Reputation & Privacy news

One of the more distressing trends to emerge over lockdown has been a significant rise in instances of “revenge porn.” According to figures published by The Revenge Porn Helpline, 2020 saw an 87% rise in the number of people they supported compared to the previous year and they estimate that 25% of women, and 30% of men, have shared an intimate image or believe someone has one of them. Clearly this is both a widespread and pressing issue. With our digital age... Read More

During yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, the government revealed a draft version of the Online Safety Bill, a landmark attempt to try to prevent harmful content being shared online. The bill is the most recent stage of the government’s response to the Online Harms White Paper first published in April 2019, which aimed to “usher in a new age of accountability for tech companies”, ensuring that this accountability is “commensurate with the role they play... Read More

Social media is not often a place of polite disagreement. Instead, constrained by character limits and emboldened by the onlooking crowds, the red mist descends and what began as a debate can quickly descend into something more vicious, personal and aggressive. With political and social divides seemingly more exacerbated than in any time in recent memory, these clashes are only becoming more frequent. Frequency, however, does not mean these incidents are above the... Read More

Appearing on the Andrew Pierce show on Friday 2 April, Rory Lynch, a Senior Associate in the Reputation & Privacy team, discussed the rise of deep fakes, their potential for harm and what could be done to regulate them. You can listen to the full interview by clicking this link and navigating to 7:23. Andrew Pierce: What do deep fake apps do? Rory Lynch: Essentially, deep fakes are manipulated videos - they are fake videos which appear to show someone... Read More

The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2021, published last week, revealed that 39% of all businesses have been impacted by a cyber-attack or breach this year. The survey, commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, has been analysing the risk of cyber attacks across the UK economy since 2016. In order to reach their findings, DCMS conducted a random probability telephone survey of 1,419 UK businesses between October 2020 and January 2021, which was then... Read More

As the dust began to settle following Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey, Rory Lynch, a Senior Associate in our Reputation & Privacy department was invited to join the Wright on the Nail podcast to examine the fallout. Hosted by Chris Wright, a prolific producer and founder of Chrysalis Records, the podcast takes a close look at the biggest media stories of the week, bringing together a diverse panel of voices and opinions. For this... Read More

Appearing on ITV News’ flagship broadcast last night, Alex McCready, Head of Reputation and Privacy at Vardags, discussed the upcoming interview between Harry, Meghan Markle and Oprah Winfrey. The interview, which is due to be broadcast on the US channel CBS late on Sunday, before being repeated for British audiences on Monday on ITV, has dominated headlines over the last week, with many anticipating some explosive revelations. A further subplot was added earlier this week... Read More

After blocking all news websites from the feeds of Australian users last week, Facebook have now backed down, and restored news content, after announcing a deal with the Australian government. Facebook’s unprecedented decision to restrict what Australian users were able to see was the result of a proposed piece of legislation which would force tech giants to pay news publishers for hosting their content. The move caused widespread backlash with many believing it demonstrated... Read More

The steady move from marketing in traditional media to online platforms has always been accompanied by the development of assistive technologies. From cookies to the creation of psychometric profiles for individual users, marketers and advertisers are constantly searching for ways to refine their approach based on the characteristics of those they wish to target. This, of course, is not a new phenomenon and is not solely a product of a digital age: whereas advertisers may have... Read More