Three years ago, a Californian man claimed that he'd been rejected hundreds of times by Workday's AI-driven HR system – now a judge has ruled that a class action based on the complaint will be heard in court.

US District Judge Rita Lin has ruled that Workday must face the claims brought against it, which includes claims that the company's AI-based candidate screening system discriminated on the grounds of age, race, and other protected characteristics.

With the case set to proceed, this makes it the first to consider the impact of letting AI-powered software make decisions on job candidates – a significant case given the rise of recruitment.

Indeed, a report from HireVue suggests seven-in-ten companies are using AI in HR and recruitment processes. The shift to AI hiring isn't popular, either, with two-thirds of Americans telling Pew that they didn't want to apply for a job via AI.

A spokesperson for Workday told ITPro the “claims in the suit are false” and dismissed claims that AI recruiting tools make hiring decisions.

“Workday’s AI recruiting tools don’t make hiring decisions in California or anywhere else,” the spokesperson said. “Our customers maintain full control of their hiring process and our tools are designed with human oversight at their core.”

Workday added that its technology “looks only at job qualifications, not protected traits like race, age, or disability”.

“We rigorously test our products as part of our Responsible AI program to confirm our tools do not harm protected groups.”

Workday case considerations

Lin ruled that anti-discrimination laws do indeed apply when Workday's software is used outside of California, where the company is based and where the claim was filed.

Workday's lawyers had argued that "it makes no sense for a Texas employer with a Texas applicant who will perform work in Texas," but Lin disagreed.

Lin also refused to drop a claim alleging that the software filters out candidates using "proxy indicators", including gaps in employment history, which could impact those with disabilities or illnesses.

One claim was dismissed, however. This sought to include discrimination against Asian Americans in the suit, on the grounds that proper procedure wasn't followed.

History of the case

In 2023, Derek Mobley first sued Workday claiming that he had been rejected by the company's software, which is used by other companies to sift through candidates, between 80 and 100 times.

Mobley believed that the Workday pre-selection system was discriminating against him because he is a black American, over 40 and suffers disabilities. At the time, Workday said the lawsuit was "without merit."

Workday attempted to have the case thrown out in 2024, but Judge Lin dismissed those challenges, ruling that the company wasn't an employment agency but could for the case be considered an employer.

She dismissed claims that the discrimination was intentional. At the time, Workday said it was confident that the remaining allegations would be "easily refuted."

Earlier this year, Mobley was joined by four other would-be candidates, with the judge ruling they could be considered together as a class action.

One of the new plaintiffs, Jill Hughes, said she submitted hundreds of applications that were rejected, with some responses saying she didn't meet the job's minimum requirement, when she actually did.

The AI recruitment conundrum

With the case set to go ahead, it could reveal much sought after details about how AI is being used in recruitment and how it influences who is being hired – and not.

The case comes as AI has overrun recruitment, with companies using it to power everything from sifting through CVs to conducting interviews, while would-be candidates use AI to find open roles, apply automatically, and boost their responses in interviews.

This has created a situation where AI is essentially talking to AI in order to hire a human for a job. Anthropic raised eyebrows last year when it told candidates not to use AI when applying, for example.

Workday isn't the first company to be caught out by the risks of using AI for recruitment. Back in 2018, Amazon was forced to pull an AI tool it was testing for recruitment after it became clear the system was methodically filtering out CVs submitted by women.

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Google has withdrawn its cloud anti-competitiveness complaint against Microsoft, just weeks after regulators announced a cloud market investigation.

The tech firm filed the complaint with the European Commission (EC) back in September 2024, accusing Microsoft of trying to lock customers into Azure by making it difficult and costly to shift workloads to rival clouds, such as those offered by Google and AWS. Google called for regulators to force Microsoft to allow customers to use their licenses for Windows Server on any cloud at no additional cost.

In November, the EC announced a trio of market investigations into cloud services — and that appears to be good enough for Google.

“We filed our antitrust complaint with the European Commission (EC) to give voice to our customers and partners about the issue of anticompetitive cloud licensing practices," said Giorgia Albetino, head of government affairs and public policy at Google Cloud Europe, in an update to the original blog post about the complaint.

"Today, we are withdrawing it in light of the recent announcement that the EC will assess problematic practices affecting the cloud sector under a separate process."

Albetino said Google stands by its previous arguments against Microsoft's cloud market behaviour — including the accusation that Microsoft locks customers into Azure by imposing a 400% markup if they switch to rivals — and would continue to work to "advocate for choice and openness in the cloud market."

ITPro contacted Microsoft for comment, but had yet to hear back at the time of publishing. Last year when Google first filed its complaint to the EC, Microsoft told ITPro: "Microsoft settled amicably similar concerns raised by European cloud providers, even after Google hoped they would keep litigating. Having failed to persuade European companies, we expect Google similarly will fail to persuade the European Commission."

Globally, the cloud market is dominated by three major players: Microsoft's Azure at about 20% share, AWS with 30% and Google with 13%. Data from Synergy Research Group this summer showed that US providers — including Amazon, Microsoft and Google — hold a 70% share of the market in Europe.

Cloud competition battle

Last summer, Microsoft agreed to a $22 million settlement with Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) to avoid an EC complaint after that organization accused it of anti-competitive tactics. As part of that battle, CISPE had released research that showed anticompetitive tactics in the European cloud market cost local businesses as much as €1 billion a year.

At the time, Google's head of platform for Cloud, Amit Zavery, said the Microsoft-CISPE deal was a "payoff" that wouldn't address key complaints. Reports at the time suggested Google tried to scupper the settlement with its own $512 million offer.

In August, the UK competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that Microsoft and Amazon were both harming competition in the local cloud market — in the UK, each has a share above 30%.

The CMA said that there were "substantial barriers" to other providers entering or expanding in the market, and that customers were prevented from switching suppliers due to egress fees. At the time, Microsoft said the CMA had "missed the mark," while AWS said its report "disregards clear evidence of robust competition."

The EC investigates

In mid-November, the EC said it would investigate AWS and Azure to decide if Amazon and Microsoft should be designated as "gatekeepers" between businesses and consumers. Neither company meets preset thresholds under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) for that designation, but the EC still wants to assess their impact on the market.

A third investigation is considering whether the DMA is an effective tool to target practices that limit competitiveness in the European cloud market.

The first two investigations are expected to take a year, while the DMA market probe may take up to 18 months and lead to updates to those laws.

"Such services should be offered in a fair, open and competitive environment that fosters trust and secures Europe’s tech sovereignty," Henna Virkkunen, the EC's executive vice president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy, said at the time.

A proposed decade-long ban on US states implementing AI laws is a "terrible idea" that highlights the scale of big tech lobbying, according to critics.

Earlier this week, a Republican-led committee proposed a budget reconciliation bill which at the last minute tucked within its pages a clause that would ban state-level AI regulation for the next ten years. If approved, only the US Congress could legislate on AI, not state governments.

The bill included a line that said "no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the 10-year period of this Act."

That would preempt efforts by California and other states looking to rein in AI using regulation. It remains to be seen if the section will be included in the final bill and whether that will be passed.

Following the move, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a statement strongly opposing the proposals, calling it a "terrible idea".

The EFF noted that it would override existing state laws designed to prevent people from harms caused by AI and would prevent other states from writing similar legislation — a problem as Congress is much slower at taking on new technologies.

Similarly, the non-profit said this risks no regulation being implemented at all for ten years during a critical time in the development of the technology.

"Even if Congress does nothing on AI for the next ten years, this would still prevent states from stepping into the breach," the EFF said in a statement. "Given how different the AI industry looks now from how it looked just three years ago, it’s hard to even conceptualize how different it may look in ten years."

"Congress does not react quickly and, particularly when addressing harms from emerging technologies, has been far slower to act than states,” the EFF added.

Wider criticism

An open letter signed by a series of state-level representatives — as well as frequent AI dissenter and New York University professor Gary Marcus — made a similar argument, calling the attempt to preempt AI laws "deeply problematic".

"If enacted, the statute would preempt states from acting — even if AI systems cause measurable harm, such as through discriminatory lending, unsafe autonomous vehicles, or invasive workplace surveillance," the letter added.

Other critics made it clear the move was seen as benefiting big tech. Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, described the move as a “sweeping and reckless attempt” to shield large corporations from accountability.

Why ban AI laws?

A ten-year ban on AI laws may sound inherently extreme, but those in favor of it argue that AI regulation requires a national approach to minimize the costs and impact of regulation at a time when the US is battling China for dominance in this domain.

An article in Lawfare argued that the current “patchwork of parochial regulatory policies” could severely undermine US innovation in the AI space at a critical juncture.

But the open letter noted that presented a "false choice" between too many laws and a single set of federal laws, given there was effectively zero of the latter.

"If Washington wants to pass a comprehensive privacy or AI law with teeth, more power to them, but we all know this is unlikely," the letter added.

At a state-level, there are dozens of examples of AI laws — from Colorado's AI protection bill to California's attempts to rein in its own industry.

"It's specifically because of state momentum that Big Tech is trying to shut the states down," the letter added.

The EFF echoed that: "As the big technology companies have done (and continue to do) with privacy legislation, AI companies are currently going all out to slow or roll back legal protections in states."

MORE FROM ITPRO

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• American tech workers want AI regulation – but they might have to wait a while
• Why AI could be a legal nightmare for years to come

US law firm Morgan & Morgan has told its staff to stop using AI because it could make up case law — and presenting that in a court filing was a fireable offense.

The law firm, which specializes in personal injury claims, warned two staff members for using the technology earlier this month.

The lawyers in question have been sanctioned by a federal judge in Wyoming for citing non-existent cases in a filing against Walmart in a suit over a toy hoverboard, according to Reuters.

One of the lawyers admitted to using AI, saying it was an unintentional mistake.

While such mistakes remain rare, it's certainly not the first time. Reuters cited seven instances where lawyers have been questioned or disciplined over using AI in a case in the US, while DoNotPay was slapped down for billing itself as "the world's first robot lawyer".

Similarly, a survey by Thomson Reuters showed 64% of law firms were already using AI for research, suggesting wide swathes of the legal profession are making use of the technology despite such serious concerns.

This isn’t the first time the potential risks of AI in the legal profession have been flagged. Last year, a report from US chief justice John Roberts highlighted the potential pitfalls and impact of generative AI in the legal field, as well as its long-term applications for workers.

Roberts’ report noted concerns over AI hallucinations and the potential damage this could cause.

Speaking to ITPro at the time, Adam Ryan, VP of Product at Litera, said legal professionals have an ethical obligation to use the technology responsibly.

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT draw from large language models (LLMs) to predict the next letter or word when it generates text — but it doesn't have any sense of accuracy or what's true. To get around this, users ask for citations — necessary in the legal field — but LLMs will make those up too.

These are called "hallucinations" as though they're a bug, but it's simply how the systems work – though more advanced systems are better at returning text that's accurate and are now linked to the web for real-time sourcing, making fact checking easier.

The way LLMs work means they can help lawyers in their daily roles, but only if all facts are double-checked for accuracy – a point not all in the field appear to be aware of.

Testing AI on the law

To prove the point, British law firm Linklaters tested AI chatbots with 50 questions across 10 different areas of law, admitting the test was designed to be hard.

"They are the sort of questions that would require advice from a competent mid-level (two years’ post qualification experience) lawyer, specialized in that practice area; that is someone traditionally four years out of law school," the company said.

The second round of the benchmark, released earlier this month, included OpenAI o1 and Google Gemini 2.0, the most recent models from those companies. Senior lawyers marked each answer out of ten, including points for substance, clarity, and citations.

Back in 2023, out of GPT-2, GPT-3, GPT-4, and Google Bard, the best score was posted by the latter — though Bard only scored 4.4 out of ten. In this second round, Gemini scored six out of ten, while OpenAI o1 scored 6.4 out of ten.

"In both cases, this was driven by material increases in the scores for substance and the accuracy of citations," the company noted.

Given the low scores, it's no surprise that Linklaters warned against using either model for English law advice — without expert human interaction.

"However, if that expert supervision is available, they are getting to the stage where they could be useful, for example by creating a first draft or as a cross-check. This is particularly the case for tasks that involve summarizing relatively well-known areas of law," Linklaters added.

So could these models get good enough to one day be useful on their own for legal interpretation? Linklaters noted that the rate of progression was significant, but it remained unclear if it would continue.

It's worth noting that these models are trained on generalist text, such as the wider internet. A law-bot trained specifically for use in a legal context could prove more useful than such universal tools.

Even then, LLMs might not be the best option for law firms, according to Linklaters.

"It is possible there are inherent limitations to LLMs – which are partly stochastic parrots regurgitating the internet (and other learned text) on demand," Linklaters added. "However, the fine tuning of this technology is likely to deliver performance improvements for years to come."

Lack of AI literacy

The real problem might not be AI, but the fact that so many lawyers use it without understanding its well-understood limitations.

Harry Surden, a law professor at the University of Colorado, told Reuters that these examples suggest a "lack of AI literacy", and the answer wasn't to ditch technology but to learn the limitations of generative AI.

"Lawyers have always made mistakes in their filings before AI… This is not new,” he told the publication.

Indeed, for those lawyers who are aware of so-called hallucinations in LLMs, the challenge may be their own inability to spot mistakes — be they generated by humans or machines.

Dr Ilia Kolochenko, partner & cybersecurity practice lead at Platt Law LLP and fellow at the European Law Institute (ELI), said that given the widespread coverage of AI hallucinations, many legal professionals will be aware of the risk.

