Tuesday newspaper round-up: Energy support, chatbots, Hyve
Some of the UK’s least well-off households could be left more than £200 worse-off on their energy bills this year because of reduced government support, the consumer body Which? has warned. Joining calls made by other campaigners, it said the government urgently needed to introduce a “social tariff” for gas and electricity to protect the most financially vulnerable. – Guardian
Britain’s data watchdog has issued a warning to tech firms about the use of people’s personal information to develop chatbots after concerns that the underlying technology is trained on large quantities of unfiltered material scraped from the web. The intervention from the Information Commissioner’s Office came after its Italian counterpart temporarily banned ChatGPT over data privacy concerns. – Guardian
Bickering in Brussels is threatening to inflict queues and disruption on British holidaymakers for years to come by derailing the rollout of new technology that would speed up passport checks. The European Union has been hit by opposition from member states over the development of a new app for border crossings by non-EU citizens. – Telegraph
A shareholder revolt against a £481 million private equity takeover of Hyve is being led by M&G Investments, which claims that it significantly undervalues the international exhibition company. Hyve announced last month that it had agreed to a 108p-a-share takeover offer from Providence Equity Partners after the media-focused US investor had initially offered 101p, then 105p. – The Times
Some savers with Phoenix Life have been unable to withdraw their funds since Friday because the company’s systems were serviced by Capita, the hacked outsourcer. Chris Johnson, a customer who contacted The Times, reported that he was advised by a Phoenix Life call handler that he could not cash in his pension because of the technical issues and should ring back “in a few days”, with no estimated timeframe for when normal services would resume. – The Times