United Kingdom

The most popular form of surveillance was monitoring active work hours, with 54 percent saying this was going on, and employees' emails and chat logs were also examined by employers (36 percent and 28 percent, respectively).

One in five confirmed they track the locations from which employees are working – bad news for the digital nomads

The rise - higher than stated last month - will see the average annual bill rise to £603, but there are significant variations between regions.

Water companies have committed extra money for investment in infrastructure, such as reservoirs, and more help for struggling customers.

However, consumer groups are warning the rise means more households will fall into debt.

Regulator Ofwat outlined forecast bill rises in December, which would cover the next five years.

But the bill rises for the year from April, external, announced by industry body Water UK, are higher than those announced by Ofwat as the calculations now include inflation - so account for rising prices that suppliers face.

The average bill increase equates to around £10 a month, from £40 to £50, but millions of households face even steeper rises.

Southern Water customers told they will see a 47% increase to £703 a year while Hafren Dyfrdwy and South West Water bills are rising by 32%.

Thames Water customers have been warned they will see a 31% hike and Yorkshire Water is raising bills by 29%.

Bournemouth Water customers will also see a 32% increase to their bills.

Other factors, such as whether a customer is metered and how much water they use, means the bill changes will vary considerably for customers depending on their circumstances.

Bill rises for the next five years are being front-loaded, with a big increase this April so that spending on new infrastructure, such as new reservoirs, can get going.

Hindu nationalism, misogyny and the “manosphere” have been identified as breeding grounds for extremism in a leaked report commissioned by Yvette Cooper after last summer’s riots.

The home secretary’s “rapid analytical sprint” also dismissed claims of “two-tier policing” as a “rightwing extremist narrative”. It argued that the authorities should adopt a “behaviour-based and ideologically agnostic approach” to clamping down on extremism rather than focus resources primarily on “ideologies of concern”.

Cooper commissioned the rapid review in August. For the first time, it identifies Hindu nationalist extremism, and Hindutva, as ideologies of concern after unrest in Leicester in 2022.

“Hindu nationalist extremism is an extremist ideology that advocates for Hindu supremacy and seeks to transform India into an ethno-religious Hindu state.

“Hindutva is a political movement distinct from Hinduism which advocates for the hegemony of Indian Hindus and the establishment of a monolithic Hindu Rastra or state in India,” the report said.

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Under the heading “extreme misogyny”, the report said “an online subculture called the ‘manosphere’ contains a significant amount of content directly focused on misogyny, and sometimes absorbs extremist rightwing tropes. { “The ‘manosphere’ encompasses a wide array of communities that include men’s rights activists; pickup artists; men going their own way; and involuntary celibates or ‘incels’.

“There is an overlap between some manosphere narratives, in particular incel beliefs, and extreme rightwing [ERW] ideology including racist narratives. Globalisation and multiculturalism, which are at the centre of many ERW narratives, are often blamed as factors in incels’ celibacy.” { The report also says that the activity of grooming gangs is frequently exploited by the far right, and that rightwing extremist ideologies and beliefs are “leaking” into the mainstream.

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In a recommendation that will concern activists, the report calls for the creation of a “dedicated national investigations capability” to “coordinate and take on protest and low-level extremism operations and investigations” and a digital “national centre of excellence for the monitoring and disruption of protest”.

It recommends “reversing” a code of practice, brought in by the previous government, to limit the recording of “non-crime hate incidents” against individuals. Non-crime hate incidents have been criticised as a waste of police time and a threat to free speech.

The report follows claims made last week by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, in the wake of the Southport killings, where he equated extreme violence with extremism and likened terrorism to any act that terrorises.

Starmer’s comments were criticised by the former police counter-terror commander Neil Basu and by the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, for bringing too much into scope.

I'm still amazed nobody made more noise about the fact she wasn't charged.

One can only possibly wonder why the usual suspects complaining about two tier policing and people getting away with crimes (even when convicted with lengthy sentences, yeah makes no sense) when they should be punished didn't seem too bothered about this.

From Monday, accredited journalists can speak to families about their ongoing cases, report what they see and hear in court, and quote from key documents – provided they keep those families anonymous.

Family courts determine cases that have profound effects on family lives, like deciding whether children should be taken into care or which parent they should live with.

Hearings are held in private, and while journalists have been allowed to attend since 2009 they have had no right to report.

Monday's change follows a two-year "transparency pilot" which began with three court centres and now covers almost half the family courts in England and Wales.

Using the pilot, the BBC has reported on multiple cases, including one in Cardiff Family Court where a young mother, whom we called Bethan, had to spend £30,000 to protect her young daughter.

Her ex-husband, the child's father, had been convicted of multiple paedophiliac offences.

The Family Court agreed he should lose parental rights over the little girl.

