Podcast S9E6 | Digital Regulation with Kate Jones

TRANSCRIPT

Kimberley Cole 0:01
This is Risky Women Radio, a show that connects, celebrates and champions women in risk regulation and compliance. We’re here to share the insights on the biggest issues in our industry and hear inspiring journeys from our global members. Sign up to our newsletter at riskywomen.org. I’m Kimberley Cole, your Chief Risky Woman.

Kimberley Cole 0:24
Welcome to Risky Women Radio. It’s a great topic today with a great guest, and we are going to talk about innovation and regulation. Now, often when people talk about innovation, regulation is cast as the villain, the brake pedal slowing down bold ideas or new technology and economic growth. But in reality, some of the biggest risks in digital markets don’t come from too much regulation. They come from confusion, fragmentation and lack of clarity about the rules of the road. So today, innovation isn’t just about moving fast, it’s about moving responsibly, earning trust, protecting users, and designing technology that can scale without blowing up later. And that’s where regulation done well can become a competitive advantage rather than a constraint. So our guest today sits right at that intersection. Kate Jones is CEO of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum, or the DRCF, a unique collaboration that brings together multiple UK regulators to help innovation happen with guardrails and not against them. So we’re going to talk about how regulation can enable innovation, what innovators get wrong about regulators and what good digital governance actually looks like in practice. So welcome Kate.

Kate Jones 1:47
Thank you. Kimberley, absolutely delighted to be here.

Kimberley Cole 1:50
Great to have you. So, I mean, I’m going to give a quick overview of your career, and then I’d love to get into that a bit more and also get you to tell us a bit more about the DRCF. So Kate is an expert in the governance of emerging technologies, human rights law and international law, with experience as a consultant, researcher and speaker on national and global tech governance, Kate has held roles as a British diplomat, international and human rights lawyer and Oxford academic. She served as Associate Fellow at Chatham House, senior associate at Oxford Information Labs, and Trustee of the British Institute of international and Comparative Law. She studied law at the University of Oxford and qualified as a UK solicitor at Norton Rose. So amazing career that we’d love to get into, but maybe first kick us off with what is the DRCF, and maybe what it is, what it isn’t, and for our audience, I think that would be a great place to start.

Kate Jones 2:52
Sure, absolutely. So the DRCF is essentially a collaboration body between the UK’s four key digital regulators. So between Ofcom, the communications regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, which regulates data protection in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority, which is responsible for competition and consumer protection, and the Financial Conduct Authority, which is responsible for financial services. And essentially back in 2020 those four regulators realised that in the digital sphere, their remits were coming closer together. You know that in particular, there are some big tech companies that span all of their remits, and that, for example, as you think about competition in digital it brings up data protection issues and so on. So they decided to collaborate by creating this body called the DRCF. So it’s not a statutory body, it’s not a standalone regulator. It is, as I say, a collaboration body, but it’s very deeply embedded. I’m actually here recording this within Ofcom, which is where we work. My team are all employed by one of the regulators and seconded to me at the centre, and within our four regulators, there are over 100 people who are engaged on DRCF work one way or another. So we’re really deeply embedded on digital and AI related matters across our regulators.

Kimberley Cole 4:16
Excellent. So there’s actually resource allocation under DRCF, working on the key projects which we’ll get into. And obviously you’ve had an amazing career, and I love the breadth of things you’ve done, especially the human rights side of things, is fascinating area to me. So tell us more about your career journey, and maybe some of the highlights. I’m sure there are many along the way.

Kate Jones 4:41
So that’s right. What I’m not is a somebody with a long regulatory background or a long term GRC professional. I’ve come into this, as you say, from background of international law and human rights law, working with the British government as a diplomat, and then a spell in Oxford University, where I was leading a course in diplomacy, but actually became really interested in the governance of emerging technologies, originally from a human rights perspective, and then more generally, was keen to get back into the public sector, which is what led me to the DRCF. In terms of highlights, well, gosh, there have been many, right? I’ve been so fortunate with the career that I’ve had, I could start with my very first overseas trip back as a new diplomat when in fact, on that trip, which was to Angola, post Civil War Angola, in 2002 perhaps the longest lasting legacy of that trip is it’s where I met my husband. He was on the same trip, and so 25 years later, here we still are. But I was really lucky to be involved in a wide range of issues, from aviation, overseas territories issues, which of course, are in the news again at the moment, with people talking about Diego Garcia and so on, migration issues, aviation issues, and a lot of human rights and a lot of counter terrorism issues in the mid 2000s which were absolutely fascinating. And I did those postings to both Geneva and Strasbourg, where I was really digging into multilateral human rights issues at a time when we were still really building, building institutions, building norms, and really had great hopes that the international order was all for the promotion of democracy, rule of law and human rights. So that was great to work on and now in digital regulation. I mean, my goodness, what’s so fortunate about being working in the DRCF is that I and my team have this kind of bird’s eye view of what’s happening across the piece, which is quite unique, I think. And it’s just very, very interesting from a kind of thought leadership perspective.

