Porn company fined £1m for inadequate age checks, hundreds of UK moderators leave TikTok

Ofcom has fined a porn company £1m for failing to put in place sufficiently robust age checks – the biggest penalty it has imposed so far under the Online Safety Act. The Act makes it a legal requirement for websites that host pornographic material to put in place what the regulator determines to be “highly effective age assurance” to prevent children from being able to easily access explicit content. Ofcom said AVS Group Ltd, which runs 18 adult websites, had failed to do this, so was being fined £1m, plus £50,000 for failing to respond to information requests. BBC 

Hundreds of UK online safety workers at TikTok have already signed agreements to leave the company, whistleblowers have told Sky News, despite the firm stressing to MPs that the cuts were “still proposals only”. More than 400 online safety workers have agreed to leave the social media company, with only five left in consultation, Sky News understands. “[The workers have] signed a mutual termination agreement, a legally binding contract,” said John Chadfield, national officer for the Communication Workers’ Union. Sky News 

Facial recognition technology could be used more often by UK police forces, according to new plans announced by the Home Office. A 10-week publication consultation on how to regulate the technology and protect people’s privacy has been launched, which could pave the way for new laws. Facial recognition has been used by some police forces since 2017 to find wanted suspects and vulnerable people, as well as monitoring live events. Policing and crime minister, Sarah Jones, believes a wider roll-out could mark “the biggest breakthrough” in catching criminals since DNA analysis. But rights groups are worried the technology is too invasive. BBC 

O2, Vodafone, EE and Three are facing a huge class action lawsuit in the UK over claims millions of loyal customers have been overcharged. Named the loyalty penalty claim, the case alleges that companies were charging long-standing customers for their handsets beyond their contractual term. It claims up to 10.9 million phone contracts were affected between 1 October 2015 and 31 March this year. The lawsuit seeks damages of at least £1.141bn. SkyNews 

Sam Altman has declared a “code red” at OpenAI to improve ChatGPT as the chatbot faces intense competition from rivals. According to a report by tech news site the Information, the chief executive of the San Francisco-based startup told staff in an internal memo: “We are at a critical time for ChatGPT.” OpenAI has been rattled by the success of Google’s latest AI model, Gemini 3, and is devoting more internal resources to improving ChatGPT. The Guardian 

Availability of energy will determine the prices charged by datacenter operators, who won’t be viable unless they generate some of their own juice. So says Bob Johnson, a VP analyst at Gartner, which on Tuesday published research titled “Emerging Tech: Top Trends in Data Center Power Provisioning.” Johnson opens by suggesting the AI boom means “newer and larger data centers are being built at a rate that exceeds the support infrastructure that supports it – notably, the traditional power utilities’ ability to supply sufficient electricity.” The Register 

Jaguar’s controversial rebrand has been thrown into doubt after the British car manufacturer ousted its long-serving design chief. Advertising and business experts said the car company’s new “woke” image was likely to be toned down after Jaguar Land Rover (JLR)’s long-time chief creative officer, Gerry McGovern, was dismissed on Monday. Prof David Bailey, an industrial expert at the Birmingham Business School, said Mr McGovern’s ousting was “much more than a routine management reshuffle”. Telegraph