Michael Veale

@[email protected]
6K Followers
1.3K Following
2.4K Posts

Professor of Technology Law and Policy 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 .

websitehttps://michae.lv
matrixmv:matrix.michae.lv
encrypted emailhttps://files.michae.lv/encryption.txt
bsky@michae.lv
Michael Veale10h ago
Some injunctive success against ICE tracking app store takedowns pressured by the US DoJ. Law not very good at constraining implicit state power and threats though, esp where plaintiff isn’t the threatened party. Incentive to kiss the ring can be too great. https://www.theverge.com/policy/914619/trump-administration-violated-first-amendment-ice-tracking
Judge rules Trump administration violated the First Amendment in fight against ICE-tracking

ICE Sightings - Chicago Land and Eyes Up won a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration for violating their First Amendment rights.

The Verge
Michael Veale1d ago
i’ve moved everything to rss and built a load of automatic parsers for non rss sites and ngos and think tanks and whatever and a way to rss any journal that issues dois and it’s so calm and peaceful
Michael Veale2d ago
Show threadjon crowcroft2d ago
@mikarv didn't photocopier makers have to put in filters to stop people copying paper currency for, like, forever, already?
Michael Veale2d ago
If Anthropic's Mythos is 'too dangerous to release', then we have to ask (as cybersecurity firm Aisle did): why did smaller, open-source models also find the same vulnerabilities as Anthropic reported as revealed by their 'frontier' capabilities? https://aisle.com/blog/ai-cybersecurity-after-mythos-the-jagged-frontier
AI Cybersecurity After Mythos: The Jagged Frontier

Why the moat is the system, not the model

AISLE
Michael Veale2d ago
Client-side scanning comes to 3D printing, with proposals to have printers forced to embed algorithms to scan for weapons. Printing weapons is a bad thing, but so is ubiquitous surveillance from your own devices. A dangerous model for other areas. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/stop-new-yorks-attack-3d-printing
Stop New York's Attack on 3D Printing

New York's proposed 2026-2027 budget currently includes provisions that will require all 3D printers sold in the state to run print-blocking censorware—software that surveils every print for forbidden designs. This policy would also create felony charges for possessing or sharing certain design files. The vote on the state budget could happen as early as next week, so New Yorkers need to act fast and demand that their Assemblymembers and Senators strip this provision from the budget.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Michael Veale4d ago

“Homework help” service Chegg fined $500K in federal court under Australais’s academic cheating laws https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2026/330.html

We wrote about these laws a couple of years back. They’re so broad, that some arguably make providing generic AI systems a criminal offence https://doi.org/10.1080/13600834.2024.2352692

Chief Executive Officer of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency v Chegg, Inc. [2026] FCA 330 (27 March 2026)

Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), a joint facility of UTS and UNSW Faculties of Law.

Michael Veale6d ago
US now turning to grand juries as a potential way — circumventing immediate first amendment arguments — to force intermediaries like Reddit to de-anonymise users who are criticising government policy https://theintercept.com/2026/04/10/reddit-ice-protest-grand-jury/
A Redditor Criticized ICE. Trump Is Trying to Unmask Them by Dragging the Company to a Secret Grand Jury.

An ICE summons to get the user’s identity failed. Advocates worry the move to a grand jury signals an escalation of the war on dissent.

The Intercept
Michael VealeApr 12
Apple user being advised data is unrecoverable after iOS update removes the ability to enter certain Czech accented characters, which are in his password (a háček), from the lock screen keyboard. https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/12/ios_passcode_bug/
Apple update looks like Czech mate for locked-out iPhone user

: Lock-screen keyboard no longer accepts háček in student's alphanumeric passcode

The Register
Michael VealeApr 9
MediagazerApr 9

Meta begins removing dozens of Facebook and Instagram ads that trial lawyers placed to reach eligible plaintiffs, after social media addiction trial losses (Dan Primack/Axios)

https://www.axios.com/2026/04/09/meta-social-media-addiction-ads
http://mediagazer.com/260409/p9#a260409p9

Scoop: Meta removes ads for social media addiction litigation

This comes just two weeks after Meta and YouTube were found negligent in a landmark case about social media addiction.

Axios
Michael VealeApr 9

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@josephcox/116374994792773696

Apple's lack of iOS documentation on what happens within its operating system creates real issues when the threat moves to the hardest zone to defend against — a compromised device. Their Platform Security documentation should consider this threat model too. https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-security-guide.pdf