Kimberley Cole 6:47
Yeah and imagine you’ve got great experts in all of those other regulators that you can also call on, which would be fascinating as well. And what do you think has been the sort of biggest risk that you’ve taken in your career?

Kate Jones 7:00
So, my goodness, I mean, that’s quite a tricky question, because I’ve certainly taken some risks. I mean, I think pushing myself out of my comfort zone at times has been something that I’ve had to do because I have jumped around a little bit. And actually, I’ve got a little story to illustrate that, which is about the same Angola trip, which is probably why it came into my head. I’d done quite a bit of sort of backpacking and traveling before I joined the Foreign Office, but when I joined it as a lawyer, I received a phone call in my first week saying, we need a lawyer to go to Angola, and we’ve been given your name. So okay, I said, and I went off and I got my anti malarial vaccines and, you know, the pills. And off I went. And I thought, Okay, this is not so different from the traveling I’ve done in the past. Okay, it’s a country that’s just emerged from civil war, but, you know, I really enjoy travel. This is going to be great. And we arrived, and it was dark, and we got out of the airport, and we got into an embassy vehicle. Next to me was a security guard with a gun on his lap, and it was the gun on his lap that made me think, Okay, this is a little bit different from the traveling that I did when I was backpacking. This is the pushing myself out…

Kimberley Cole 8:12
And not your average business trip.

Kate Jones 8:14
No, exactly. Anyway, that was a long time ago, but I think, yeah, taking risks has been a part of it. I think when I joined the DRCF, the DRCF was still quite new. It had had a brilliant CEO before me, but it was still not clear whether it would really remain part of the inter-regulatory landscape. And so it was a risk whether it would succeed, and it was also a great risk whether I would succeed in the role, not having that regulatory background. Fortunately, touch wood, it seems to have been a risk that’s paid off. The DRCF is now over five years old. It does now seem to be pretty well established, and it’s getting more and more profile. And I’m really fortunate to have a brilliant and quite ambitious team. So we are in a good place I think.

Kimberley Cole 9:00
I think that’s fantastic as well, that they decided to bring in someone with a different background and perspective, rather than stick with traditional skills or or backgrounds that were normally brought in. And obviously you’ve got some amazing experience that to bring to the table so absolutely brilliant.

Kate Jones 9:22
Just on that when I arrived, I knew that I was going to be using my knowledge of digital regulation. Knew I’d be using my leadership skills and so on. What I hadn’t really realised was how much I’d be using my diplomacy skills, but actually working in collaboration, even domestically, those skills of bringing people together, understanding different people’s interests and working out how to meet everybody’s interests same time – absolutely what I do, day in, day out. So it was quite fortunate I think that my background has enabled me to harness those skills and indeed to raise up others in my team in the same way.

Kimberley Cole 10:02
That’s very interesting, because we talk a lot about, what are the skills for the future? What are the skills in particular roles and stuff? And I think often, some things get missed along the way, and what you need and what you can bring to the table. So yeah.

Kate Jones 10:18
Gosh, with AI coming down the track, I think these human skills are going to remain really, really important, right?

Kimberley Cole 10:25
Absolutely! Yeah, we just did a, we did one of our REV-UP, our monthly membership webinars that we do on those human skills. What’s important around, you know, critical thinking, around empathy, around communication, etc. Because we totally agree.

Kate Jones 10:42
Right. You know, they say that this is the last generation who are only going to be managing humans, as opposed to managing agents. So I’m not sure what skills will be needed for the management of agents. I suspect that, you know, it’ll be a little bit different, and maybe, but yeah, working with other people, and indeed, living with other people requires such a valuable skill set that you can only get in human real time.

Kimberley Cole 11:08
Yes, absolutely.

