On 9 September 2026, OpenAI announced that it was pushing for mandatory national AI safety requirements in the United States because of concerns that the technology could accelerate its own development. Several incidents in which AI models from developers including OpenAI and Anthropic accessed external systems during testing have highlighted the difficulty of containing unexpected behaviour in advanced agents, and prompted calls for tighter safety regulations. Major developers backed a call by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who wrote an open essay urging companies to slow the pace of frontier AI development with model capabilities advancing faster than existing safeguards and governance frameworks can address.
On 23 September 2026, the heads of OpenAI, Anthropic and Hugging Face told the UN that the current pace of AI development, and the risks it poses to society, demand international coordination. Reuters, BBC, PBS, IAPP and Al Jazeera are some of the many outlets to cover this topic.
David Sullivan is suing the BBC for £150m over multiple claims of sexual misconduct made in a Panorama investigation ‘Predator: The Billionaire Football Boss,’ which was broadcast in June 2026. It featured three women who alleged Sullivan had abused his power as the owner of the Sport newspapers to prey on them for sex when they were seeking work. Sullivan remains West Ham United’s co-owner but has resigned as West Ham’s co-chair since these accusations emerged. He said the accusations were “factually incorrect and entirely false”. The Guardian has more information here.
Piers Morgan has said that he will sue Earl Spencer over “fabricated inaccuracies” and “examples of brazen falsity” in his book about his sister Diana, Princess of Wales. The earl has made a series of claims in ‘Swan Song: Diana, My Sister,’ including an allegation that Morgan was behind the publication of photographs taken by an allegedly hidden camera in a gym of Diana working out in a leotard. Morgan was the editor of the Mirror from 1995 to 2004, but he explained in his YouTube Channel Piers Morgan Uncensored that these photographs were printed by the Sunday Mirror on 7 November 1993, two years before he joined the Daily Mirror. The Guardian has more information here.
Internet and Social Media
On 9 September 2026, Ofcom opened its enforcement programme to monitor tech firms’ efforts to crack down on the spread of non-consensual intimate-images (NCII) and deepfakes. Online platforms were given a deadline of 30 September 2026 to have automated technology in place known as ‘hash matching’ that detects and prevents the sharing of illegal intimate images, including explicit AI-generated deepfakes. If hash matching is not in place, they must prove that their systems and processes curb the spread of NCII by other equally effective means. Any firms that fail to comply with their legal duties could face significant penalties, including fines of up to 10% of their global annual revenue.
On 24 September 2026, TikTok withdrew its appeals against the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)’s £12.7m penalty concerning children’s personal data. The underlying breaches included inadequate measures to prevent under-13s using the platform and failures around transparency and lawful processing of children’s data. It also withdrew an appeal concerning an ICO information notice relating to its use of 13–17-year-olds’ data in recommender systems, allowing the ICO’s investigation to continue.
Meta has launched a new legal challenge against Ofcom after it placed WhatsApp and Instagram, which are owned by Meta, in a category that subjects them to additional duties. Those additional responsibilities include greater transparency, more user controls, measures to protect users from fraudulent advertising and increased recording of illegal content. The move comes against the backdrop of hostility on the part of US tech corporations, and Donald Trump’s White House, over the fees and fines regime Ofcom is enforcing the Online Safety Act. The Guardian has more information here.
Data Privacy and Data Protection
On 16 September 2026, the Data team at Mishcon de Reya hosted a breakfast briefing on cross-border personal data breach response, bringing together our experts to share practical lessons from live, multi-jurisdictional incidents. They have published the Five Key Takeaways of the discussion in a blog post.
Artificial Intelligence
OpenAI has urged British lawmakers to capitalise on renewed fears over AI safety and impose legislation reining in the technology. The company asked the UK government to act immediately, following the call by its rival Anthropic to curb AI development. “We support stronger UK rules for the handful of companies, including OpenAI, developing the most powerful AI systems,” said OpenAI’s head of policy in Europe, Tom Duff Gordon. However, the tech company said legislation should be narrowly focused on the most advanced AI labs and not startups working on less powerful systems. The Guardian has more information here.
Surveillance
An investigative journalist has filed a High Court claim against the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) after police unlawfully obtained communications data in a covert attempt to identify a confidential journalistic source. A High Court judge has granted the journalist, identified as YZL, anonymity to protect the identity of their sources and because of the threat environment in which the journalist works. The journalist, who reports on serious crime and paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland, is seeking compensation for misuse of private information, harassment and breaches of the Data Protection Act. Police in Northern Ireland made applications for communications data belonging to YZL to identify the journalist’s confidential sources in 2014, according to legal documents filed in the High Court. The Irish News and ComputerWeekly.com have more information.
