, along with stakeholders from civil society.
Our full response to the consultation can be read here.