The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and the Alan Turing Institute have started a consultation to build guidance about explaining the decisions made by artificial intelligence (AI). The first draft of regulatory guidance into the use of AI is out for consultation until 24 January, and is aimed at data scientists, app developers, business owners or data protection practitioners whose organisations are using, or thinking about using, AI to support, or to make, decisions about individuals.

Dedrone has been awarded certification from the UK’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI) for its counter-drone technology platform. DroneTracker detects, tracks and identifies drones by using multi-sensor capability, combining radio frequency, radar and optical sensors.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the chief executive and president, respectively, of Alphabet, have decided to leave these roles. A statement from Google’s parent company explained that they will continue their involvement as co-founders, shareholders and members of the board of directors.

Almost 60 per cent of Generation Z and Millennials have used private social messaging for customer service, compared to 38 per cent of Generation X, 19 per cent of Baby Boomers and 16 per cent of the Silent Generation. This is according to a NICE inContact survey with more than 2,550 consumers across the globe, which also revealed that the majority of Generation Z and Millennials want companies to allow them to interact with customer service using private social messaging apps (72 per cent and 69 per cent, respectively).

Over 80 per cent of Scottish citizens want to see their councils use a wider range of digital technologies, according to research from Capita and the Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN). They commissioned Opinium to survey 2,000 Scots during ths summer, finding that 84 per cent believed public services should embrace more digital technologies, with growing interest in concepts such as smart cities and the potential for connected devices in hospitals

British businesses are missing out on the benefits of automation by not combining the right technologies, research from ABBYY has found. While 19 in 20 businesses have deployed some form of automation, only one in 20 use the full stack, meaning most businesses are missing out on what the firm calls the ‘secret weapons’ that could deliver the most return on investment (ROI).

Real estate consultancy MindFolio has launched LociLab, a community engagement platform for consumer insights to help shape the development of the public realm. Through an online community, LociLab engages users in the early stages of planning, obtaining local public opinion via daily polls, topical discussion on message boards and integrated surveys, to provide a deeper understanding of consumer demographics and psychographics.

The Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) has awarded a contract to Urban Tide to develop a data platform for the Energy Revolution Integration Service (ERIS). The £500,000 deal with the smart cities data specialist is to produce system for data storage on projects run by itself and its partners, with the capability to make it privately or publicly accessible.