Kimberley Cole 11:11
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Kimberley Cole 11:29
So through your career, then what do you think the best piece of advice that either you’ve received or you think is worth sharing, maybe something that you give advice on as well?

Kate Jones 11:41
So it’s such an interesting question. My goodness, over so many years, I think if I can mention a couple, there was one I was given quite early on, which was, take some distance at the mid-career point, don’t become institutionalised in one thing, whether that’s working for the Foreign Office as I was doing at the time, or in industry or in one organisation, take a bit of time to rediscover who you are and what your values and thoughts are. And I think that for me, that was so valuable. And when I came back from my second posting, I then had it a year in the Foreign Office, and then I did take what was initially a career break from the Foreign Office to go to the University of Oxford do something a bit different, and that enabled me to sort of break away from the mindset of being in one organisation and to rediscover myself. And so I think that advice that I’d had was really very, very helpful advice, just that gaining of a little bit of perspective. But the second one, I think, is one that was given to me, actually more recently, but I think, and for some people, this might be very obvious, but perhaps for me it wasn’t, but it’s that tolerance is an active choice. If you are not happy with the situation you’re in, you know, whether that’s poor management at work or a job that you don’t like, or even if you don’t like your whole lifestyle, if you choose to complain but carry on with it, that is an active choice, and it’s very much up to you to create the life that you want to live. And now I really try to live my life by that principle that if there’s something that I don’t think is right, or if there’s something I want to do and I’m not doing, it’s for me to find a way to seize that I can’t wait for the opportunity to come.

Kimberley Cole 13:37
Yeah, that’s a very interesting point. And yes, you see that a lot, where people just tolerate and complain…

Kate Jones 13:43
Right exactly.

Kimberley Cole 13:44
rather than take action.

Kate Jones 13:45
Yeah, and I say it to my children as well. You know, if there are problems in your friend group, well, if you choose to stay in that friend group, that’s your choice. I think we have to live our lives that way.

Kimberley Cole 13:55
Absolutely Life is short. So what’s that change that you hope that your leadership leaves behind and whether that’s sort of in people in culture or in the professions that you’ve worked in?

Kate Jones 14:08
Yeah, so I think my answers are always twofold Kimberley. Sorry, I’ve got two.

Kate Jones 14:13
That’s good! We’re getting number one bonus here!

Kate Jones 14:18
So I mean at the level of my current role as CEO of the DRCF, my vision is about collaboration. I think it’s great when people appreciate that they can do more together than apart, and when you set aside any competition or turf wars or unnecessary informational barriers, and actually collaborate and understand that that way you can achieve more than you can separately. And I see that because I know that in so many organisations, this can be a challenge, right the institutional barriers and boundaries and sort of fiefdoms get in our way. But more generally and more deeply, I think while I have done quite a diverse set of things, they have had a unifying feature, which is quite a deep set of values. So respect for human dignity, respect for equality, and therefore a desire for good governance, and I used to put that into human rights law these days, I put it into the service of regulation and good governance in digital and so ultimately now my vision is that tech should be lifting everyone and that it should be promoting democracy and the rule of law while also protecting people from harms. And I think that’s where I’d like us all actually to be going, and me personally lifting everyone, protecting people. Really embracing innovation, but at the same time doing it in a way that’s for everyone.

Kimberley Cole 15:53
I love that. So yeah, collaboration and obviously gaining those synergies, and then tech lifting everyone. I think that’s a amazing message. And what emerging challenge in, as we’re speaking to governance, risk and compliance professionals, do you think disproportionately requires women’s voices and leadership?

