A glance down the Wikipedia listing of the things DSIT is responsible for reveals a dizzying range of responsibilities.
The department oversees science and technology, including the country’s digital infrastructure, digital public services, AI and space science.
It’s the department sponsoring the Data Use & Access Bill, and was heavily involved in the later stages of the Online Safety Act, now in use to threaten social media platforms with huge fines for failing to police speech.
It is also home to a host of quangos and R&D (Research & Development) bodies researching a range of things including dimming the sun.
Oh, and it’s responsible for the regulation of all these areas.
With so much at stake, who is in charge, and who are they listening to?
Kyle, who has been MP for Hove since 2015 following a career in the voluntary sector, during which time he worked as a special advisor in the Cabinet Office – under Tony Blair’s government. He was appointed minister of DSIT in July 2024 following the election of the new government.
Reportedly, in his second day in office, Kyle had four face-to-face meetings with tech bosses: Apple, Google, Amazon and Meta, beginning what this piece in the Daily Mail describes as “an epic lobbying campaign, perhaps unprecedented in modern politics”.
Over the following three months, “somewhere between 25 and 30” of the 42 external meetings Kyle held were with “businesses seeking to profit from AI or with experts on the industry, or from their lobbyists and supporters including his old chum Tony Blair.”
Kyle also hosted an “AI tech breakfast … to discuss AI regulation” and, more recently, has been hobnobbing with AI firms in the US....<<<Read More>>>...