"The AI hallucinations phenomena has been so widely mediatized and enthusiastically discussed virtually by every single user of all social networks, that it would be unwise to hypothesize that lawyers are unaware of the hallucinations or other AI-related risks," he said.

"The true problem is that even after a thorough verification of AI-generated or AI-tuned legal content, say, a complex multijurisdictional M&A contract or a response to antitrust probe, some lawyers simply cannot spot legal mistakes related to both procedure and substance of the case."

That's one reason to avoid AI and instead speak to more experienced colleagues. But there is another: it's the only way to learn, and by using AI, lawyers — as with any knowledge worker — risks over relying on the technology.

"As a result, lawyers may not only provide defective and harmful legal advice to clients, but also gradually lose their intellectual capacities, as several recent researches consistently demonstrate," he said.

Indeed, recent research by Microsoft suggests the use of AI — including its own — at work can impact critical thinking.

AI might still have a role to play

That means that AI may have a role, but it needs to be carefully considered, Kolochenko said.

"In sum, while AI may automate and accelerate many routine legal tasks, it shall never fully replace human expertise or preclude legal professionals from continually honing their legal and related skills, otherwise, they may face harsh disciplinary actions and legal malpractice lawsuits.”

Indeed, that research by Thomson Reuters suggests that there could be a wide range of uses for AI, with 47% using it for document review, 45% for disclosure, and 38% for document automation.

"The industry will gain confidence in GenAI as it continues to have a positive impact on how we work,” Ryan told ITPro last year.

“Not using GenAI and LLM tools will put firms at a serious disadvantage as they will not be able to work nearly as quickly, accurately, or efficiently as firms that are leveraging these game-changing tools.”

MORE FROM ITPRO

• Why AI could be a legal nightmare for years to come
• Use of generative AI in legal profession accelerates despite accuracy concerns
• The future of AI in the legal industry

New EU cloud security labeling proposals could force the three major cloud providers to overhaul their business practices in order to continue operating in the region, according to reports.

Draft documents, not yet officially presented to the public, in their current wording suggest providers will be required to engage in a joint venture with an EU-based firm. 

The documents add that non-EU operators, including US firms, will only receive a ‘minority stake’ in such ventures, which aim to improve security by providing an EU-based point-of-contact for regulatory purposes. 

Employees with access to EU data would also be required to undergo screening processes and be located within one of the EU’s 27 member states.

The documents, seen by Reuters, relate to the EU’s plans to introduce a cyber security label that will be required if a company, like Microsoft, Google Cloud, or AWS wishes to handle sensitive data in the EU.

The latest proposals put forward by the EU cyber security agency, ENISA, form part of the EU certification scheme (EUCS), which aims to establish a union-wide certification regime for cloud providers. 

This, ENISA has said, will “further improve the union’s internal market conditions for cloud services by enhancing and streamlining the services’ cyber security guarantees”. 

“The draft EUCS candidate scheme intends to harmonize the security of cloud services with EU regulations, international standards, industry best practices, as well as with existing certifications in EU member states,” ENISA said.

EU data sovereignty 

A key component within the draft documents centers around the requirement that cloud services must be operated and maintained within the EU. 

In addition, the document outlines requirements that customer data stored and processed in the EU will be subject exclusively to EU regulations and take precedence over non-EU laws. 

“Certified cloud services are operated only by companies based in the EU, with no entity from outside the EU having effective control over the CSP (cloud service provider), to mitigate the risk of non-EU interfering powers undermining EU regulations, norms and values,” the document reads.

“Undertakings whose registered head office or headquarters are not established in a member state of the EU shall not, directly or indirectly, solely or jointly, hold positive or negative effective control of the CSP applying for the certification of a cloud service,” it added.

The move could spark concern for non-EU cloud service providers - particularly the three major hyperscalers, all of which have a major stake in the union, according to Philip Brining, co-founder and director of Data Protection People. 

"The proposed cyber security labeling rules, which require non-EU cloud providers to establish joint ventures with EU-based firms, may present challenges for providers like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon amongst others,” he told ITPro. 

“Compliance with the requirements would involve significant restructuring and potential delays in obtaining the EU cybersecurity kite mark. These companies, with their extensive customer bases and data management responsibilities, could face a competitive disadvantage compared to EU counterparts.”

In March, industry stakeholders criticized the EU’s current approach to cloud regulation, noting that its proposals could prove highly inhibitive for non-EU operators. 

A report from the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) described the proposed certification scheme as “discriminatory” toward non-EU providers. 

A key point of contention highlighted by ECIPE was the requirement that non-EU cloud providers must register their head offices and global headquarters within the region. 

Gavin Millard, Deputy CTO at Tenable echoed Brining’s comments, noting that the current proposals could be highly inhibitive to non-EU-based providers due to the requirement to operate alongside a third party. 

“Whilst the protection of sensitive data from external entities should be paramount, the requirement to have an EU-based third party with a majority stake in the venture could be a ridiculously high barrier for the cloud services providers to do business in Europe,” he said. 

“It could be far more achievable and palatable to mandate and audit the siloing of sensitive data from non-EU employees of the cloud giants, than trying to force a potentially damaging commercial relationship with a third party.”

Millard added that while larger cloud providers could be impacted by the move, smaller organizations and software vendors may also be seriously affected. 

"The draft proposal could also greatly impact other software vendors and businesses, as they've built platforms to be cloud-specific, leveraging services only available on a particular provider,” he said.

“If providers based outside the EU can't provide a cloud platform deemed suitable, it's going to take a significant effort for companies doing business in the EU to reengineer their products to support the ‘EU Cloud’. Implementing could be a huge headache for both US and EU-based organizations, creating unnecessary friction by replacing one risk with another."

After serving a prison sentence, a former Nintendo hacker has been ordered to pay between 25-30% of his salary to the company for the rest of his working life.

Gary Bowser had previously been a key member of hacking group Team Xecuter which developed and sold chips that allowed pirated games to be played on various game consoles, including the Nintendo Switch, 3DS, and NES.

Nintendo pursued legal action against the group for damaging its business model. The firm has sought $10 million in damages from Bowser, 53, which he will now be forced to pay back through docked wages.

During the court proceedings, Bowser alleged that he had been the group’s “salesman” and earned a total of $320,000 from his Team Xecuter activities. 

He owned the website MaxConsole, which at the time was being used to secretly advertise Team Xecuter products. 

In 2021, Bowser pled guilty to two hacking charges and acknowledged his participation in cyber criminal activity. 

He was sentenced to 40 months in prison and told to pay $4.5 million by the judge, a separate fine from the settlement for Nintendo. 

His early release has come as a result of good behavior while in prison, as well as in acknowledgment of time served while awaiting trial. 

He is currently being held in a separate facility pending his transfer to Canada.

Bowser’s lawyer has claimed that his client lost 90lbs (40kg) in the time between his arrest and court appearance.

In court transcripts, first reported by Axios, US District Judge Robert Lasnik stated that there was a “role to be played here in terms of a message” when it came to Bowser’s sentence.

“Nintendo appreciates the hard work and tireless efforts of federal prosecutors and law enforcement agencies to curb illegal activities on a global scale that cause serious harm to Nintendo and the video game industry,” the firm stated in a press release following the sentence in 2022.

Bowser told YouTuber NckMoses05 that he has already paid $175 in $25 monthly payments, through his job at the federal prison in which he was incarcerated.

He also said that the $4.5 million will not have to be paid back once he is transferred back to his home country of Canada.

Commentators on the story are largely divided on Nintendo’s decision to pursue legal action against Bowser so heavily.

Some have argued that it’s unjust and that the move will condemn Bowser to a life of “extreme poverty”.

Others highlighted the fact that Team Xecuter has acted maliciously in the past not only to the companies which its piracy adversely impacts, but its users too, arguing that the group deserved such a punishment.

The group’s SX OS, software to allow pirated games to run on Nintendo Switch, included code that could render the owner’s console unusable forever if users operated outside the terms of its license.

While Bowser was extradited to the US from his then home the Dominican Republic, Louarn has not been extradited to date, and Chen remains unaccounted for.

ITPro has approached Nintendo for comment.

President Joe Biden has rescinded a Trump-era executive order that penalized social media companies for censoring users' web posts.

On Friday, Biden signed an executive order to rescind several Trump-era documents, including Executive Order 13925. That document, which former president Trump signed in May 2020, alleged political bias among social media companies that flagged content as inappropriate and accused them of quashing free speech by handpicking what Americans may say and read on the internet.

"This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic," Trump's executive order read. "When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power. They cease functioning as passive bulletin boards, and ought to be viewed and treated as content creators."

Trump's document clarified the White House's view on Section 230, arguing that it originally protected online platforms from "Good Samaritan Blocking.” This type of censorship blocked material that was clearly damaging, such as posts that could harm minors, it explained, adding that social media companies were now using the law beyond its original purpose.

EO 13925 ordered the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to consider taking action against any censorship it saw as unfair or deceptive. The Commission should also consider whether they were breaking the law, it added. It also set up a working group to consider creating and enforcement of state laws that could stop what it deemed inappropriate censorship.

President Biden's rolling back of the order would make it more difficult for former President Trump to force social media platforms to publish his tweets. Twitter flagged several Trump tweets before eventually deciding to ban him outright for inciting violence before the January 6 Capitol riots.

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch, and Spotify also suspended his accounts. Facebook's Oversight Board upheld his suspension earlier this month but demanded Facebook reassess the penalty within six months.

Rescinding Trump's executive order doesn't necessarily indicate the current administration’s soft approach to Section 230. Biden has repeatedly shown his disapproval of Section 230 laws and signaled his plans to revise it.

Back in 2018, the "Horizon Scanning Forward Thinking" report from the Law Society of England and Wales offered ideas for a number of ways artificial intelligence (AI) could be used in the legal sector. This included to predict case outcomes or to power Q&A chatbots that would support client queries.

The report also pointed to examples underway, such as document analysis to draw out key findings, review contracts and then presenting their information in dashboards or even acting as a virtual legal adviser, reviewing relevant cases to find key judgements fast.

Three years on, Stuart Whittle, business services and innovation director at national law firm Weightmans, explains: "As it stands, AI solutions tend to do one thing, really well.”

The challenge for all those in the AI ecosystem is working out how to stitch these single point solutions together to deliver an end-to-end solution that becomes a seamless part of a lawyer's workflow.

"Achieving this will ultimately empower lawyers to spend more time delivering the valuable work they were trained to do and, importantly, that they enjoy doing."

He adds: "Firms have to navigate regulatory, contractual, tortious, fiduciary and commercial constraints when it comes to implementing the technology, and ultimately battle against what can be an inherent scepticism in the industry – and among clients – towards change."

However, there are now many systems already active and in place.

Mark Beer, commercial partner at Keystone Law, highlighted LawGeex for document review, GLS LegalSifter for automated contract drafting and risk analysis, Thomson Reuters Westlaw Edge to give predictive outcomes for disputes and RDO or Jur for resolving disputes online. He also cited an example from China where legal bots are able to address legal issues via massively-popular messaging platform WeChat.

But he said: "AI is already light years ahead of the legal profession's ability to use it. For many firms, Zoom is about as advanced as they want to get right now."

AI implementations in legal are gaining pace

However, Beer is optimistic for the future of AI in legal, adding: "The biggest advancement, and something we are working on at Oxford University's DeepTech Dispute Resolution Lab, is the use of big data to predict disputes years before they crystallise, allowing organisations to avoid [them]. This requires analysis of huge data sets, something quantum processing will assist."

Another example comes from April King Legal, where a digital legal assistant called Amelia has just been launched through work with IPsoft. The first phase of her implementation will see Amelia handle thousands of inbound customer enquiries for free wills, trusts and probate information packs.

The firm's CEO Paul King said the technology will help "improve our customer experiences and reduce administrative costs".

"The massive shift towards digital service consumption over the past year has transformed customer expectations for every industry. The legal sector is no exception; digital experience has become the new customer battleground," he says.

Brennan Ong is founder of LawAdvisor, a company working with a number of top international law firms to develop industry-leading technology that addresses specific issues facing today's legal teams.

Ong says: "I think the ability to simplify law for the masses remains one of the biggest challenges of legaltech. We have seen this done successfully (if to a limited extent) in the finance and insurance sectors; however, the legal sector continues to remain inaccessible and expensive for a large part of the population. We are hopeful of addressing this area later in the year with a new solution.

"The legal industry is quite bespoke and risk averse. This means high expectations from AI tools in terms of customisability and accuracy. It’s not easy to achieve a 'plug and play' set up."

Other forward-thinking initiatives include Tech Nation's LawTech Sandbox, which according to Matt Shearer, CPO at Data Language, aims to "fast track transformative ideas, products and services in the legal sector, including AI".

He explains: "Legal firms that build their core expertise and differentiation into the design of their information management systems, at a granular and interconnected level, will create an advantage for themselves – both in their ability to adapt rapidly and their readiness to harness AI for new business models."

Battling bias and trust issues with legal AI

However, legal AI faces many issues, not least if it is programmed by a human with inherent biases. Other problems include trust and security.

Shearer suggests one route forward may be what’s known as explainable AI, as it’s able to offer "complete visibility of how and why an AI-powered decision or action is made".

He explained: "This is an approach to tackling the ethical challenges around machine intelligence in the legal sector, by making the decisions involved in AI-powered processes transparent.

"The challenge here is the tendency, which we have seen in other sectors, to create 'black box' AI services: A monolithic prediction approach that uses training materials to create a singular machine learning model to power a business process.

"This leads to decision opaqueness, which becomes an issue when we want to see why a particular decision, such as a mistake, was made. To mitigate this risk in legal AI use cases, an 'Explainable AI' approach can provide transparency and adaptability."