Kate Jones 16:13
So I mean, first of all, I think a bit of a shout out to the GRC profession, because I know I think these are quite challenging times, right? Just as they are for regulators as well. The technology, especially in digital technology, is moving at a mile a minute, and I think it must be pretty challenging to be trying to manage people’s appetite for rapid progress on the one hand, with sort of risk and compliance issues on the other so I, you know, I really appreciate those challenges. I think, as regards women’s leadership, I think women’s voices are absolutely critical, because they can soften what can become a relentless competitive drive for one goal. And I think we are living in a time when there is sometimes a relentless drive towards profit maximisation. If you go back to think about when women came into the British Parliament in the early 20th century, they really did such a lot to champion social welfare reform, childcare, questions of morality, as well as all the other issues, all the issues that men were engaged in, right? And similarly, if I look back at my time in diplomacy, when women get involved around the negotiating table, for example, when you’re resolving conflicts, then you tend to get much more focus on issues like post-conflict social issues, the plight of children and warfare, sexual issues in warfare and so on. So you get this kind of more holistic approach. And I think that’s the same now in tech and digital that women have got a key role to play in championing social and environmental values in parallel with profit. And I think sometimes as a society, there has been a challenge that we have been a little bit blind to values. You know, I mean, all of us put so much store in how we look after our children, how we educate and protect our children, but somehow, as a group of societies, we kind of became a bit blind to the harms that tech was having on children, right. Now, fortunately, we’ve got much more online safety regulation. There’s debates about all the more, but we’ve no longer got that blindness, but we did for a few years, and I think this is where the voices of women are just so key that we can really try to make sure that these social issues and environmental as well are being thought about upfront, rather than waiting until after harms have occurred and internationally as well. I think women’s voices are really key. I’m just joining the council of a new organization called the Women Regulators Network, which has been established out of them at the Cambridge Centre of Alternative Finance. And its aim is to elevate and empower women who are working in regulation with a view to foster, for example, inclusive financial systems internationally. And there’s just so much to do, and digital financial inclusion has so much potential that, you know, again, the role of women in this is just crucial and can be transformational.

Kimberley Cole 19:29
Well, please let us know if we can help with anything in that space from Risky Women. But I love the women’s perspective. That was part of the reason for doing the podcast, actually. I was like, let’s have hot topics that bring the female view to the table and get that different perspective, different thoughts, ideas, etc.

Kate Jones 19:53
I love it. I love I love the name Risky Women. And, yeah, I love the whole concept. So absolutely

Kimberley Cole 19:59
Excellent! So let’s talk about regulation and innovation. And listening to your career there’s a clear thread of things that you’ve been doing, working across boundaries between policy, markets, technology, and that really mirrors what the DRCF is trying to do in practice, whether that’s sort of bringing together the multiple regulators offering clearer routes to innovators, or sort of reframing regulation as something that you can design with and not work around. So let’s get into and talk about regulation versus innovation and how that looks like right now on the ground with the things that you’re doing. So you know, I started off saying that regulation is often framed as a barrier to innovation. Why do you think that view persists?

Kate Jones 20:49
Right. So my core point is obviously that regulation is not a barrier to innovation and that it’s a false choice to present them as a dichotomy. I think, in fact, innovation only works at scale if people trust it, and good regulation helps innovation by building that public trust as well as giving clarity and providing a level playing field and making sure that technology benefits people as well as markets. But I think you could think actually of regulation as being a bit like the road markings on a motorway, right? The road markings don’t hold you back, but they make sure that you are traveling in a safe way, right? They prevent harm, but they don’t stop you from moving. And I think regulation ought to be seen in the same way. But to answer your question about why that perception persists, I mean, first of all, I do think that it’s sometimes in some people’s interests for it to persist. So that’s one thing, but it is also the case that some regulation hasn’t kept pace with technology, and that there are changes that need to be made, and particularly there are areas where new technology has arisen, where which perhaps fall within the domains of multiple regulators, or where the legacy rules aren’t quite right, and so change does need to happen, and I think it’s quite right for industry to be encouraging government and regulators to be thinking about that. There’s also examples of where regulation that exists only allows regulators to look at things in quite a siloed way. And the chair of the UK’s Regulatory Innovation Office, who’s called Lord David Willett, issued a paper just last week, actually, where he gave some examples of this. And so to give one example, this is not a UK example. It’s an international example. It’s talking about drones and how the regulator responsible for aviation safety in that country had said that drones could be used for a few deliveries, but they cannot be used to carry heavy objects because of the risk that a drone might drop an object or fall and then it could cause injury or damage, right? But then you’ve got situations where perhaps, if you’ve got people living in a remote community, you might want to use a drone to send them a defibrillator. In the case when a defibrillator is actually going to save their life, and the regulator doesn’t have a mandate which enables them to balance the potential benefit that that defibrillator will definitely bring against the risk, slight risk, that something could go wrong along the way. And I think that’s an example of the kind of situation where, as Lord Willett says, government needs to get involved to be able to look across these bigger issues. So in short, I think that there are areas where regulation needs updating as we move along. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have regulation. It just means that you need smart regulation.

