Posts by Mike Knight
Businesses Choose Proxies As VPNs Face Rising Scrutiny
A growing number of UK companies are moving away from VPNs and adopting proxy services instead, while regulatory pressures and changing business needs reshape the digital tools used for online operations. Regulatory Drivers Behind the Shift The trigger for this apparent trend has been the UK’s Online Safety Act, which came into force on 25…
Read MoreUK Backs Down In Apple Privacy Row
The UK government has backed down from its demand that Apple create a “back door” into its encrypted systems, ending a high-profile dispute that drew in Washington and sparked widespread criticism from privacy campaigners and industry experts. How the Row Began The confrontation began late last year when the UK Home Office issued Apple with…
Read MoreNew AI ‘Always-On’ Smart Glasses With ‘Infinite Memory’
Two former Harvard students are preparing to launch a pair of ‘always-on’ AI smart glasses that record and transcribe every conversation, which offers wearers an unprecedented digital memory and real-time information, but which also raises concerns about privacy and surveillance. Who Is Behind the Project? The device, named Halo X, has been developed by AnhPhu…
Read MoreHow Your ‘Metadata’ Helps Scammers
In this tech insight, we look at how hidden metadata (embedded in files, emails, images and documents) is increasingly being used by scammers to profile, deceive and attack UK businesses, and how firms can protect themselves. What Is Metadata and Why Does It Matter to Businesses? Metadata is often described as “data about data”. It…
Read More300,000 + Grok Chats Exposed Online
Hundreds of thousands of conversations with Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot have been discovered in Google Search results, while China has released DeepSeek V3.1 as a direct rival to GPT-5, together raising urgent questions about privacy, competition and security in the AI market. How the Grok Leak Happened The exposure of Grok transcripts was first reported…
Read MorePollinger’s Productivity : August 2025
Age Verification on Socials and Apps The Online Safety Act has intensified the spotlight on how social platforms and apps verify users’ ages. For years, companies like Meta have quietly used behind-the-scenes tools to detect underage users. But newer platforms are taking more overt approaches. Bluesky, for example, now relies on three third-party providers for…
Read MoreWikipedia Loses High Court Challenge Against UK Online Safety Act
Wikipedia has lost its High Court challenge against the UK’s Online Safety Act, a ruling that could have far-reaching implications for how the online encyclopaedia operates in Britain and how the wider internet is regulated. What Was the Challenge About? The case was brought by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that runs Wikipedia, alongside…
Read MoreUK Police Expands Usage of Facial Recognition Vans
The UK Government has announced the deployment of 10 new Live Facial Recognition (LFR) vans across seven police forces in England, saying the move will help officers track down suspects wanted for some of the most serious crimes. What? On 13 August, the Home Office confirmed that vans equipped with live facial recognition cameras will…
Read MoreHMRC’s AI Scans Tax-Cheats Social Media
HM Revenue & Customs has confirmed it is using artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor the social media accounts of suspected tax cheats, in what it says is a targeted approach aimed at tackling fraud and reducing the UK’s tax gap. Using Algorithms The disclosure came after recent reports in The Telegraph revealed HMRC was using…
Read MorePerplexity Makes $34.5 Billion Bid for Google’s Chrome
AI start-up Perplexity has made a surprise $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser, a move that has shocked the tech industry and raised questions about antitrust pressure, corporate ambition, and whether such a deal could ever succeed. Perplexity Perplexity is a San Francisco-based company founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, a former Google and…
Read More