Sally Mewies, head of technology at international law firm Walker Morris, suggests one of the biggest issues for AI in legal is "that judgement is a big factor in advising a client".

She explains: "For example, there are often many solutions to a problem and in certain circumstances the correct solution can come down to an emotional issue, rather than a logical one.

"There are also potential security concerns around granting third party AI tools access to confidential information and it's unclear whether it’s yet widely trusted in the industry. It becomes a sub-optimal tool if the AI's output needs to be checked by a lawyer prior to sharing with a client."

Some within the profession have also admitted many solutions need a huge amount of effort to tailor products to be useful to clients, wiping out the benefit. So in an industry with so many manual processes, how easy is the transition?

Mewies adds: "It is not easy because the law has been practised in the same way for many years and law is probably one of the least developed industries from a technological perspective.

"Many of the most successful AI tools will target specific challenges, such as streamlining aspects of the time recording or file opening process, but right now it will not be used to introduce sweeping changes to the way that legal advice is given."

Google has been using a secret program to track bids on its digital ad-buying platform and it's accused of using that information to give itself an unfair advantage over competitors, according to court documents filed in a Texas antitrust lawsuit.

Texas is one of a dozen states suing Google for antitrust practices in the search and advertising markets, and its lawsuit just inadvertently revealed some alleged behind-the-scenes information.

In the initial version of the filing, which The Wall Street Journal viewed, Google accidentally failed to redact some information, revealing its secretive business practices. A federal judge allowed Google to refile a redacted version later.

In those documents, Google reportedly acknowledged the existence of an initiative called “Project Bernanke,” an apparent reference to former Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke.

Texas alleges this program was the equivalent of insider trading due to Google’s complicated role in the online advertising marketplace.

Texas says Google operates simultaneously as a major ad exchange operator, a representative of buyers and sellers on the exchange, and an ad buyer itself. By being both an owner and a client, Google gamed the system because it had access to exclusive data other ad buyers didn’t, according to the antitrust lawsuit.

Texas alleges that Google used information on what other ad buyers were willing to pay for space to bid just the bare minimum to beat rivals and secure ad placements, the state alleges. It could pay publishers less on its winning bids for ads.

In the court documents that Google filed, the search giant acknowledged “the details of Project Bernanke's operations are not disclosed to publishers.” But it denied that the program gave Google an unfair advantage, calling it “comparable to data maintained by other buying tools.”

Texas is one of a dozen states suing Google, accusing it of antitrust practices in the search and advertising markets. In October 2020, the Department of Justice and 11 states sued Google — California joined the lawsuit later.

The lawsuit says Google used exclusionary agreements to lock up the search engine market by requiring it to be the default search engine for mobile devices and computers.

In October, Google responded to the original lawsuit, calling its antitrust arguments “dubious” and arguing that its agreements are no different from those other companies have used to distribute software. It also said rival search services paid to be featured as prominent options on Apple’s Safari browser.

Technology can be a tremendous force for good, but it can also be turned to evil ends in the wrong hands. In this Q&A, we talk to Tech Against Terrorism director Adam Hadley about how bad actors are using technology to accomplish their goals, and what businesses can do to understand and prevent these actions.

Adam Shepherd

Reviews and Community Editor, IT Pro

As reviews and community editor, Adam is responsible for coordinating all of the hardware and software reviews across IT Pro, Cloud Pro and Channel Pro, from laptops and smartphones, all the way up to enterprise-grade data centre servers and network management software. He also runs the IT Pro Panel, a flagship initiative which sees CIOs and tech leaders from the likes of Dominos, Oxfam and GoCompare sharing their experience and insight with the IT Pro community.

Adam Hadley

Director, Tech Against Terrorism

Adam Hadley is the CEO of London-based data science consultancy QuantSpark and executive director of Tech Against Terrorism, a public-private partnership launched by the tech sector and the UN Security Council in 2017.

Boris Johnson claims kill switches installed on Android and iOS smartphones have led to 50 per cent fewer phone thefts in London.

The UK capital leads the three cities that saw the best results, with smartphone-related crime down by 40 per cent in San Francisco, while New York law enforcers saw a 25 per cent decline.

Kill switches were introduced in September 2013 with the Android operating system, allowing uses to lock their devices remotely should they be stolen. To unblock the phone, criminals must input a an ID and password to use it, or sell it on the black market.

Apple followed suit, making its kill switch on by default on iOS 8 devices, although iPhone users can turn it off if they wish.

In October, Google announced it would introduce an opt-in kill switch feature called Factory Reset Protection in its Android Lollipop operating system, but hasn't revealed if it would be activated by default.

Individual Android device manufacturers have also integrated similar systems, including Samsung with its optional Reactivation Lock function.

However, campaigners are calling for all devices to come with a kill switch turned on by default to further discourage criminals from stealing devices.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said: "We have made real progress in tackling the smartphone theft epidemic that was affecting many major cities just two years ago," while San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon added: "Preventing their own customers from being the target of a violent crime is the coolest technology [mobile manufacturers] can bring to market."

Johnson is currently in New York on a trade envoy. Today he announced US investors are boosting London's technology economy with contributions of $795.2m (521m) from US investors in 2014.

Uber has been granted the right to appeal against a ruling last year that deemed its drivers to be employees, giving them basic employment rights such as minimum wage and holiday and sickness pay.

The employment appeals tribunal has set the appeal date for 27 September, and the hearing will last for two days.

Last October's ruling, by a London employment tribunal, declared that Uber drivers cannot receive below minimum wage. Uber drivers are not paid a salary but are given a commission of each ride they provide, with the company taking a cut too.

Uber had argued that its drivers are self-employed contractors who choose when and where they work, rather than employees who work set hours from specific locations.

An Uber spokesperson said: "Almost all taxi and private hire drivers in the UK have been self-employed for decades and with Uber they have more control over what they do. Licensed drivers who use our app are totally free to choose if, when and where they drive with no shifts, minimum hours or uniforms. The vast majority of drivers who use Uber tell us they want to remain their own boss as that's the main reason why they signed up to us in the first place".

The original ruling against Uber was fierce, with the judges stating: "The notion that Uber in London is a mosaic of 30,000 small businesses linked by a common 'platform' is to our minds faintly ridiculous. Drivers do not and cannot negotiate with passengers ... They are offered and accept trips strictly on Uber's terms."

Last year, drivers using the app in the UK made average fares of 15 per hour after Uber's service fee, Uber said. Uber has highlighted how drivers choose for how long they drive, they can take or ignore trips, they own or rent their own cars and can complete other work or jobs as it suits them.

31/10/2016: A UK employment court has ruled Uber drivers must have the same benefits of employees including holiday pay

A court has ruled that Uber drivers in the UK should be counted as employees of the company rather than contractors, meaning they must get the same benefits including holiday pay.

Additionally, the court said drivers must receive the national living wage rather than lower rates of pay as they currently do, because their wages are based upon the number of trips they make and customers they serve. They are currently paid commission on the income, rather than a salary.

Following the news, experts predict the company could receive claims from its 40,000 drivers working in the UK, arguing that they are owed employee benefits and the company should start offering other extras such as pension schemes.

Uber has consistently argued it's a technology firm, not a transport company, and that its drivers are self-employed contractors who have the benefits of choosing when and where they work, rather than employees who must work from the office at set hours.

"The notion that Uber in London is a mosaic of 30,000 small businesses linked by a common platform' is to our minds faintly ridiculous," the judges said. "Drivers do not and cannot negotiate with passengers They are offered and accept trips strictly on Uber's terms."

The Citizens Advice Bureau carried out research around the contracting industry that revealed many workers in industries outside of the on-demand economy could be falsely classified as self-employed, which means the government is losing 314 million a year in lost tax and employer National Insurance contributions.

"We are pleased that the employment tribunal has agreed with our arguments that drivers are entitled to the most basic workers' rights, including to be paid the [national living wage] and to receive paid holiday, which were previously denied to them," Nigel Mackay from the employment team at law firm Leigh Day, which represented the drivers, said in a statement.

"This is a ground-breaking decision. It will impact not just on the thousands of Uber drivers working in this country, but on all workers in the so-called gig economy whose employers wrongly classify them as self-employed and deny them the rights to which they are entitled."

Flexible working has become much more prevalent over the last few years, driven in part because of recently introduced UK legislation, which makes it a legal right for employees to request a change in their working patterns or location if there is a just case for it.

However, because this law has made it possible for anyone to request flexible working practices, whether that's adjusted hours, working part time, job sharing, working remotely or changing the conditions of leave, it has also caused a lot of confusion for employers.

Our guide to flexible working outlines what the law says, who can make a request and what types of request are permitted. It also explains how employers should respond to flexible working requests and, crucially, whether every request has to be granted.

A common misconception is that flexible working only relates to working from home, but actually, it can mean you have to work from the office, but would like to adjust the hours you work to better suit your mindset or personal life. For example, if a parent has to drop their child off or pick them up from childcare or school at a certain time, they may opt to change their hours on certain days so they can work reduced hours on other days.

Flexible working can also apply too, if any employee wants to go back to college and develop their skills, switch to a job share set-up or work shifts rather than set hours, day-in, day-out.

Who is eligible for flexible working?

It's not just new parents that have the option of moving to a flexible working model - all employees are eligible. The only requirement is that you must have been working for the same employer for a minimum of 26 weeks.

Requests must be made in writing, and can only be made once a year. When submitting a request, employees must list how they would like their working arrangement to change, when they would like the change to come into effect and what effect they think it would have on the business. They must also make it clear that it is a "statutory request", as well as if and when they have submitted previous applications for flexible working.

To strengthen your case, it's worth stating the benefits you expect to gain from changing your day-to-day working pattern, and the positive impact this will have on the business as a whole. ACAS also recommends applicants set up a meeting to discuss the flexible working request as soon as possible, with a colleague or trade union representative in tow.

If you're an employer, you're legally obliged to deal with any flexible working requests "in a reasonable manner". According to government guidelines, this involves properly considering the request, arranging a meeting with the employee to discuss it and offering an appeals process if the request is unsuccessful.

However, it's important to note that, just because someone makes a formal flexible working request, the company is under no obligation to accept it.

For example, if allowing staff to work outside of a company's traditional working hours leaves it unable to cope with customer demands, senior management is well within its rights to turn a request down.

The same applies if there is insufficient work for the employee to do during hours they want to work, or if the move to flexible working practices could leave the company shouldering additional costs.

For these reasons, employees that want to make a flexible working request will need to have a legitimate business reason to, and should emphasis the benefits of doing so when making their request.

What different types of flexible working are there?

Variable hours

'Variable hours' options cover flexitime, annualised hours, zero hours and time accounts.

Flexitime is when employees fit their hours around agreed core times. This is a good option if you want to avoid rush hour commutes or carry out the school run.

An annualised hours arrangement is when an employee agrees to work a set number of hours over a year in variable quantities. This works best where a business has peaks and troughs in demand.

Zero hours, which has been controversial, is a contract in which an employee effectively works on call. There is generally a mutual lack of obligation - the employer is not obliged to find work, and the employee is not obliged to accept what is offered.

A time account is a more flexible form of a compressed working week or annualised hours. An employee can build up time worked in order to have more time off. There needs to be an agreement not to build up too much holiday.

Restructured hours

Some workers may want to compress their working week. For example, they may wish to work four 10-hour days and have the Friday off. It can also mean working a nine day fortnight, working longer hours over two weeks to have an extra day off every other week.

Reduced hours

Working reduced hours can mean working part-time, job-sharing, working in term-time, or a phased retirement.

Some employees may want to move to working part-time. This is particularly popular for women returning from maternity leave or men wanting to take a greater role in caring for their children.

Job sharing is a form of working part-time but with two or more people sharing a single role. While fifty-fifty splits are common, most employers prefer having both workers having one day of work in common to hand work over to one another more effectively. Job-sharing is relatively rare in the workforce.

Term-time working is when an employee only works when their children are at school. Such contracts specify the amount of time off an employee can have (usually nine to ten weeks) with paid leave being taken during school holiday. Together these would add up to the usual 13 weeks of school holiday.

Phased retirement is when an employee doesn't want to completely stop working once they reach their retirement, but slowly cut down the number of hours they want to work instead.

Leave options

Maternity leave has been around forever, but paternity leave has become an option for men to take time off to care for newborns.

Sabbaticals and career breaks are increasingly popular for workers looking for extended time off from work to pursue such things as study, writing a book, or some other form of personal development. Employers may find this a valuable way of retaining prized staff. One successful example of this is at Dennis Publishing (IT Pro's parent company), where after five years' work, staff get six weeks' time off fully paid.

Essential tools for flexible working

If you want to work from home, embark on a job-sharing arrangement or change your working hours so you're online when your overseas counterparts are, there is a wealth of technology out there that can help.

Here, we run through our top five pieces of tech for efficient and flexible working. Feel free to add your own additions to this list in the comments box below.

1) Online collaboration and productivity tools

Essential for: Home workers, distributed teams, and job sharers.

The boom in online collaboration and business productivity tools, from Google Apps to Office 365 and services like DropBox, has made it easier than ever for teams to work on presentations, spreadsheets and reports even when they're spread across different locations.

For people in job sharing roles, such as shift workers or part-time staff, these tools allow them to pick up on a task where their colleagues may have left off, while shared calendar functions allow them to keep track of who is doing what when the other person isn't there.

2) Telepresence tools

Essential for: Home workers, distributed teams and firms with overseas customers

If your working arrangements make it impossible for you to be in the same room as your colleagues or clients at a given time, video conferencing tools provide a viable alternative, and steadily becoming a more regular feature in meeting rooms across the UK.