IPSO
- 02331-25 Evans v The Mail on Sunday, 1 Accuracy, 12 Discrimination, 14 Confidential sources, 2 Privacy, 3 Harassment, 4 Intrusion into grief or shock, No breach – after investigation
- 03484-25 Binley v pressgazette.co.uk, 1 Accuracy, 2 Privacy, 3 Harassment, Breach – sanction: publication of correction
- 00886-26 Hadninicolaou v express.co.uk, 1 Accuracy, Breach – sanction: publication of correction
- 03754-25 Goodall v Daily Mail, 1 Accuracy, Breach – sanction: publication of correction
- 01659-26 Moshelian v The National, 1 Accuracy, Breach – sanction: publication of correction
- Resolution Statement – 300019-26 Garner v I, 1 Accuracy, Resolved – IPSO mediation
- 03793-25 Cullen v Telegraph.co.uk, 1 Accuracy, No breach – after investigation
- 05954-25 Moshelian v The National, 1 Accuracy, Breach – sanction: publication of correction
- 00510-26 Shout Out UK v The Daily Telegraph, 1 Accuracy, No breach – after investigation
- 01161-26 A woman v The Argus (Brighton), 11 Victims of sexual assault, 2 Privacy, No breach – after investigation
- 01162-26 A woman v Sussex Express, 11 Victims of sexual assault, 2 Privacy, No breach – after investigation
- 01163-26 A woman v mirror.co.uk, 11 Victims of sexual assault, 2 Privacy, No breach – after investigation
- 01164-26 A woman v birminghammail.co.uk, 11 Victims of sexual assault, 2 Privacy, No breach – after investigation
- 01166-26 A woman v Sunday Telegraph, 11 Victims of sexual assault, 2 Privacy, No breach – after investigation
- 01350-26 Williams-Key v The Sun, 1 Accuracy, No breach – after investigation
- 06567-25 Moshelian v The National, 1 Accuracy, Breach – sanction: publication of correction
- 06188-25 Lammas v Daily Express, 1 Accuracy, No breach – after investigation
- 00277-26 Ward v The Mail on Sunday, 1 Accuracy, No breach – after investigation
- 00399-26 Ward v The Times, 1 Accuracy, No breach – after investigation
- Resolution Statement – 00498-26 Hunt v gloucestershirelive.co.uk, 1 Accuracy, 2 Privacy, 3 Harassment, Resolved – IPSO mediation
- 00924-26 Moshelian v The National, 1 Accuracy, No breach – after investigation
Statements in Open Court and Apologies
Associated Newspapers and Times Newspapers have issued apologies to Labour MP Catherine Atkinson for articles published on 5 July 2026 that accused Ms Atkinson of deliberating failing to include her ‘£63,900-a-year education’ at Benden School in her Who’s Who entry, at a time when the Labour government was ‘hammering’ the private education sector with tax rises. Ms Atkinson never attended Beneden or any fee-paying school. The fact that Ms Atkinson attended the non-fee-paying Sacred Heart High School in Hammersmith, west London, is a matter of public record. Ms Atkinson was contacted by the Mail on Sunday ahead of publication of the article and expressly corrected their understanding, but the early edition of the article featured her anyway. Later that same day, The Times printed a revised version of the Mail on Sunday’s article, making the same mistake about Ms Atkinson. Both papers have now also agreed to pay Ms Atkinson a sum in damages and costs. Ms Atkinson intends to donate any sum over and above her out-of-pocket expenses to charity.
New Issued Cases
Three defamation cases have been issued in the Media and Communications List in the past 7 days. A total of 35 cases were issued over the summer legal vacation (31 July to 1 October 2026).
Last Month in the Courts
On 21 September 2026, Butcher J handed down judgment in Carter-Ruck Solicitors & Anor v Solicitors Regulation Authority [2026] EWHC 2416 (KB). While not strictly a media law case, the claim featured as a party one of the preeminent solicitor firms specialising in defamation, privacy and media law. The court held that the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) cannot use a notice under s.44B of the Solicitors Act 1974 to compel solicitors to produce documents covered by their client’s unwaived legal professional privilege. Butcher J concluded that, even if s.44B would otherwise have authorised disclosure, it would interfere with Article 8’s protection of private life and correspondence. He considered the statutory regime insufficiently safeguarded against inappropriate interference with LPP and therefore considered that the Human Rights Act 1998 provided an additional reason to interpret s.44B as not overriding privilege [119], [152]. Carter-Ruck has provided its own summary here. Law360 has more information here.
On 22 September 2026, Deputy Master Marzec determined the damages award in the defamation case of Conroy v Stojek [2026] EWHC 2429 (KB). The claimant was awarded £9,500 in damages. The Brett Wilson blog comments that specialist practitioners (especially defendant lawyers) will look at this case with interest, and see a series of opportunities that could have been seized upon by Mr Stojek to improve his position in the litigation. The commentary continues to explain that Mr Stojek could have contested the forum in which the claim was issued (forcing an early transfer), raised the pleading deficiency proactively and sought to have the claim struck out.