Kimberley Cole 23:48
Yeah. So to that point, where can regulation actually sort of enable innovation rather than slow it down? How is that working?

Kate Jones 23:56
Yeah, so where I see perhaps the most agile and effective regulation is actually in outcomes focused regulation, which we’re increasingly moving to. So if I go, you probably know this very well, a financial services example, we have the consumer duty, so financial firms have to take account of, I may not get the wording exactly right, but essentially, they have to work in the best interest or take account of the best interests of their retail consumers. And I think that kind of outcome based regulation, where you are essentially requiring each business, each firm, to work out for themselves how to get to that outcome, rather than a prescribed path, you know, such as you must not carry, so and so it’s that you must keep people safe. I think it’s actually a really sensible way forward, for a number of reasons, because, as I say, it requires firms to assess risks, to decide themselves how to mitigate those risks. And actually it plays to all of our better instincts, and better instincts that the vast majority of people have who are working in firms right? People want to do things in a safe way, in a way that is valuable for their customers. So it encourages flexibility and it encourages responsible innovation. So that’s the first thing. The second thing, though, where regulation can enable innovation, is that what we’re seeing increasingly, and again, you’re probably very aware of this, is that regulators are supporting innovation in practice. And again, as I’m you may well know the FCA in the UK really led the way on this by establishing the first sandbox 10 years ago now, and that whole trajectory of regulators actually supporting innovators, providing environments for testing, providing synthetic data and providing dialog, is one which I think, you know, I understand from firms, has actually reaped rewards. And what we’re seeing now is a spilling out of that, from financial services into other sectors more and more, which I think is really valuable.

Kimberley Cole 26:03
Yeah, fascinating. And how is the DRCF itself working to challenge the idea that innovators sort of have to choose between compliance and creativity?

Kate Jones 26:14
So we ourselves have got involved in this, this environment of supporting innovators in a couple of ways. First of all, with some government funding. Last year, we ran something called the DRCF AI and Digital Hub, which was essentially an advice service where an organization could say, Okay, I want to set up this new innovation, and I can see that it spans remit. So for example, I need data protection advice and I need financial services advice. So we said, come to us and we will help you work out exactly what your question is, and we will give you one consolidated answer from all of the regulators whose remits are engaged. So we did that for a year, and that was valuable. But now what we’ve moved on to is what we’re calling the Thematic Innovation Hub, where essentially we’re taking a theme for a period, we are running webinars and round tables, collecting inputs and basically talking to people in this area of innovation. Our first theme in the hub is Agentic AI. We’re in the middle of that at the moment. We held a webinar before Christmas, which was really very, very interesting, and we got quite a lot of different people’s views, and there were also presentations. We’re now about to hold some round tables, and then we will have another webinar after that, and some publications. And essentially, it’s an opportunity for businesses to hear about regulatory considerations, but it’s also an opportunity for regulators to hear what businesses are worried about, and so they can take that into account in working out their own policies and guidance and in their approach in the future. Because I really feel that this dialog with technology moving so fast, this dialog between regulators and industry is essential. You know, it’s not like the old days where you had widgets and you had rules and forms. It’s much more iterative than that.

Kimberley Cole 28:10
Well, I’ll make sure that we share some of that information.

Kate Jones 28:10
Thank you. That would be great.

Kimberley Cole 28:11
Yeah, very good.

Kate Jones 28:12
That would be great. It would be great to get some Risky Women engaging.

Kimberley Cole 28:19
Exactly. And I mean, you’ve been doing a lot in the innovation space, because you’ve also got the Digital Regulatory Library. So can you tell us more about that? I believe it’s sort of really useful for sort of startups and scale ups.

Kate Jones 28:32
Yes. Well, it’s still a prototype stage, but it is going to be. So essentially, the aim of the Digital Regulatory Library is to be a single entry point for digital regulation. So it’s designed specifically for innovators, but will also be useful for others as well, because we know that at the moment, if a business, again, wants feels that they need to see what regulation applies to them from multiple regulators. They have to look for that in multiple directions unless, of course, they’ve got the resource to have a law firm or a consultancy doing that work for them. So the aim is, with this library, that there will be a one stop shop where you can get access to everything that you need, or alternatively, where your AI agent can get access to everything you need. We’re going to make it readable for AI agents as well. So that should mean that it will reduce the amount of time that is spent on interpreting regulation, increase people’s confidence in navigating compliance, and essentially free up time from worrying about those things, so that innovators can focus more on building and scaling as I say, we’re still at the early stage of this project, we are developing a prototype by the end of March. So actually, we are, in fact, inviting innovators to participate in the testing of that. So again, if you would like to share that amongst the Risky Women community, that would be excellent. And then if the prototype is successful, we would then hope to scale it up.