Although, to ensure the meeting runs smoothly and on-time, it's worth testing the equipment in advance and that everyone invited to the meeting knows exactly what software they need to use and have it installed on their machines. Otherwise, the first 30 minutes of your meeting will turn into a glorified tech support session.

3) Instant messengers

Essential for: Home workers and distributed teams

While email maybe the first choice for some, instant messaging tools - such as those offered by Skype - allow for faster, less formal communications, and snappier responses to work-related queries. It is also possible to share URLs, documents and pictures with many of the tools available today, taking some of the strain off of your inbox.

Instant messager tools can also give senior management-types a steer on what kind of hours their workers are putting in while offsite, or make other employees aware that they do not want to be disturbed or are offline at certain times, meaning they're unlikely to be disturbed if they don't want to be.

Furthermore, with many instant messanging apps available on mobile devices, it makes it easier for workers to stay in touch with the office while out and about.

4) A secure home PC

Essential for: Home workers

Gone are the days when employees used to boast of having better IT in the workplace than they do at home, thanks to ever-tightening IT budgets.

The chances are, unless your workplace dictates that company tasks can only be carried out on a work PC, you're going to be using your home PC or laptop for work purposes. This means ensuring its anti-virus software is up-to-date, and that any company data accessed on it is tightly secured and accessed via a VPN connection.

5) A robust broadband connection

Essential for: Everyone

As the old adage states, "you're only as strong as your weakest link," and almost all of the technology we've listed already is highly reliant on having a consistent and fast broadband connection. Without it, the vast majority of the work all of us have to do these days would grind to a halt. So, it's something well worth investing in if you're someone who plans to work from home a lot or a business that wants to take better advantage of all the technologies listed above.

The volume of data protection disputes could rise by six times within five years, according to a new study.

The research, carried out by the School of International Arbitration at Queen Mary University of London and Pinsent Masons law firm, found that disputes arising from data protection issues are expected to make up 80% of telecoms, media and technology (TMT) disputes by the year 2021, and 79% for security breaches. Data protection disputes have accounted for just 13% of TMT disputes over the last five years, making the predicted figure a rise of around 600%.

The survey of 340 legal specialists found that the recent series of high-profile data breaches has driven data privacy and security to be one of the most likely causes of TMT disputes.

"Data protection and data security are now recognised as being as critical to business as protecting IP," says David McIlwaine, dispute resolution partner at Pinsent Masons.

"The reputational and financial effects of such issues can have hugely detrimental consequences for an organisation. Clearly, the twin issues are concerning in-house lawyers. This would suggest that in order to predict and mitigate real business risk, organisations should now be setting and testing their approach to data protection or data security compromise, including, potentially, the creation of a crisis protocol."

Insider threats and worker error could also spur more legal disputes than hackers, as the research showed that the most common factors underpinning data breach disputes have been the result of employee action, rather than malicious third party attacks or data breaches by the IT supplier.

"With the GDPR due to apply in May 2018, the expectation of a significant increase in data-related disputes is justified, both against the data controllers and against data processors," said McIlwaine.

"Some of these disputes may be referred to arbitration (given the increasing prevalence for this dispute resolution mechanism). In that event, the need for arbitrators with specialist experience in this area will become even more crucial."

Professor Loukas Mistelis, Director of the School of International Arbitration at Queen Mary University of London the large number of TMT disputes was surprising.

"The large number of TMT disputes and the value of such disputes can be explained by the very fact that almost all industry sectors now have experienced TMT disputes: from the big banks to major energy and infrastructure corporations," he said.

"While the existence of large telecoms disputes has been in the public domain for some time, the survey sheds lights on disputes which have not previously been systematically recorded. The survey contains a wealth of information which can be analysed at many levels."

The volume of TMT disputes continues to rise, with the research identifying 23% of businesses having been in at least 20 TMT disputes in the last five years, with 34% of all respondents placing the value of their largest dispute at over $100 million.

Over a third of IT workers have admitted to accessing corporate systems after they have left a company, potentially breaching the Computer Misuse Act.

According to a survey carried out by Vason Bourne on behalf of Protected Networks, 49 per cent of those surveyed said they had retained access to their former employer's network after leaving the company. Of these, 75 per cent admitted continuing to access the corporate systems, sometimes repeatedly over the course of up to a year.

Furthermore, 57 per cent of businesses involved in the survey noticed that former IT employees still had access, but failed to take action to cut them off.

Keith Maskell, country manager at Protected Networks, criticised the "astonishingly liberal attitude of UK businesses to managing access to data on the corporate network" saying that this lax attitude creates "a serious vulnerability that can be exploited later by hackers".

While this failure to properly manage access rights is a serious oversight on the part of businesses, those still accessing their ex-employer's systems may be breaking the law.

Frank Jennings, a lawyer and partner at Wallace LLP, told IT Pro: "The Computer Misuse Act 1990 ... prohibits unauthorised access to any program or data held in any computer and anyone convicted of this could be liable to pay a fine and could face up to two years in prison.

"If someone accesses their former employer's system with the knowledge or help of their new employer, that could give rise to liability for the new employer under the CMA."

Mark Taylor, a partner with law firm Osborne Clarke, agreed.

"Any criminal liability under the Act would sit primarily sits with the relevant individuals (and not their past employer)," Taylor said.

"However, if an individual is using such access for the benefit of a new employer or at their new employer's behest, then liability may also attach to them. Consequently, new employers should be careful that they are not encouraging or facilitating such access."

The sentencing of the first person thought to be convicted under Britain's new revenge porn' law has been adjourned until 4 September.

Jason Asagba, 21, from Bristol, had threatened to post explicit images of a 20-year-old woman on the internet only three days after the new law came into force in April.

He sent the photos to her parents as well as posting them on Facebook, and pleaded guilty to disclosing sexual photographs and films with intent to cause distress, after being charged on 15 May.

He faces up to two years in prison under the law, active in England and Wales, and will be sentenced at Reading Magistrates Court next month, after an initial sentencing date of 7 August was adjourned because the probationary service had not put together a pre-sentence report required by the court.

Detective Constable Steven Rose, of Thames Valley Police, said: "We believe that this is the first conviction of the new offence in the country, which highlights the fact that Thames Valley Police takes this crime extremely seriously and will investigate such reports."

Another man, Gerald McCarthy, 51, was cleared today of blackmailing his ex-wife with revenge porn photos.

McCarthy, from Crowthorne, had been accused of threatening to post pictures of his former wife in a sexual act, but the jury returned a unanimous not guilty verdict after less than three hours.

Revenge porn is now illegal in England and Wales, meaning people can no longer post pornographic images of someone online without their consent.

The amendment to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill defines revenge porn as "photographs or films which show people engaged in sexual activity or depicted in a sexual way or with their genitals exposed, where what is shown would not usually be seen in public".

Scotland and Northern Ireland are considering introducing similar laws, but have yet to come to a formal decision.

The practice has been dubbed 'revenge porn' as people uploading such photos would do so as a way to hit back at former partners.

The government was spurred into action after leaked images of nude celebrities were distributed around the internet last September.

Hackers reportedly used a vulnerability in the login system used by Apple's iCloud storage service to steal the photos, before uploading them to social network 4Chan.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said: "The fact there are individuals who are cruelly distributing intimate pictures of their former partners without their consent is almost beyond belief.

"We want those who fall victim to this type of disgusting behaviour to know that we are on their side and will do everything we can to bring offenders to justice.

"That is why we will change the law and make it absolutely clear to those who act in this way that they could face prison."

Adam Pemberton, assistant chief executive for the charity Victim Support, welcomed the changes.

"We are pleased that people who commit these gross violations of privacy will now face prosecution and victims of revenge porn know they have the full backing of the law."

Until the ruling was passed, those involved in distributing pornographic media could still be charged with breaking the Communications Act 2003 or the Malicious Communications Act 1988.

This article was first written on 14/02/2015 and has been subsequently updated to reflect further developments, most recently on 07/08/2015)

Jawbone has filed its third suit in two months against rivals Fitbit.

The fitness band manufacturer has filed a new claim against its principal competitor, this time with the International Trade Commission (ITC).

The latest suit follows similar charges in May and June, which claimed that Fitbit stole Jabone's secrets via newly-hired ex-employees and infringed on Jawbone's patents with its wearable fitness trackers.

The ITC claim is based on the same allegations, and seeks a ruling within 15 months. This could, in turn, expedite the other cases, filed in San Francisco Superior Court and US District Court respectively.

Jawbone is also pursuing a cease-and-desist order as part of the ruling, which would block Fitbit from importing fitness trackers or the components to manufacture them.

This ruling, if successful, could potentially force Fitbit out of business. It is also likely to affect the company's stock price, as this accusation comers just three weeks after Fitbit's IPO.

Emily Nuttall, IP and Litigation associate for Kemp Little, isn't surprised to see this kind of case being brought to court. "The wearable tech space is becoming an increasingly valuable and competitive one, which is reliant almost wholly on IP rights", she says.

"It is perhaps unsurprising in that context that businesses with large but, arguably, vulnerable presences in the market are deciding to take aggressive action to enforce their IP".

"Jawbone's willingness to take such serious, public and formal action speaks volumes about its conviction in its cause, and also the damage that it foresees Fitbit doing to its business."

Nuttall went on to say that Jawbone may have to be careful about the veracity of its claims, stating that "If it transpires that Fitbit has done nothing more than produce a rival product, with no breach or infringement of Jawbone's IP, Jawbone may have some very serious questions to answer as to its motives; and may even be on the receiving end of its own lawsuit."

Julius Kivimki, a 17-year-old from Espoo, Finland, has managed to avoid going to jail - for now at least - despite having been convicted of hacking into 50,700 computers.

The teen, who has claimed affiliation with the cyber crime collective Lizard Squad, was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence for crimes including operating a huge botnet, theft of credit card details and hijacking emails. He was also ordered to hand over 4,725 worth of property obtained illegally and had his PC confiscated.

Explaining why he was not ordering an immediate custodial sentence, judge Wilhelm Norrmann pointed out that Kivimki had only been 15 and 16 when he committed the crimes in 2012 and 2013.

A statement from the court said the verdict "took into account the young age of the defendent at the time, his capacity to understand the harmfulness of the crimes, and the fact he had been imprisoned for about a month during the pre-trial investigation".

Many people, however, have expressed dissatisfaction at the sentence, claiming it is too leniant.

Security researcher Brian Krebs called it "a win for internet trolls and teenage cyber criminals everywhere".

"The danger in a decision such as this is that it emboldens young malicious hackers by reinforcing the already popular notion that there are no consequences for cyber crimes committed by individuals under the age of 18," said Krebs.

Krebs also spoke to 20-year-old white hat hacker Blair Strater, who claims to have been a victim of Kivimki's, who called the teen a "dangerous sociopath".

"We live in a brave new world where somebody as young as 13 can ... double-click their mouse on a script they grabbed off of HackForums and cause thousands of dollars worth of damage to an arbitrary target, from the comfort and safety of their bedroom. And these individuals, Mr. Kivimaki included, go into this with the complete knowledge that what they are doing is wrong and unlawful, and that none of that matters because they're untouchable as long as they are under 18. They plan to have 5 years of good fun, thumbing their nose at the system, and coming out the other side unscathed," Strater said.

Alan Woodward, a consultant for Europol on matters of cybercrime, told the BBC: "There is a question as to whether such sentences will act as a deterrent to other hackers."

"It is not necessarily the place of the courts to factor in deterrence in their sentences. However, if I were another hacking group, was not that bothered about just having something on my record, and saw someone attract a suspended sentence for over 50,000 hacks, some of which caused significant damage, I don't think it would cause me much concern," he said.

Ross Ulbricht has been issued a life sentence for running illegal online drug marketplace Silk Road, selling more than $200m (131m) worth of drugs anonymously.

Ulbricht was found guilty of crimes including conspiracy to commit drug trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking.

District Judge Katherine Forrest who oversaw the trial said Ulbricht was "no better a person than any other drug dealer...There must be no doubt that lawlessness will not be tolerated."

Before the sentence was announced, Ulbricht pleaded that the judge be more lenient, allowing him to be released earlier in order to live his old age.

"I've essentially ruined my life and broken the hearts of every member of my family and my closest friends. I'm not a self-centred sociopathic person that was trying to express some inner badness. I do love freedom. It's been devastating to lose it," he said.

However, the judge was not sympathetic to his appeal and said he must be awarded the maximum sentence as a warning to anyone who takes part in copycat activity.

Silk Road was run using Onion Router (Tor), a Dark Web browser that hides activity under layers of encryption to make it virtually untraceable.

Ross Ulbricht was arrested and convicted back in February. His arrest, and the closure of Silk Road (and its successor, Silk Road 2.0) were hailed as turning points in the FBI's battle to tackle criminal activity on Tor.

However, a new report published this month by the Global Commission on Internet Governance suggests Ulbricht's downfall may make it harder for law enforcement agencies to bring their jurisdiction to the shadowy corners of the internet.

The report, called The Impact of the Dark Web on Internet Governance and Cyber Security, said increased scrutiny from investigators on the Tor network, coupled with more monitoring of the regular internet, is resulting in criminals becoming more careful to hide their tracks.

It read: "Recent revelations about wide-scale nation-state monitoring of the internet and recent arrests of cybercriminals behind sites hosted in the Dark Web are starting to lead to other changes.

"It would not be surprising to see the criminal underbelly becoming more fragmented into alternative dark nets or private networks, further complicating the job of investigators."

It predicted that "new large marketplaces" for criminal activities will soon appear on the Dark Web, and security researchers must strive to find new ways to spot them.