On 24 September 2026, Hill J handed down judgment in the Part 8 MKR v Cloudflare Ltd (Rev1) [2026] EWHC 2452 (KB). The Claimant is a lecturer and academic. Since December 2024, thousands of internet domains have been created in which her full legal name has been either embedded in the webpage address (the URL) or appears in a search result “snippets” that associate her with pornographic content. She applied for a Norwich Pharmacal order requiring internet companies involved with one of the domains to provide information that might identify the person responsible. Hill J granted the order against three UK companies. She found there was a good arguable case in harassment [35-36]. The Claimant did not contend that the statements were, by themselves, defamatory but argued that they were defamatory by implication, in that “[j]uxtaposition of material about the claimant with other material may make an otherwise innocent statement defamatory Winfield & Jolowicz on Tort (21st Edition) at paragraph 19-006. This requires that a reasonable person, seeing the two objects together, would draw from their relative positions an inference that was defamatory of the Claimant. Hill J accepted this submission and found that the Claimant has a good arguable case that a right-thinking person would construe the juxtaposition of her name in the URLs and/or the search result snippets with the adult content on the websites to which the links redirect and/or the adult text in the search result snippet as defamatory [38-39]. The Claimant’s claim against D1 is to be transferred to Part 7 given the substantial disputes of fact that have emerged; the trial is to be held in early 2027.
On 25 September 2026, Richard Spearman KC handed down judgment in Lord Ranger v Joshi [2026] EWHC 2451 (KB). The principal question concerned the meaning of the word “denigrate” in the undertakings given by the parties in settlement of previous libel and harassment proceedings via a Tomlin Order dated 3 July 2023. One of the terms of settlement of these proceedings read: “The Defendant and Claimant will not denigrate each other and/or pursue a course of conduct that amounts to harassment of the other” (the non-denigration undertaking, “the NDU”). The defendant, journalist Poonam Joshi, subsequently published or reposted a series of articles about Lord Ranger on Facebook and X, including material concerning findings that he had bullied and harassed her and the subsequent annulment of his CBE. Spearman KC held that ‘denigrate’ means, in substance: “blacken, belittle, disparage the character or reputation of, defame” [79]. Crucially, a statement can denigrate someone even if it is true, fair or accurate [81]. Further, this was not a defamation claim; it was a claim for breach of a contractual promise not to denigrate [83]. The court therefore found that eight of the nine publications breached the undertaking and granted a tailored permanent injunction requiring Joshi to stop republishing the relevant material and to delete the offending publications.
Media Law in Other Jurisdictions
Australia
The chief executives of OpenAI and Anthropic have been called to face a Senate inquiry after rogue OpenAI agents hacked Australian and US government websites. Sam Altman and Dario Amodei were requested to appear at the Greens-led inquiry into AI and datacentres as their companies negotiate with the Labor government for greater access to Australian content in exchange for a greater local presence. The Guardian has more information here.
Bulgaria
Strasbourg Observes has an article on the surveillance case of Kanev and Bulgarian Helsinki Committee v Bulgaria (‘Kanev’), which follows a line of cases concerning states’ exercise of surveillance powers. The Court focuses on Article 8 and applies a legality test centred on the framework of domestic safeguards against abuses that may violate human rights. In Kanev, the applicants had made several requests to the Bulgarian authorities asking to know whether they had been subjected to surveillance measures and, in particular, whether the government was using informants inside the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee itself. Despite multiple administrative and judicial proceedings, the applicants did not receive answers to their questions. Instead, they got various explanations for why the requested answers could not or would not be provided. Read the commentary here.
China
On 7 September 2026, China’s Supreme People’s Court released its Opinions on Adjudicatting Disputes Involving Artificial Intelligence in Accordance with the Law, setting a national judicial benchmark for AI-related disputes across the country. The opinions contain 24 provisions covering personality rights, personal information, intellectual property, consumer protection, autonomous vehicles and the use of AI in judicial proceeding. The IAPP blog has more information here.
European Union
On 17 September 2026, the European Commission unveiled its proposal for the EU KIDS Act (EU Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy), a harmonised EU framework designed to reshape how children engage with online services. The proposal goes well beyond age verification requirements and seeks to fundamentally change the design of digital services used by minors, placing greater responsibility on technology providers to create age-appropriate digital environments. It builds on existing legislation such as the EU Digital Services Act and the EU AI Act but introduces more specific rules focused on child safety. DLA Piper has more information here.