Bethan told us she thought the new regime was "fantastic news". She said "allowing reporting in the Family Court sheds light on issues that the public should have the right to know about".

Her daughter, she said, was now thriving.

"She has an empathy and sympathy for her little friends that simply couldn't have developed if she were being brutalised in the way that her father's victims were. Thanks to the Family Court judgement, she stands a chance at having a full and happy life."

BBC reporting of Bethan's case led the then-MP Harriet Harman to campaign to change the law on parental access – which is now under way.

In the future, no other parents in Bethan's position would have to go to court to remove parental rights from those convicted of the most serious paedophiliac offences.

Gig economy companies supplying “freelance” workers to shops, restaurants and warehouses may be operating illegally, the government has warned, after a series of Observer reports highlighting their use.

Justin Madders, the employment rights minister, last week wrote to YoungOnes and Temper, which provide thousands of purportedly self-employed workers to British businesses, to tell them their business practices could be breaching employment law and staffing agency regulations.

In almost identical letters to the Dutch-owned platforms, Madders states that “bogus self-employment is entirely unacceptable” and he will “not hesitate to ask all relevant authorities to scrutinise employers or agencies whose behaviour appears to be exploitative”.

Madders is concerned the freelance workers on the platforms are not receiving employment rights. He adds it is unacceptable for businesses to claim people are self-employed “when it does not represent the reality of the relationship”.

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The letters come after the Observer revealed gig shop workers who refused to pay charges to YoungOnes to receive their wages within three days were left waiting for payment over Christmas.

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The new payment system has led to further complaints against YoungOnes. Workers who decline to pay a fee to receive their wages quickly have to wait for clients to pay YoungOnes, which can cause difficulties for gig workers, who cannot rely on a regular wage packet to pay bills.

Gen Z’s in their teens or in their twenties are far less likely to be atheists than their parents and grandparents, with many more identifying as “spiritual”, a new study has revealed.

The research counters assumptions that spirituality is on the decline and in fact implies God is “making a comeback”, with the younger generation the least likely to call themselves atheists, while middle-aged Generation X proving the most.

The survey of 10,000 people found only 13 per cent of under 25s identified as atheists, whereas 62 per cent of 18 to 24 year olds said they are “very” or “fairly” spiritual.

Comparatively, the poll conducted by OnePoll showed as many as a quarter of those aged between 45 and 60 called themselves an atheist.

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Christopher Gasson, who commissioned the research, called the results “gobsmacking” and told The Times they imply that God is “making a comeback” in the UK.

But Mr Gasson, who is the author of The Devil’s Gospels: Finding God in Four Great Atheist Books, did add: “I imagine many church leaders will be rubbing their hands thinking this is the answer to their prayers but unfortunately for them, it isn’t... Whatever the survey might say about young people being more spiritual and religious than old people, it is equally clear that they are put off by established religion.”

Gen Z’s responses to how they “feed” their sense of the spiritual included “enjoying nature” and “mindfulness”, not “participating in religious practices”.

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According to a report last week, Gen Z are in fact more likely to be interested in astrology, with social media platforms such as TikTok seeing a boom in astrology-based feeds. Co-Star, an American app combining Nasa data and content from astrologers, rocketed from 7.5 million global users in 2020 to 30 million in 2023, while spending on astrology-related products is projected to grow to $22.8bn by 2031, up from $12.8bn in 2021.

When your mailbag brims with 25,000 letters and emails every day, deciding which to answer first is daunting. When lurking within are pleas for help from some of the country’s most vulnerable people, the stakes only get higher.

That is the challenge facing the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as correspondence floods in from benefit applicants and claimants – of which there are more than 20 million, including pensioners, in the UK. The DWP thinks it may have found a solution in using artificial intelligence to read it all first – including handwritten missives.

Human reading used to take weeks and could leave the most vulnerable people waiting for too long for help. But “white mail” is an AI that can do the same work in a day and supposedly prioritise the most vulnerable cases for officials to get to first.

By implication, it deprioritises other people, so its accuracy and how it reaches its judgments count, but both matters remain opaque. Despite a ministerial mandate, it is one of numerous public sector algorithms yet to be logged on the transparency register for central government AIs.

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People who work with benefit claimants are now voicing “serious concerns” about how the system handles sensitive personal data.

Meagan Levin, the policy and public affairs manager at Turn2us, a charity which helps people facing financial insecurity, said the system “raises concerns, particularly around the lack of transparency and its handling of highly sensitive personal data, including medical records and financial details. Processing such information without claimants’ knowledge and consent is deeply troubling.”

According to the information so far released, the data is encrypted before the originals are deleted, and is held by the DWP and its cloud computing provider. The name of the provider is one of many pieces of information about the system that have been redacted.

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/95793

WH Smith is in secret talks to sell its entire high street business in Britain more than 230 years after it opened its first shop in central London.