One of the difficulties is the transient nature of such illegal sites, with operators making them available for only short periods of time before closing them down, the report said.

However, the commission outlined a number of recommendations to help investigators battle online criminals.

One is to monitor illegal transactions made on the Dark Web over a long period of time, to gather information on sellers, goods and users in order to build up individual profiles of suspects.

Another is to map the directories of hidden networks such as Tor, which uses a domain database built on a distributed system known as a distributed hash table (DHT).

The commission suggests deploying nodes in the DHT system to monitor requests coming from certain domains.

One more recommendation is to monitor sites like Pastebin, where users can temporarily store and exchange text online reportedly a popular way for criminals to exchange addresses and contact information.

The report concluded: "Security researchers have to remain vigilant and find new ways to spot upcoming malicious services to deal with new phenomena as quickly as possible."

While the Dark Web is a hotspot for criminal activities that can be conducted without being traced by law enforcement agencies, it also serves to help journalists communicate with secret sources by reducing the risk of their communication being spied on, and can help ensure anonymity on the internet.

The commission was keen to point out its advantages for the likes of whistle-blowers and even ordinary citizens, saying: "For these individuals and the organizations that support them, secure anonymity is critical. It may literally save lives.

"While the undesired effects of Tor must be recognized, the complexities and varied situations should make us suspicious of sweeping imperatives."

Silk Road 2.0

The report was released three months after the second incarnation of Silk Road was shut down by US law enforcers following the arrest of its alleged owner, Blake Benthall, in November 2014.

Silk Road 2.0 was operational since November 2013 and was reportedly used to sell a range of unlawful goods, including drugs, computer hacking tools and fraudulent identity documents, and to facilitate money laundering.

In a statement, the FBI revealed that in mid-October 2014 there were 13,000 listings on the site for controlled substances, including cannabis, ecstasy and various opiates.

According to prosecutors, Benthall set up Silk Road to replicate the original version of the website which was seized in a similar operation in October 2013.

He is alleged to have overseen the management of the computing infrastructure underpinning the site, as well as its code, the terms of service for using it and the rates of commission charged to vendors and customers that participated in transactions.

He has been charged with conspiring to commit drugs trafficking, computer hacking, the trafficking of fraudulent ID documents and one count of money laundering.

Preet Bharara, the Manhattan US Attorney overseeing the case, said Benthall's capture should send a clear message to those thinking of following his lead.

"Let's be clearthis Silk Road, in whatever form, is the road to prison. Those looking to follow in the footsteps of alleged cybercriminals should understand that we will return as many times as necessary to shut down noxious online criminal bazaars. We don't get tired," warned Bharara.

Meanwhile, George Venizelos, the FBI assistant director in charge, said anyone who attempts to use the dark net to peddle illicit wares should know their actions are unlikely to stay hidden for long.

"Blake Benthall ran a website on the Tor network facilitating supposedly anonymous deals of drugs and illegal services generating millions of dollars in monthly sales. Benthall should have known that those who hide behind the keyboard will ultimately be found," he said.

"The FBI worked with law enforcement partners here and abroad on this case and will continue to investigate and bring to prosecution those who seek to run similar black markets online."

Court documents describe the site as "one of the most extensive, sophisticated and widely used criminal marketplaces on the internet today" and, as of September 2014, it had 150,000 active users. Collectively, these helped Silk Road generate sales of around $8 million per month.

Both versions of the site operate on the Tor network and allow users to conduct transactions using the Bitcoin virtual currency, both factors that let them take part in transactions anonymously.

Craig Young, a researcher at security vendor Tripwire, said the case is a good example of how law enforcers can use traditional investigative methods to bring those dabbling in 21st century crimes to justice.

"It appears that the FBI was able to infiltrate the inner-circle of the site's administrative staff thereby gaining access to communications and data allowing them to make a case against Blake Benthall, the alleged founder of the site.

"This is a great example of how 20th century law enforcement tactics and undercover operations are still viable in the 21st century despite drastic changes to the criminal landscape," Young added.

This article was originally published on 07/11/2014, but was subsequently updated on 23/02/2015 to reflect the publication of the Global Comission on Internet Governance's report and on 01/06/15 to reveal Ulbricht's sentencing.

DEA special agent Carl Force and Secret Service special agent Shaun Bridges have been arrested for alleged wire fraud and money laundering as part of the Silk Road investigation.

Force has been accused of stealing government property and taking bitcoin payments from Silk Road while he was investigating the online drug marketplace. He is said to have then moved these funds into a personal account rather than handing them over to law authorities as evidence.

It is also alleged that he worked for bitcoin exchange organisation CoinMKT, where he seized a customer's funds that he then tried to unlock using a subpoena to payment firm Venmo.

To add more fuel to the fire, Force allegedly took payment from Silk Road's operator Ross Ulbricht as an informant, telling him what was happening in the investigation as it occurred, using pseudonyms to hide his identity. These conversations with Ulbricht were encrypted, meaning it became harder for investigators to determine what was happening.

Force is also said to have used a third alias with which he tried to blackmail Ulbricht. At one point, Force instructed Ulbricht to pay 525 bitcoins (worth 33,000 at the time) for information about the investigation.

A press statement from the Department of Justice revealed: "Force...without authority, developed additional online personas and engaged in a broad range of illegal activities calculated to bring him personal financial gain."

Meanwhile, Secret Service special agent Bridges stands accused of moving $800,000 Silk Road bitcoins from a personal account to the Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange, leading to his arrest.

The Silk Road trial has been going on since January when an investigation into founder Ross Ulbricht found him guilty of operating online drug marketplace Silk Road. More than one million drug transactions took place using virtual currency bitcoin, with an estimated value of more than 11.8 million.

Google has lost a bid to prevent Apple Safari users in the UK suing the firm for allegedly tracking Safari users without authorisation.

The Court of Appeal has ruled that it won't block the privacy lawsuit, meaning that three claimants can continue their legal battle against the ftech giant.

In a decision by the court, it said the claims raise "serious issues which merit a trial".

"They concern what is alleged to have been the secret and blanket tracking and collation of information, often of an extremely private nature, as specified in the confidential schedules, about and associated with the claimants' internet use, and the subsequent use of that information for about nine months," the judgement added.

The case concerns a workaround in Safari which allegedly enabled Google to circumvent Safari web browser's default privacy setting in order to place cookies. This meant data could be gathered about a user without their knowledge.

Google tried to stop the action, claiming that there was no case to answer as consumers had suffered no financial harm. The Court of Appeal also confirmed the Mr Justice Tugendhat judgement in the High Court that breach of privacy is a tort - a civil, rather than criminal, wrongdoing - dismissing Google's argument.

One of the three claimants against Google, Marc Bradshaw, welcomed the decision.

"This is a David and Goliath victory," he said. "The Court of Appeal has ensured Google cannot use its vast resources to evade English justice. Ordinary computer users like me will now have the right to hold this giant to account before the courts for its unacceptable, immoral and unjust actions."

The plaintiffs' law firm Olswang LLP called it a landmark ruling.

"This is an important decision that prevents Google from evading or trivialising these very serious intrusions into the privacy of British consumers," said Dan Tench, partner at Olswang, acting for the claimants.

"Google, a company that makes billions from advertising knowledge, claims that it was unaware that [it] was secretly tracking Apple users for a period of nine months and had argued that no harm was done because the matter was trivial as consumers had not lost out financially.

"The Court of Appeal saw these arguments for what they are: a breach of consumers' civil rights and actionable before the English courts. We look forward to holding Google to account for its actions," he added.

Google has already had to pay fines in the US totalling $40 million relating to this incident.

IT Pro has approached Google for comment.

The Wikimedia Foundation is suing the NSA and US Department of Justice because it believes the spy agency's mass surveillance programmes violate freedom of speech laws.

Eight organisations have signed the documents, calling for the NSA to shut down its large-scale surveillance operation that tracks data flowing to and from the US to protect its 500 million monthly users.

Lila Tretikov, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said in a blog post on the New York Times: "The NSA's mass surveillance of Internet traffic on American soil often called "upstream" surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment, which protects the right to privacy, as well as the First Amendment, which protects the freedoms of expression and association.

"We also argue that this agency activity exceeds the authority granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that Congress amended in 2008."

The blog post goes on to explain that Wikipedia's users have the right to browse and upload articles to Wikipedia anonymously and without prejudice. The NSA snooping on its users could break confidentiality, especially in countries where governments are repressive and this could lead Wikipedia's users not to post topical information to the website.

"By tapping the backbone of the internet, the NSA is straining the backbone of democracy. By violating our users' privacy, the NSA is threatening the intellectual freedom that is central to people's ability to create and understand knowledge," she continued.

"Privacy is an essential right. It makes freedom of expression possible, and sustains freedom of inquiry and association. It empowers us to read, write and communicate in confidence, without fear of persecution. Knowledge flourishes where privacy is protected."

Russian search engine Yandex has complained to the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia that the inclusion of Google services on Android devices violates the country's antitrust laws.

Yandex may hold 60 per cent of Russia's search market, but thinks Google's installation of its own search engine and apps suite, which includes Google Drive, Maps and Gmail, on all Android devices is unfair.

Yandex's PR director Ochir Mandzhikov said in a statement: "We believe that device manufacturers should have a choice as to which search provider to set as the default or which services to have preinstalled on the device.

"Google should not prevent manufacturers from preinstalling competitor apps. This is why we are talking about the need to unbundle Google's Android operating system from Google Search and its other end-user services."

The company also detailed examples of three smartphone vendors - Prestigio, Fly and Explay - that have reportedly refused to include Yandex's search engine and additional services because they already have Google's suite of services integrated.

"Chances are high that Google will continue this practice. It is not only Yandex or other large developers, whose services compete [with] Google's, that are under threat, but also the device manufacturers. But ultimately, it is the end-users who suffer because of inferior services," the statement continued.

Other companies believe Google is breaching competition regulations because it only allows official apps to be downloaded from the Play Store rather than third party ones, harming other firms' chances of increasing downloads.

Android's smartphone market share has fallen from 52 per cent to 44 per cent over the last year, because many people believe the open source nature of the Android operating system goes against Google's closed principles.

The Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) is urging motoring firms to realise the potential of driverless cars, as the government plans to update the Highway Code to reflect new on-the-road technologies.

The IMI believes car firms don't yet have the necessary skills and infrastructure to deal with driverless vehicles, yet the government's study includes tweaks to current policies to address greater precision provided by automated vehicles and the the reduction of insurance premiums to account for the reduced possibility of accidents.

IMI's CEO Steve Nash said: "The review is a statement of intent by the government, who are forging ahead with bringing driverless cars to UK roads in 2015. Burying your head in the sand will not work if you wish to continue operating effectively in the modern service and repair industry.

"Businesses must begin investing in training on the latest vehicle technologies in order to meet future demands. Even if driverless cars do not become common, their development will accelerate the inclusion of driver aid and driver safety systems on modern vehicles, raising the skills requirement to work on them."

However, Nash said MPs are still divided in their view of driverless cars, with some proclaiming they shouldn't be introduced on the roads and others thinking it's a technology the UK should be spearheading.

A survey by the IMI back in January exposed these levels of uncertainty, with more than half of UK MPs against further research into driverless cars because of the implications they pose for the insurance industry.

"This technology is not going away. Even if we don't see fully autonomous vehicles on sale in the next few years, the advancement in technology will have a huge impact on normal vehicles," Nash said at the time.

"MPs are in danger of falling asleep at the wheel and need to start paying closer attention to the implications of these changes; both in terms of legislative issues and the large skills gaps it will create in the automotive workforce who maintain cars."

MPs are calling for stricter legislation around online trolling, saying anyone who is caught bullying others online should be banned from social media sites or other websites.

Labour MP John Mann, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism told the House of Commons: "If we can ban people from going to a certain pub or certain football match...then the same should be done to specific parts of social media or, if necessary, to the internet as a whole."

A report published yesterday by the group further explained: "If it can be proven in a detailed way that someone has made a considered and determined view to exploit various online networks to harm and perpetrate hate crimes against others then the accepted principles, rules and restrictions that are relevant to sex offences must surely apply."

According to the All-Party Parliamentary Group, antisemitic racism is twice as common now as it was in the 1900s. The group also found that social media platforms were increasingly being used to spread of anti-semitism, referring to Nazi-themed statements and imagery on such sites last year.

However, Justice Minister Shailesh Vara explained to the House the coalition government is "working and engaging with social media platforms, with the police and with other stakeholders with a view to try and improve the position".

Mann suggested MPs should be able to contact a high-level police officer immediately should they uncover abuse or harassment of people online by others.

Other options the government has put forward for dealing with online trolls include handing out two-year jail sentences, with the legislation currently going through the House of Lords.

A website owner who published pornographic pictures of people online without their permission, before charging them to have the images removed, has been convicted in California.

Kevin Bollaert is facing up to 20 years in prison after being found guilty on 27 charges relating to identity theft and extortion during his time as a "revenge porn" website operator, BBC News reports.

He ran a website that allowed disgruntled people to upload compromising photos of their former partners, alongside their social media contact details and other personal information.

In court, it was claimed this led to victims being harassed online through Facebook and Twitter by people who'd spotted their pictures online.

This constitutes a violation of Californian law, which bans the sharing of people's personal information with the "intent to annoy or harass" them.

Through another website he would then demand payment around $350 - from the victims featured in the photos if they wanted their images removed.

Although the State of California does have in place laws to prosecute people for revenge porn offences, he was not charged under this legislation because this reportedly came into force after his website was shut down.