Ireland
On 9 September 2026, the High Court handed down judgment in Keane v The Journal Media Ltd Trading As [TheJournal.IE] and Ors [2026] IEHC 614. The plaintiff is the Chief Executive Officer of Kingdom Water Ltd (“Kingdom Water”), a company which promotes natural spring water said to be available at wells on her lands in Knocknagoshel, Co. Kerry. The plaintiff sought injunctive relief to restrain The Journal from republishing an Article which described her as someone who “runs a company selling water” which, following her complaints, was amended to read “runs a company which intends to enter the luxury water market”. The court found it impossible to discern a defamatory meaning in the article. It appears that the plaintiff was correct to the extent that neither she nor Kingdom Water had started to sell water, but that did not matter since, firstly, it is only a matter of timing given the plaintiff’s and Kingdom Water’s statements of intent. Secondly, whether true or false, the suggestion that the plaintiff had sold water or intended to do so was not defamatory [30].
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission issued a €403 million EU General Data Protection Regulation fine to Google related to 2020 allegations of unlawful location data processing. The DPC did not immediately publish the final decision in the own-volition inquiry, but it pointed to a handful of GDPR transparency and data processing infringements stemming from location data practices for Google’s “Web & App Activity,” “Location History” and “Location Accuracy” features. IAPP has more information here.
United States
CNN, MS Now (formerly MSNBC) and Politico – that have been denied access to the White House have sued to regain their ability to enter the building, accusing the president of violating the US constitution. The suit was filed on 21 September 2026 in the US district court for Washington DC. Journalists for the three news organizations were denied access to the White House and had their badges disabled after the president decreed a day earlier that they would lose their ability to enter the building because of his concerns about their coverage. The parties are seeking a temporary restraining order that would immediately lift the ban – and return access for the journalists – while the case plays out. The Guardian has more information here.
On 23 September 2026, Iowa district judge Scott J Beattie dismissed President Trump’s lawsuit accusing the Des Moines Register and its former pollster of misrepresenting the state of the 2024 presidential race, rejecting the president’s claim that the newspaper’s poll coverage violated Iowa’s consumer fraud law. He sided with pollster J Ann Selzer and the newspaper, who described the lawsuit as a conspiracy theory and an affront to free speech protections. The Guardian has more information here.
The first Federal Appellate court to decide whether copying copyrighted material to train an artificial intelligence system can constitute fair use has ruled against the AI company. However, the Internet Cases blog explains that the Third Circuit’s decision in Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH v ROSS Intelligence Inc. cannot be interpreted broadly to apply to the wave of generative AI copyright cases making their way through the court system. Read the article here.
Anthropic challenged a Department of War decision excluding the company and its Claude AI models from the Department’s supply chain after Anthropic refused to permit Claude to be used for all lawful military purposes. The D.C. Circuit rejected the challenge and upheld the exclusion; Anthropic PBC v United States Department of War, Nos. 26-1049 & 26-1162 (D.C. Cir. Sept. 25, 2026). The dispute grew out of negotiations over how the Department could use Claude. Anthropic had agreed to relax many of its ordinary restrictions for government use, but continued to prohibit two categories of use: lethal autonomous warfare and mass surveillance of Americans. The Department, meanwhile, wanted contractual authority to use Claude for “all lawful uses.” When negotiations broke down, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth invoked the Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act and determined that Claude presented a supply chain risk. The Department then ordered Anthropic products removed from its systems and prohibited contractors from using Anthropic products in work for the Department. The Internet Cases blog has a summary of the decision here.
US District Judge Amit Mehta dismissed a lawsuit brought by Penske Media Corporation against Google over the loss of traffic and revenue as a result of AI Overviews. The court found that no “formal bargain” had ever been struck between publishers and Google, which means they cannot prove a claim under antitrust law, specifically the Sherman Act. The Press Gazette has more information here.
Research and Resources
- Mooij and Mendis, “Introduction to the special issue on governing the metaverse through the lens of the public sphere” (2026) Internet Policy Review 15 (3)
- Aswad and Carozza, Using Global Free Expression Standards to Govern Platform Content Moderation (2026) 26 Wash. U. Global Stud. L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming) (2027)
- Alabi, Who Owns Your Face? Ownership, Consent, and the Fragmentation of Image Rights Under Nigerian Law (2026), Trellis Corporate; Enebeli & Partners Legal
Next Week in the Courts
On 5 October 2026 there will be a hearing of an application in the case of PPT v (1) SKG and (2) GVA before Nicklin J.
Reserved Judgments
We are not aware of any reserved media law judgments.
This Round Up was compiled by Colette Allen who is a pupil barrister at 4 King’s Bench Walk and the host of ‘Newscast’ on Dr Thomas Bennett and Professor Paul Wragg’s The Media Law Podcast (@MediaLawPodcast).