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NLJ this week: AI, liberty & the digital cage

10 October 2025
Issue: 8134 / Categories: Legal News , Criminal , Artificial intelligence , Human rights , Technology
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Government plans for offender ‘restriction zones’ risk creating ‘digital cages’ that blur punishment with surveillance, warns Henrietta Ronson, partner at Corker Binning, in this week's issue of NLJ

The proposed scheme, part of a £700m expansion in GPS and AI monitoring, would confine released offenders to fixed areas—potentially breaching rights to liberty, privacy and livelihood under the ECHR.

Ronson argues the measures are incompatible with existing case law and plagued by the UK’s history of failed tagging systems. With AI risk-assessment algorithms already criticised as biased, she cautions against letting machines replace judicial discretion.

Drawing parallels with failed US exclusion laws, Ronson says such zones would breed inequality and resentment without reducing crime. Justice, she writes, ‘requires empathy and context—not predictive policing and perpetual monitoring’

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Myers & Co—Jen Goodwin

Myers & Co—Jen Goodwin

Head of corporate promoted to director

Boies Schiller Flexner—Lindsay Reimschussel

Boies Schiller Flexner—Lindsay Reimschussel

Firm strengthens international arbitration team with key London hire

Corker Binning—Priya Dave

Corker Binning—Priya Dave

FCA contentious financial regulation lawyer joins the team as of counsel

NEWS
Social media giants should face tortious liability for the psychological harms their platforms inflict, argues Harry Lambert of Outer Temple Chambers in this week’s NLJ
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024—once heralded as a breakthrough—has instead plunged leaseholders into confusion, warns Shabnam Ali-Khan of Russell-Cooke in this week’s NLJ
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has now confirmed that offering a disabled employee a trial period in an alternative role can itself be a 'reasonable adjustment' under the Equality Act 2010: in this week's NLJ, Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve analyses the evolving case law
Caroline Shea KC and Richard Miller of Falcon Chambers examine the growing judicial focus on 'cynical breach' in restrictive covenant cases, in this week's issue of NLJ
Ian Gascoigne of LexisNexis dissects the uneasy balance between open justice and confidentiality in England’s civil courts, in this week's NLJ. From public hearings to super-injunctions, he identifies five tiers of privacy—from fully open proceedings to entirely secret ones—showing how a patchwork of exceptions has evolved without clear design
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