Court documents revealed around 10,000 photos were posted on the site in total between 2012 and 2013, while Paypal accounts show he made tens of thousands of dollars through the websites.

Bollaert's defence lawyer Emily Rose-Weber said he may have run an "immoral business" but he had not broken the law.

"It's gross, it's offensive, but it's not illegal," she said, in her client's defence.

Google, Apple-owned Beats Electronics and Sony all allegedly owe New York-based publisher Zenbu Magazines royalties and are being sued for refusing to pay.

The publisher said the three companies hadn't paid their dues for using music from before 1972 when US copyright law was updated to include music recordings.

"Beats has copied tens of thousands of pre-1972 sound recordings to its servers, transmitting and performing them via the Beats Music Service to its millions of users on a daily basis, without any authorisation," the ruling against Apple states.

"Beats profits from its unauthorised reproduction, distribution, and public performance of pre-1972 recordings by charging subscription fees to its users, without paying royalties or licensing fees for pre-1972 recordings."

One of the tracks Zenbu Magazines claims Beats has been using without permissions is Sin City by the Flying Burrito Brothers, which was recorded in 1969, and the publisher is now attempting to collect punitive damages under Californian state law, royalties and legal fees.

Other artists who are also said to have not been paid royalties by the companies include Hot Tuna and New Riders of the Purple Sage.

Sony's case refers to its PlayStation Music Store and Unlimited Music package. The case against the company states: "Sony's conduct as alleged herein was unfair because its conduct was immoral, unethical, unscrupulous or substantially injurious, and the utility of its conduct, if any, did not outweigh the gravity of the harm to its victims."

Rdio, Songza, Slacker and Escape Media Group (operator of Grooveshark) have all also been involved in legal proceedings for refusing to pay the charges.

Apple-owned Beats Electronics is facing legal action after one of the co-designers of its original line of headphones accused the firm of fraud.

Noel Lee, CEO of audio technology firm Monster, has filed a complaint with the Superior Court in California against Beats suggesting he invented the technology used inside the headphone brand.

Monster assisted Beats co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine with the company's launch in 2008, and Lee claims he helped create and engineer the technology in exchange for licensing rights to the high-profile brand.

He also claims that Dr. Dre, along with fellow Beats co-founder Jimmy Iovine, failed to credit him for the contributions he made, and the effort he put into educating the pair about how best to make and distribute the technology.

However, when Beats sold a 50.1 per cent stake in its business to HTC in August 2011 for $300m, Monster claims it was made to forfeit its rights over the Beats technology because of a change of ownership clause shortly after.

This meant Monster had to hand over the intellectual property rights to the technology. This, it is claimed, cost his company millions in lost revenue.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the move also prompted Lee to cut his five per cent share in the company to 1.25 per cent before selling the remainder eight months before Apple agreed to buy Beats in September 2013.

In the suit, Lee claims he only sold his shares after being assured by a member of the Beats board that there were no plans to sell the company or launch an initial public offering within the coming years.

Lee maintains in the suit that if he had retained his five per cent share in the company, it would have been worth more than $100 million now.

As recompense, Lee is seeking general, special and punitive damages against Beats , HTC and Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine individually.

Neither Apple or Beats have commented on the suit.

A former Apple executive has been sentenced to one year and one day in prison (in addition to a $4.5 million fine) after he allegedly took part in a kickback scheme, siphoning off money from suppliers into his own pocket.

Ex-supply manager Paul Devine was initially arrested in August 2010 for his part in the scheme, but he wasn't sentenced until this week.

He was accused of giving valuable (but confidential) insight to Asian iPhone and iPod accessories about the iDevice maker, which resulted in them getting better deals and him making commission on the side.

A document from the US Department of Justice (DoJ) outlined the charges, saying: "Devine's job gave him access to confidential internal Apple information. In the course of the scheme, Devine transmitted confidential information, such as product forecasts, pricing targets and product specifications, to suppliers and manufacturers of Apple parts.

"In return, the suppliers and manufacturers paid Devine kickbacks, including payments determined as a percentage of their Apple contracts."

Apple has also taken action against Devine, charging him with taking $1m in bribes from the suppliers in question when the case first went to court in 2010. The DOJ hasn't revealed why the amount Devine will pay has increased four-fold as yet, although one explanation could be that following the trial of those who also were involved, the amount found to be obtained illegally was higher.

At the time, Apple said in a statement: "Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business. We have zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company."

The slightest hint of voyeurism and the news media is all over an IT security issue like an itchy rash.

I'm talking about last week's story about a Russian website that was found to be streaming the live feeds of thousands of unsecured webcams from around the world.

The site had been known about for a while before the BBC and others picked up on it, as word of it had already been widely circulated on social media sites long before.

This wasn't the only thing that made the story old news, because the so-called hacking of webcam feeds isn't a new phenomenon. I have been writing about the risk of unsecured network cams with IP addresses since they first hit the market more than a decade ago.

But why, I hear you ask, have I referred to it as "so-called hacking"? The reason for that is because there is precious little hacking involved. In actual fact, all that is happening here are people and organisations hooking their webcams and CCTV units up to the internet without bothering to change the default admin logins and passwords first.

Of course, the media interest has peaked because of two things: Firstly there's opportunity for a scare story about someone, somewhere watching us get down and dirty in the bedroom. Although why anyone would want a live streaming camera in the bedroom is beyond me, unless they wanted people to see their intimate moments.

Then there's the Internet of Things (IoT) connection. Just as with the cloud prefix, if a story can be associated with the IoT, it's worth running. The fact that IP cams pre-date the IoT by a decade is neither here nor there. A bit like the Russian site in question.

I went and looked at it when I first heard about it, hopeful that something more interesting than empty car parks, office hallways and dingy corners of warehouses might be on display. But no, that was pretty much it no matter which location I looked in, any time of day, anywhere on the map. This is, almost, a non-story then.

Except it does serve to remind us that we are responsible for our own actions and our own security. Simply blaming the 'bloody Russians' for putting this site up and 'hacking' into all those cameras is not good enough.

The buck stops with the user; if you have an IP connected camera and haven't bothered to change the defaults for remote access or secure the damn thing behind your perimeter defences. The larger the enterprise, the better the security posture and the more comprehensive the security policy so the less chance of this happening. That's what my experience of such things would suggest at least. The further down the enterprise size scale you slide, the greater the risk of inadvertent exposure becomes.

It also reminds us that vendors have a role to play here, and have known about the dangers these camera defaults pose for years yet have done naff all to rectify the matter and switch them off out of the box. Would it really be such a problem to Joe User that remote internet access had to be switched on if that was made clear on the packaging, on the device and in the instruction manual? Is Joe User really that thick? Don't answer that...

Nine per cent of all workers who take digital files out of the office don't secure them at all and the worst culprits are those working in the public sector, new research from Imation shows.

The company asked 1,000 UK and German workers about their remote working habits and how they protect their sensitive data while away from the office.

Almost half of the remote workers surveyed said they used their own personal laptops to access work-related emails or documents and a third of these folk have also been using their personal smartphones to read and write work emails.

Two-fifths of those who do work away from the office said their device, with work-related information available on it, had been lost or stolen in a public place.

Fifty-seven per cent of respondents reported their organisations have a remote working policy in place, but of those that do have a policy, eight per cent admitted knowingly breaking it and 18 per cent revealed they have unknowingly done so.

Sixteen per cent of people who don't work remotely said they don't have the right tools to do so and 25 per cent said the ones they do have could be improved. That makes a total of 41 per cent of people who don't feel they are correctly being looked after from a remote working perspective.

Nick Banks, VP for EMEA at data security vendor Imation, said: "The respondents that we looked at were only for 250 users or above. So there's a lot of big public sector organisations, big enterprise companies that actually have information which is not being, perhaps, cared for and looked at outside the office as they would want."

Surprisingly, it would seem those with the worst remote working habits were working in the public sector.

"29.2 per cent of respondents were involved working with the public sector and the rest were split in between the commercial sectors, business professional consumer services, IT and telcos, manufacturing production, retail distribution and transport, financial services and charity nonprofit," Banks explained.

A further 42.7 per cent of the people questioned were in organisations with more than 3,000 employees and although you would expect these companies to have extremely tight security rules and regulations, and also extremely tight security infrastructure, this isn't the case.

Thirty-two per cent of people who work remotely said the reason they did so is to manage their high workload, while a quarter said they worked remotely because they travel a lot or because it's more productive.

"A lot of the talk about BYOD is the fact that it tends to improve our work-life balance because it's going to make us more able be at home with family and yet only one in five work remotely in order to improve their work-life balance. One of the major reasons for working remotely was to be more productive so that indicates their offices are not quite conducive to work or working efficiently and effectively," Banks said.

When asked what an employee would do if they found a lost device in a public place, 28 per cent said they will attempt to return it to its owner by accessing the device.

Banks said: "This is throwing up another issue, which is are they actually accessing because they are benevolent and good samaritans or are they just being nosy and trying to find out what was on there?"

The second thing, added Banks, is if they are putting the device into their own corporate machine, are they actually running the risk of introducing some horrendous malware into their own work environment? Because, until they use that USB device, and/or power up that smartphone or laptop and see what's in there, they don't actually know what it contains.

Banks advised: "I would like to think that companies are concerned about the level of security they provide or rather, not the device, but they insist on for their staff to utilise when they're outside the office working.

"I'd also like to think that companies would try to ensure that, if they do have a security policy, and there are some figures on this, do they have the right tools? Do they have a remote working set of rules and are companies really insuring?"

The legal and accountancy sectors are to be offered access to a free, online IT security training course to help members of these professions learn how to avoid cyber attacks.

It is also hoped the government-backed initiative will enable lawyers and accountants to advise their clients on cyber security best practice.

The course's launch is being announced in a speech by digital economy minister Ed Vaizey today at the Law Society in London.

In a statement, he said the sensitive data the legal and accountancy sectors handle makes them a prime target for cyber attacks.

Therefore, it's vitally important that people working in these industries are clued-up on cyber security issues.

"The new course we are launching today makes cyber security part of the day job for lawyers and accountants. It provides members of both professions with tailored and relevant guidance on how they can better protect themselves and their clients from cyber threats," said Vaizey.

"It's essential government and industry work together to protect UK companies from online attacks that can cause millions of pounds of damage."

The course content has been jointly created by the government, The Law Society, the Institute for Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and the Solicitor's Regulatory Authority.

Robert Bourns, deputy vice president of the Law Society, said cyber crime poses not just a threat to solicitors and accountants, but to clients as well.

"Training to raise awareness and understanding for all involved in practice is an important part of protection," he said.

"That is why we are supporting our members by providing this bespoke training package, developed in partnership with the government and other professional bodies."

It will cover a wide range of issues, including how to protect digital information, avoid workplace data breaches and prevent cyber attacks occurring.

Funding for the training course will come from the government's five-year, 860 million National Cyber Security Programme, which aims to make the UK one of the safest places in the world to do business online.

Further details on the course can be found here.

Apple is being investigated by the EU's competition watchdog for paying less tax through its Ireland HQ, resulting in calls of unfair competition and allegations the actions are tantamount to illegal state aid.

Antoine Colombani, spokesman for European Union Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said: "In this case, we have doubts that through tax rulings a company may have been granted selective treatment, preferential treatment, compared with what another company under the same rules, the general rules of the Irish tax system, would have received."

Apple has operated in Ireland since 1980, meaning the company has paid a much lower rate of tax in comparison to headquartering the company in the UK. Ireland's corporation tax stands at 12.5 per cent, but Apple receives a more preferential rate of two per cent because it reports some sales through subsidiaries.

The reason Ireland adjusts its rates of tax is to attract investment and jobs to the country from multinationals like Apple. Other examples of large companies that run operations from Ireland include Google, Cisco, eBay, Facebook, Dropbox and Amazon.

State financing is not allowed under EU law, but this rule doesn't take into account legacy arrangements.

Ireland's Department of Finance responded to the EU's Competition Commissioner saying: "Ireland is confident that there is no breach of state aid rules in this case and has already issued a formal response to the Commission earlier this month, addressing in detail the concerns and some misunderstandings contained in the opening decision."

Colombani said the outline of the case against Apple would be made public later today (Tuesday), with the publication of its finding appearing in the Commission's Official Journal in a few weeks' time. Apple can then respond to claims if it feels the information is not accurate.

The HP-Autonomy saga has entered a new phase, with fresh details emerging of what went on at the Cambridge-based software house before the hardware giant snapped it up.

The former management team at Autonomy has been embroiled in a court case against HP for some time now, with the computer manufacturer claiming the company's founder falsified accounts to present an inflated value before acquisition.

Software company Autonomy was acquired in 2011 by HP for $11.7bn (7.16bn), but after a year of operation, revenues from the company started dropping considerably.

In 2012, HP filed action against Autonomy, citing "serious accounting improprieties" and "outright misrepresentations". In August, a settlement deal was rejected by a United States district court judge and the latest development has seen HP present evidence to the courts.

The evidence was presented by HP's lawyer Marc Wolinsky, including an email from Autonomy's finance director Sushovan Hussain to founder Mike Lynch, sent at 1.19am on 10 December 2010, three weeks before the end of Autonomy's financial year. The email read: "Really don't know what to do mike. As I guessed revenue fell away completely.

"We've covered up with bofa and hopefully db and Doi but if latter two don't happen it's totally bad. There are swathes of reps with nothing to do maybe chase imaginary deals."

'Bofa' refers to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch, one of the Autonomy's clients at the time. The panicked email was triggered by the poor performance of the company's IDOL product.

HP said in the court filings: "HP did not miss the fraud at Autonomy because it wasn't diligent enough. The problem was Autonomy executives had lied. Repeatedly."