Sky News can exclusively reveal that the listed retail group, which has a market capitalisation of almost £1.5bn, has been in negotiations with a number of prospective buyers of the division for several weeks.

WH Smith will confirm the plan to the London Stock Exchange on Monday morning.

The company's high street arm comprises roughly 500 stores, employing about 5,000 people across the country.

It is currently part of the same group as WH Smith's faster-growing, more profitable travel retail business which operates from airports, train stations and hospitals.

The travel retail business comprises 600 shops in the UK, roughly half of a global operation numbering about 1,200 travel retail outlets.

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Run by Carl Cowling, chief executive, the disposal of its high street arm and repositioning as a pure-play travel retail company is likely to be welcomed by investors, one analyst said this weekend.

WH Smith's high street division, which recorded flat operating profit of £32m last year, still largely sells greeting cards, books and stationery, while the travel arm has a wider offering of food and drink, and technology products.

The travel business now accounts for 75% of the company's revenue, and 85% of profits, reflecting its higher margins.

It is growing particularly quickly in the US market.

The company's retail business in hospitals is also growing rapidly, with 145 stores in 100 hospitals across the UK, and scope for openings in 200 further sites, it said in its last set of results in November.

News of the potential sale represents a watershed moment in the history of the British high street.

WHSmith's first store was opened in 1792 by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in Little Grosvenor Street, London.

Also interesting is this other story from The Guardian:

We tried out DeepSeek. It worked well, until we asked it about Tiananmen Square and Taiwan

Prevent’s assessment of the danger posed by Axel Rudakubana followed policy at the time, an official review will find but it will criticise the scheme for rejecting extra help to tackle his interest in violence.

This week the government is expected to publish the review into Prevent’s handling of the three referrals of Rudakubana, the last of which was three years before he commited his atrocity on a school summer holiday dance class in Southport.

The decisions of Prevent, the official scheme to spot people before they become terrorists, have been criticised by the prime minister, and the government has announced inquiries into what it does and how wide its remit is.

Sir Peter Fahy, the former police lead for Prevent, warned the revelations about the scheme’s three rejections of adopting Rudakubana’s case – which were first reported by the Guardian – have plunged counter-terrorism into one of its worst reputational crises.

Some in policing compare their willingness to answer questions after Rudakubana changed his plea to guilty last Monday to those in mental health and other sectors, who they say have avoided answering questions.

Prevent learning reviews are not usually made public but the government has decided to make an exception for the one into the Southport killer. Some of the families worst affected by the atrocity have had access to a copy since Friday.

Counter-terrorism policing is bracing itself for further criticism when it is made public, as Rudakubana had been deemed unsuitable for Prevent because he did not follow any ideology.

Fahy said: “counter-terrorism policing has been damaged reputationally, it has been in the forefront of criticism. There is a misunderstanding about what Prevent is about.

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Neil Basu, the former head of counter-terrorism, told the Guardian a new scheme should be set up to tackle those obsessed with extreme violence, and Prevent’s focus on spotting terrorists should not be diluted.

He said: “The narrative danger of the current conversation is you don’t know the scale of this problem – you massively underestimate it – and you will assume they can all be stopped. They can’t. The reality of both is that both conclusions are disturbing. The scale is vast and you’ll never stop them all. It shouldn’t stop us trying though and the review is the best place to start …

“You do need a parallel well-funded system that doesn’t expand and divert the counter-terrorism mission.”

Archived

MPs and peers have launched an inquiry into the UK’s ability to protect undersea internet cables that link the country with the rest of the world, following heightened threats of sabotage from Russia, China and other hostile states.

The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which scrutinises government decision-making on national security, aims to assess the UK’s readiness for potential attacks on critical underseas communication cables.

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According to the parliamentary committee’s chairman, Matt Western, 99% of the country’s data passes through underseas internet cables, making them a soft target for action by foreign states seeking to covertly damage the UK.

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The UK relies on about 60 cables to connect it with the rest of the world that provide resilience if one or two are deliberately or accidentally damaged. However, MPs and peers have raised concerns that a simultaneous attack on multiple cables, particularly during times of heightened tension or conflict, could cause significant disruption.

According to the UK’s 2025 National Risk Register, in a reasonable worst-case scenario, the loss of transatlantic subsea cables linking to the UK would cause “considerable disruption” to essential services, including financial services, that rely on offshore datacentres and offshore service providers.

[...]

Sneaky paywall workaround: https://archive.is/yZow0

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/31610867

The world's largest iceberg is on a collision course with the British territory of South Georgia - potentially putting millions of penguins and seals in danger.

The trillion-tonne slab of ice, named A23a, broke free from its position last month and started drifting northwards.

The "megaberg" - which is twice the size of Greater London and 130 feet tall - is expected to approach the remote island off Antarctica in the next two to four weeks.