The company is trying to settle damages claims from shareholders relating to breach of fiduciary duty by its directors, including chief executive Meg Whitman. Following the acquisition, HP was forced to write down non-hardware revenues by 24 per cent because of bad performance.

HP is also trying to file claims against Autonomy's auditor Deloitte over claims it signed off accounts filled with "misrepresentations and outright falsehoods".

Detectives from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) have arrested two men for selling fake software loaded onto computer discs.

The men, aged 48 and 45, have been selling software manufactured by Microsoft and Adobe on a dedicated website, suggesting it was a full-scale criminal operation.

Danny Medlycott, the newly appointed head of PIPCU, said: "[The] operation demonstrates we are dedicated to combating IP crime and protecting legitimate UK businesses and consumers.

"It is important that consumers are aware of the risks of buying counterfeit items. Not only is purchasing fake software violating the intellectual rights of software authors, but consumers are also putting their computers and laptops at risk from security threats, such as viruses and malware."

The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) supported PIPCU's move, saying genuine software resellers need to ensure they can run their business on a level playing field, without counterfeit distributors getting in the way of their livelihoods.

"The future prosperity of computing is paramount, especially considering the rise of cloud computing and the need to keep such environments cyber-crime free," commented Julian Heathcote Hobbins, General Counsel at FAST.

PIPCU was set up by the City of London Police to crack down on counterfeit goods and piracy.

Earlier this week, it arrested a Manchester-based man who was running several illegal sports streaming websites, and charging a subscription for people to watch international sporting events.

In May, the organisation started blocking some of the biggest torrent sites to stop them illegally distributing materials, starting with major perpetrator Torrentz.eu.

In December last year, it closed down 90 websites selling counterfeit goods in the UK, including headphones, sports clothing, personal care products, shoes, toys, luxury goods, mobile phones and electronic accessories.

Microsoft will not hand over email data to US prosecutors, despite being ordered to do so by the courts after a suspension order was lifted.

The company said it will appeal against the command that concerns data held in a datacentre based in Ireland.

Microsoft, along with other companies including US phone network AT&T, has refused to hand over its customer data in order to protect users' privacy. They argue that emails should be protected in the same way mail and telephone conversations in the US are.

A Microsoft spokesperson told Reuters:"Microsoft will not be turning over the email and plans to appeal. Everyone agrees this case can and will proceed to the appeals court. This is simply about finding the appropriate procedure for that to happen."

Chief Judge Loretta Preska of the US District Court in Manhattan, had issued a suspension on the ruling previously, giving Microsoft the opportunity to appeal against the decision, but this was lifted last Friday.

Former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked information that revealed some of the major technology companies had been handing over their data to the US government without customers' permission. Now those companies are trying to prove that they didn't hand over data, fearful they may lose international customers.

They are concerned that by handing over data when requested, the US courts could see it as permission to take data as and when they feel it is appropriate.

This is the first case where a company has refused to hand over data after a US court requested data held internationally is released.

Facebook has come under fire from privacy rights supporters, who claim the social network should implement data protection changes and pay out damages to users for evading privacy over the years.

More than 17,000 people have signed a petition asking that each Facebook user is rewarded 500 (400) in damages because the group believes the company has violated data protection laws and is supporting spying by America's National Security Agency (NSA).

Austrian law student Max Schrems is leading the petition and filed a law suit on August 1, asking that Facebook be held to account in a law suit in his own country. He's hoping than one billion Facebook users will support his cause.

As Facebook's HQ in Europe, the responsibility to fight the case will come from Facebook Ireland, based in Dublin.

Schrems said in a statement: "Our aim is to make Facebook finally operate lawfully in the area of data protection. Each additional participant also increases the pressure on Facebook.

"We are only claiming a small amount, as our primary objective is to ensure correct data protection. However, if many thousands of people participate we would reach an amount that will have a serious impact on Facebook," he added.

Schrems said Facebook's allegedly illegal activities include support of the NSA's spying activities, tracking its users on external websites, passing on user data to third-party companies and applications without permission and not asking for authority to use data in other ways.

Austrian law allows responsibility for a group action to fall on one individual - in this case Schrems - who will represent all those who sign the petition in court.

The campaign is being financed by litigation firm Roland Prozessfinanz and the company's 20 per cent fee will be deducted from the total damages awarded. Anything left over after costs will be given back to the claimants, unless it's under 5 in which case it will be donated to charity.

Schrems said he wasn't bothered about how much he received back, but it was more important to him for Facebook to change its privacy rules.

HP claims former Autonomy boss Mike Lynch should be held accountable for fraud, as the legal battle surrounding the hardware giant's takeover of the Cambridge-based software player rumbles on.

In papers filed with the federal court in San Francisco, HP has accused Lynch, along with former Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain, of fraud.

The vendor said it also plans to sue Hussain, who has been embroiled in a bid to block several shareholder settlements relating to HP's 2011 acquisition of Autonomy.

Hussain's issues relate to the decision to excuse a slew of past and present HP executives from having to pay shareholders damages.

Instead, it was ruled that the shareholders would work with HP to pursue claims against the likes of Lynch and Hussain.

"The notion that [Hussain] should be permitted to intervene and challenge the substance of a settlement designed to protect the interests of the company he defrauds is ludicrous," the court filing states.

"The shareholder plaintiffs, who originally sued HP's directors and officers, now agree that Hussain, along with Autonomy's founder and CEO, Michael Lynch, should be held accountable for fraud."

The wording used in the filing is markedly stronger than HP has employed in the past, where it's made vague references to "financial impropriety" at Autonomy.

According to a report on the BBC, Lynch has described the comments as a "personal smear."

A spokesperson told the broadcaster: "This breathless ranting from HP is the sort of personal smear we've come to expect.

"As the emotional outbursts go up, the access to facts seems to go down," it added.

The two parties have been at loggerheads since November 2012, when HP claimed "serious accounting improprieties" took place at Autonomy before it was acquired, which may have misled the company about its true value.

This was on the back of the $8.8 billion write down HP was forced to swallow in the wake of the deal.

Labour's failed Connecting for Health NHS IT scheme could end up costing taxpayers 700 million, following reports that a legal dispute between Fujitsu and the NHS has been settled in the IT supplier's favour.

According to a report in The Telegraph, Fujitsu was pursuing compensation after its 896m contract with the NHS was cancelled.

The IT supplier reportedly won 700m, although it seems Fujitsu is feeling a little hard done by, and pressing for higher levels of compensation.

The case was heard in secret to protect the parties' reputations and save on legal bills and, as yet, neither the Cabinet Office nor Fujitsu has commented on the results.

Connecting for Health was part of the 12bn NHS National Programme for IT and sought to digitise patient records in the South of England.

The Labour government revealed the plans in 2001 it, but the project was closed down in 2008, after disputes about changes to the plans including the storing of X-rays.

In 2010, the Cabinet Office took over the case and tried to come to an agreement with Fujitsu out of court, but it led to arbitration and a 31.5m legal bill instead.

This is the most recent tale of the government's failed IT strategy.

Last month, it was revealed that the Home Office was caught up in another arbitration, worth 500m of compensation, with border IT supplier Raytheon.

A Cabinet Office spokesman told the BBC: "Fujitsu are an important supplier of IT services to the government. The government does not comment on contractual disputes with suppliers."

Fujitsu also said it wouldn't comment on the case but explained: "Fujitsu has been a strategic partner to the UK government implementing critical IT for the last 40 years and we are committed to working closely with the UK public sector for the next 40 years and beyond."

The government has announced that emergency measures will be brought in to force internet and telephone companies to record customer data.

In a controversial move, parliament has declared the new law necessary so that the security services can gain access to any data they may need.

It will force telecoms companies to retain their customer data for 12 months and allows access to any content within it by an intelligence agent if the order is signed off by a government official.

The planned laws will be in effect until 2016 and have the full backing of prime minister David Cameron and deputy prime minister Nick Clegg. Both deem the legislation necessary to keep the country safe, it is heard.

A recent ruling from the European Court of Justice removed the obligation from telecoms firms to keep records of when and to whom their customers have made calls, texts or emails.

Cameron and Clegg claim that unless the UK brings in reactionary legislation, companies will be able to destroy information that could see them prosecuted.

Some may argue, however, that the government is trying to halt the surge of privacy rights that has swept across the EU in the wake of Google's "right to be forgotten" ruling.

Labour has backed the new measures after all three major parties agreed that it would not extend government rights to data by re-introducing the "snoopers charter" which the Lib Dem leader vetoed going through parliament last year.

"The government knows that since the EU ruling there is no legal basis for making internet service providers retain our data, so it is using the threat of terrorism as an excuse for getting this law passed," said executive director of the Open Rights Group, Jim Killock.

"Not only will the proposed legislation infringe our right to privacy, it will also set a dangerous precedent where the government simply re-legislates every time it disagrees with a decision by the EU."

Other safeguards being brought in for emergency measures include the creation of a new Privacy and Civil Liberties Board to examine privacy law, a review of the RIPA act, the introduction of annual government transparency reports and a "sunset clause" that will cause the powers to expire in 2016.

What replaces this law once it has expired will be the worry of many civil rights groups.

The UK government has requested the Right to be Forgotten law be dropped from the European Union's data protection legislation.

The Right to be Forgotten ruling, which allows search results deemed to be "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant", or those that infringe an individual's privacy to be deleted from search engines including Google at the request of individuals, should not be administered by the EU.

Since May when the ruling was put in place, 70,000 people have requested Google delete links to articles from its search results.

Justice minister Simon Hughes told the House of Lords: "The government is currently negotiating with our 27 partners to get a new law, which is the new directive and we, the UK, would not want what is currently in the draft, which is the Right to be Forgotten, to remain. We want it to be removed, we think it is the wrong position," he said.

"I don't think as an individual and as a minister that we want the law to develop in the way that is implied by this judgment that you close down access to information in the EU, which is open in the rest of the world."

Since the directive has been announced, many media outlets including the BBC and The Guardian have voiced concerns and argued that content which is outdated still has relevancy and this ruling is one step towards media censorship.

The European Court of Justice has said that people should be able to ask for certain information about themselves to be removed from search engines, but according to some critics, Google has spun this to mean it doesn't need to tell users if certain search results have been omitted as it previously did.

Last week, Google responded to criticisms regarding its rush to implement the right to be forgotten ruling after a BBC writer objected to one of his posts being removed from the search engine.

The BBC's economics editor, Robert Peston, claimed the removal of his 2007 blog post was effectively Google casting him "into oblivion" after a commenter ask that it be removed from search.

Seven Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from the UK, US, Netherlands, South Korea and others have banded together to take the UK intelligence service GCHQ to court.

It is the first time GCHQ has had to defend itself in court to a corporate body and it will have to answer snooping accusations that stem from the Edward Snowden leaks.

The group claim the government agency performed a series of "network attacks" that undermined "the goodwill the organisations rely on".

Charges filed against GCHQ include claims that Belgian telecoms company Belgacom was infected with malware, that the agency used intrusion technology to covertly monitor communications and that it spied on internet traffic flowing through Germany.

The ISPs involved in the case are GreenNet (UK), Riseup (US), Greenhost (Netherlands), Mango (Zimbabwe), Jinbonet (South Korea) People Link (US) and Chaos Computer Club (Germany).

All seven are noted as being easy targets' as they are not independent firms and not the major service provider in their respective countries.

A supporter of the case, Privacy International, claimed "the type of surveillance being carried out allows them to challenge the practices... because they and their users are at threat of being targeted."

The campaign group has filed two similar cases in the past against the surveillance programmes Tempora, Prism and against GCHQ's deployment of spyware.

"These widespread attacks on providers and collectives undermine the trust we all place on the internet and greatly endangers the world's most powerful tool for democracy and free expression," said Eric King, deputy director of Privacy International

Cedric Knight, of ISP GreenNet, added: "Snowden's revelations have exposed GCHQ's view that independent operators like GreenNet are legitimate targets for internet surveillance, so we could be unknowingly used to collect data on our users. We say this is unlawful and utterly unacceptable in a democracy."

GCHQ told the BBC that all its work is conducted "in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate".

The EU has cut mobile data costs by 55 per cent for those traveling around the region from today.

The action on roaming rates takes effects in all countries within the EU. Mobile calling and texting rates will also be decreased, but the cut will not be as impressive.

Using the internet in another EU country will fall to 0.20 (16p) per megabyte, more than half of the previous cost of 0.45 (36p), while calls will cost 0.19 Euro cents (15p) per minute instead of 0.24 (20p). The cost of receiving calls will drop from 0.07 (6p) to 0.05 (4p) and texts will cost a maximum of 5p.

Neelie Kroes, the EU telecoms commissioner, said: "This huge drop in data roaming prices will make a big difference to all of us this summer."

Kroes is hoping this advance in the battle against roaming charges will go one step further in all 28 EU countries by the end of this year by abolishing all roaming fees, but the remaining challenge is getting all EU governments to agree to the European Commission's proposals to overhaul the mobile telecoms market.

Kroes has called for EU operators to take the same steps as US carriers when allowing their customers to roam.

"It is still ridiculous in my opinion that companies in the US give their customers free roaming to more than 100 countries including the EU, but European customers are still not enjoying the same opportunity," she said.

Users will also have the option of switching their network when abroad to provide the cheapest option.

Three already offers the Feel At Home deal, which allows its customers to browse while in selected countries around the world using home data limits, minutes and texts. Although this feature is attractive for those who travel to the US, Hong Kong and a handful of other countries, many of those territories included in the plan aren't in the EU.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and members of the social network's board have been sued by a shareholder who is unhappy with them being able to awarded each other up to $150 million of stock annually.

Ernesto Espinoza said the board was "essentially free to grant itself whatever amount of compensation it chooses" under the social media company's 2012 equity incentive plan, which also covers employees, officers and consultants.

Zuckerberg made $653,165 last year, but according to Forbes his net worth is $27.7 billion. Among the other defendants is Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, a director whose compensation was $16.15 million in 2013 is worth $999 million, according to Forbes.

The shareholder wants to force directors to repay Facebook for alleged damages sustained and to impose "meaningful limits" subject to shareholder approval about how much stock the board can award itself.

The plan annually caps total awards at 25 million shares and individual awards at 2.5 million. In theory lets the board annually award directors $156 million in stock each, based on Friday's closing price of $62.50.

The lawsuit does not contend that such large sums will be awarded.

Espinoza also said last year's average $461,000 payout to non-employee directors was too high, being 43 percent larger than typical payouts at "peer" companies such as Amazon.com and Walt Disney that on average generated twice as much revenue and three times more profit.

Facebook spokeswoman Genevieve Grdina said "the lawsuit is without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously," in an email to Reuters.

Facebook is facing legal action over claims the social networking giant snoops on users' private messages and sells information to third parties.

A lawsuit has been filed against the firm in California this week, which accuses Facebook of "misleading users" into thinking the site's messaging tools are a "secure, private mechanism" for communication.

"In fact Facebook mines user data and profits from those data by sharing them with third parties," the lawsuit states, without users' consent.

These third parties are said to include data aggregators, advertisers and marketing firms.

The legal action has been taken by Facebook users Matthew Campbell and Michael Hurley, who are seeking class action status for their suit.

The lawsuit demands $100 a day in damages for each day the alleged violations took place or $10,000 for each affected user.

The suit claims Facebook's alleged actions are duplicitous because the promise of private messaging lulls users into a false sense of security.

"Representing to users that the content of Facebook messages is private' creates an especially profitable opportunity for Facebook," the document states.

"Users who believe they are communicating on a service free from surveillance are likely to reveal facts about themselves that they would not reveal had they known the content was being monitored.

"Thus, Facebook has positioned itself to acquire pieces of the users' profiles that are likely unavailable to other data aggregators," it added.

A Facebook spokesperson has vehemently denied the lawsuit's claims.

"We believe the allegations are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously," the spokesperson said.

This isn't the first privacy wrangle Facebook has found itself at the centre of, as the company has repeatedly come under fire for its data handling processes in recent years.

This has led to the introduction of new privacy tools, designed to make it easier for users to shut off access to more sensitive posts.

EMC has stepped up its war of words with rival Pure Storage by filing a lawsuit against the firm accusing it of stealing its trade secrets.

The storage behemoth has been embroiled in a series of legal spats recently with at least six former members of staff who it has accused of taking confidential company information with them when they left EMC to work at Pure Storage.

However, rather than just sue the employees themselves, EMC has now decided to take the fight to its Flash array making rival, and filed a lawsuit against Pure Storage with the US District Court of Massachusetts.

In the 48-page suit, the company accuses its competitor of colluding with former EMC staffers to misappropriate confidential company information and trade secrets totalling "tens of thousands" of pages.

"The activities advanced and directed by Pure Storage are part of a systematic and unlawful strategy intended to identify, target and convert valuable EMC assets for Pure Storage's benefit as [it] seems to brand itself as an innovator' in the enterprise storage market, apparently as part of its pre-IPO strategy," the document alleges.

The strongly worded document claims the alleged activities were "orchestrated or known to" the senior management team at Pure Storage, some of who are reported to be former EMC and VMware employees or investors.

"EMC competes vigorously and lawfully in the marketplace and expects indeed embraces the same conduct from its competitors," the suit continues.

"Unfortunately, rather than attempt to compete legitimately with EMC, Pure Storage has improperly obtained and benefited from critically sensitive EMC confidential information from former EMC employees," it adds.

This information is alleged to have been used to "target and raid with unnatural precision" EMC's bank of technical and sales staff, and allow Pure Storage to "unlawfully interfere" with the firm's long-standing customer relationships.

Since August 2011, it is claimed at least 44 EMC technical engineers and sales staff have left under "suspicious circumstances" to work for Pure Storage.

"In many instances, these individuals were among the highest performing EMC professionals in their positions in either the entire nation or in their assigned regions," the lawsuit states.

"Legitimate hiring in the open market would not result in such overwhelming recruitment of high-achieving employees from a single company."

The company also revealed it has sent cease and desist letters to former EMC employees and Pure Storage, and also took steps to remind the former about the agreements they made with the firm about not passing on confidential information to competitors once they leave.

"Because Pure Storage's unlawful activity has continued unabated despite EMC's prior efforts, [it] brings this action seeking relief that will finally put a stop [to] the underhanded conduct being orchestrated by Pure Storage and its executives, and to seek full redress for the harm this conduct has caused EMC," the documents adds.

Pure Storage has responded to the lawsuit by rubbishing EMC's claims in a blog post, claiming there is "no merit whatsoever to any of these complaints."

The post, written by Pure Storage CEO Scott Dietzen, also states the firm intends to "vigorously" defend itself against EMC's allegations.

"We believe in employee freedom and in hiring the very best, but at the same time, we have a strong policy against the use of any third party confidential information," Dietzen wrote.

"To do otherwise would be to compromise our core values of employee freedom and hiring the very best candidates that seek to join us."

A US judge accorded class action status to a lawsuit that alleges broad conspiracy among major Silicon Valley companies to suppress employee compensation by not poaching each other's employees, a court filing showed.

By winning the class certification, the plaintiffs would have more leverage to extract larger financial settlements than if they were to sue individually.

In 2011, five software engineers sued Adobe Systems, Intel, Apple and Google among others over their hiring practices, alleging that the Silicon Valley companies entered into an "overarching conspiracy" to suppress employee compensation to artificially low levels.

The defendants were accused of violating the Sherman Act and Clayton Act antitrust laws by conspiring to eliminate competition for labour, depriving workers of job mobility and hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

The case has been closely watched in the Silicon Valley, and much of it has been built on email exchanges between top executives, including the late Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt.

Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, in a ruling made available on Thursday, also certified the proposed class of technical employees, which includes software and hardware engineers, component designers, application developers, among others.

The plaintiffs believe this proposed class includes more than 50,000 people, according to the filing.

In their original complaint, the plaintiffs sought certification of an "All Employee" class, which included every salaried employee throughout the United States who worked for the defendant companies between 2005 and 2009, estimated to be more than 100,000.

The plaintiffs limited their class action group after Judge Koh in April said they have yet to show enough in common among the proposed class members to allow them to sue together.

The case is In re: High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 11-02509, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.

New EU-wide data protection laws are needed to restore trust in the digital economy, according to the vice president of the European Commission and EU commissioner for justice, Viviane Reding.

In a speech to delegates at the European Data Protection Conference in Brussels, Reding said Europe's economy could be damaged unless a single data protection law is adopted across the continent.

"Trust in the data-driven economy, already in need of a boost, has been damaged. This is a source of concern because of the potential impact on growth. Collected, analysed and moved, personal data has acquired enormous economic significance. According to the Boston Consulting Group, the value of EU citizens' data was 315bn in 2011. It has the potential to grow to nearly 1tn annually in 2020," she said.

The recent spying revelations have also taken their toll and resulted in user trust being lost, she explained.

"[That's] particularly damaging for the digital economy because they involve companies whose services we all use on a daily basis," she said.

However, Reding said, even before the NSA revelations, trust had begun to falter.

"The data protection reform proposed by the Commission in January 2012 provides a response to both these issues: to Europeans' concerns about PRISM as well as the underlying lack of trust," she said.

She went on to cite recent research by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) over the damage caused to the US cloud industry as further proof of her claim.

"This provides an opportunity for cloud providers who are able to deliver a higher standard of safety and security for data. Data protection will be the selling point: a competitive advantage," she said.

Reding added that European governments need to change their approach to data protection by making foreign companies apply EU data protection laws in full, setting conditions in which data can be transferred out of the EU, enforcing sanctions on companies that don't comply with EU law and clear rules on "the obligations and liabilities of cloud providers who are processors of data."

These reforms would "establish a modern, balanced and flexible set of data protection rules. A set of rules that will create a dynamic market within the European Union and a basis for international cooperation," she concluded.

Data protection laws that prevent people from storing data in overseas clouds could be inhibiting enterprise business growth.

That's the view of Sam Maccherola, general manager for EMEA at data forensics vendor Guidance Software, who has called on European lawmakers to overhaul the rules governing where people can store their data.

"Europe is such a small, condensed area and you've got the globalisation of organisations taking place, but moving data from country-to-country is problematic...and I think it's almost an impediment to cloud [growth] in Europe," he told IT Pro.

"Unless the EU changes something in terms of data privacy and the regulation surrounding it, it will continue to be an impediment to business growth."

Maccherola also took aim at the fines handed out by data protection regulators, claiming they need to be drastically stepped up or corporations will continue to flout the rules.

For example, despite ever-tightening data protection laws governing how people's data can be processed and stored, the punishments companies face for failing to follow them are not keeping pace.

"I don't understand the rationale behind all these strict data regulations [if they are not being backed] by real fines, because there are no real ramifications if a [company's] data is stolen," said Maccherola.

"Until corporations have to disclose [that a data breach] has taken place, and the fines remain somewhat nominal, they won't understand the risks associated with losing data and things won't change."

This could potentially be rectified if the European Commission's draft General Data Protection Regulation proposals get the go ahead.

This aims to update the Commission's data protection legislation so that it takes into account the impact of globalisation and newer technology trends, such as cloud computing.

It is also designed to replace numerous other pieces of legislation with a single document.

"Without a doubt, that [sizeable fines] is the missing component because the rationale behind [data protection regulations] makes great sense, but corporations are not taking responsibility because they don't have to," he added.

As the only remaining defendant in the US government's e-books antitrust case, Apple appears headed for a high-stakes trial that could significantly increase the personal computer company's liability in related litigation.

Apple faces a 3 June trial date over civil allegations by the US Department of Justice that it conspired with five publishers to raise the price of e-books and to fight the dominance of Amazon.com.

On Friday, Macmillan became the fifth and final publisher to settle with the government. The Justice Department alleges that Apple came to agreements with each of the publishers meant to ensure that e-book prices at its iBookstore and other retailers would remain higher than those offered by Amazon.com.

At the Apple trial, to be overseen by US District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan, the Justice Department will seek not monetary damages but a judicial decree that Apple violated antitrust law, court papers said.

Among other things, government lawyers want the judge to issue an order enjoining Apple from engaging in any conduct similar to that alleged in the case. Such a judgment could make Apple vulnerable to steep damages in related litigation.

Apple and the publishers also face a class-action suit filed on behalf of consumers and a similar suit filed by dozens of state attorneys general. Neither suit puts a figure on the exact amount of damages sought.

The Consumer Federation of America estimated in a letter last year to the Senate antitrust subcommittee that e-book price fixing would likely cost consumers more than $200 million in 2012. State and federal antitrust laws allow plaintiffs to recover triple the amount of actual damages established at trial.

If Apple loses against the Justice Department, those plaintiffs would be in a "powerful position" to win their cases, according to Harry First, a professor at New York University School of Law specializing in antitrust.

Under the Clayton Act, an antitrust statute, plaintiffs can use judgments obtained by the US government as evidence against defendants.

If Apple loses, it is unclear whether both the states and the private plaintiffs will be able to seek and recover damages for the same conduct.

By contrast, if Apple were to prevail, it would cause "a lot more trouble" for the plaintiffs in the other cases, First said.

Apple declined to comment. It still may settle with the US government.

In December, Apple and four publishers came to an agreement with European Union regulators over their antitrust probe into e-books. The fifth publisher, Pearson Plc's Penguin group, also under investigation, was not part of the European deal announced in December.

Little to gain

Apple may have little to gain by going to trial in the United States, according to some legal experts.

Under settlements with the Justice Department, the five publishers were required to terminate or not renew deals with Apple and other retailers that the government claimed were anti-competitive.

Apple and the government have less to argue over since those deals have been undone, Daniel Crane, a law professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said.

"What are they fighting over?" he said.

Crane added that Apple may be interested in going to trial to establish an antitrust principle that might help other aspects of its business such as content deals with entertainment companies.

The trial would be a big test for the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, which has sought to enhance its reputation for its trial capabilities under the Obama administration.

The government has been represented by Mark Ryan, who is director of litigation, a new position in the Antitrust Division. Ryan, who began in January 2012, was hired by Joseph Wayland, the former acting assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division.

Last year Wayland cited Ryan in a speech about the Antitrust Division's focus on enhancing its litigation capabilities. Under the Obama administration, the Antitrust Division has scored a number of high-profile trial victories, including a criminal price-fixing case against Taiwan-based AU Optronics Corp last year and a successful challenge of H&R Block Inc's acquisition of 2SS Holdings Inc, developer of the TaxACT digital tax preparation business, in 2011.

Apple is represented by lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. One of the law firm's attorneys who recently made an appearance in the case, Orin Snyder, won a favorable settlement last year for Voom HD Holdings, once a unit of Cablevision, following a trial against Dish Network.

Voom sued Dish for $2.4 billion alleging it violated a 15-year contract to carry a suite of high-definition channels, including those devoted to Kung Fu and video games. Under the settlement, Dish agreed to pay $700 million to Cablevision and AMC Networks, which Cablevision spun off last year.

The case is United States v. Apple Inc et al, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-02826.