Kimberley Cole 29:58
Okay, great. So yep, another call to action for our Risky Women. So we will share that one. Now you mentioned that you’re doing a lot of work on agentic AI and that that’s the thematic theme that you’re working on for the innovation area. So obviously it is a hot topic in and of itself. But why is that the focus for regulators, innovators, and you know what that why is that the top topic at the moment?

Kate Jones 30:24
Well, as you say, it’s a hot topic. We’re at the foothills of it. And so I think for us as regulators, we’re at the stage where we can see that it has enormous potential, that it could bring great growth and great increase in services, but at the same time, it brings new challenges, challenges of accountability, challenges of oversight, challenges of managing risk, challenges, I think, for consumers in understanding what kind of levers there are for consumers to assert control, or if things go wrong, where do they go for redress? There are lots of issues around it at the moment, so that’s why we thought it was valuable to take it as the first theme for our hub. Also one of the projects we run in the DRCF is a horizon scanning project where we look at emerging technologies, and the aim is both to understand what’s coming down the track for primarily internal benefit, but also to give people innovating in that space early understanding of what the regulatory implications might be. So our horizon scanning project is also working on agenetic AI with a paper that should be published in March, looking at some of the regulatory implications. So it’s really, again, about understanding what’s happening so that we can work out, as I say, what the regulatory implications are, and if there are shifts that need to be made and so on, trying to be with the curve in doing those.

Kimberley Cole 32:00
Well, we’re going to be really looking forward to all of these papers coming out, because they’re all on incredibly interesting topics. So we’ll make sure that we track that and publish them for the audience as well. Now internationally, we’ve seen examples like Australia’s under 16 social media ban. It sparked some debates. How do moments like that shape the wider regulation and innovation conversation?

Kate Jones 32:26
Gosh, I mean, that’s quite a question, isn’t it. And here in the UK at the moment, this is obviously a really hot political topic at the moment, and it will be one for the politicians to find a way forward on. But I think what you see in moments like this is that it really does force those important conversations into the open. I mentioned before the harms that we saw in the early years of social media, before online safety regulation, and how those were a consequence of a failure to bake values in at that time. Now, we do have online safety regulation, and also there is an appreciation that the world online can stimulate children’s curiosity, can take them in different directions, and their social connections are really important too. And you know, as a mother of two teenagers, I really feel that. So I think the debate at the moment shows why evidence based regulation really matters, right? It’s so important to have your evidence base before you act, and it’s so important as well to act in proportionate ways. And I feel on this at the moment, the UK is in an evidence gathering phase, right? And it’s going to be so interesting to see how the Australian experience pans out as a result. But I think the answers aren’t simple, right? Again, as a parent, what I see is that the dividing line between social media, between AI and AI chatbots, and then between other apps as well, is increasingly thin, so black and white answers aren’t necessarily it. I think you have to think about these issues in quite a subtle way.

Kimberley Cole 34:08
Yeah, a very challenging one. I think, I mean, yes, challenging because the government has to set this up. But very challenging for parents.

Kate Jones 34:15
Yeah, totally. And I say as a parent myself, I really feel how challenging it is for parents, and I think in the past, very difficult for parents to navigate, actually, and that shift is on its way, isn’t it, which is assisting, but still, those challenges are there?

Kimberley Cole 34:31
Yeah, absolutely. So there may be a more of a future looking one, but if you were to look ahead to say 2030 what do you hope that the public will say about the UK’s approach to digital regulation?

Kate Jones 34:45
Wow, who knows where we’ll be in 2030 right?

Kimberley Cole 34:52
Difficult one to pick a time frame now.

Kate Jones 34:56
Feels hard to predict tech, the impact of tech in 2028!

Kimberley Cole 34:59
Exactly!

Kate Jones 34:59
But I think if you think about the UK’s approach, and particularly the approach of regulators, I think that the UK took difficult decisions early. You know, I do feel that our Online Safety Act and our Digital Markets Act are examples of that, that the UK didn’t shy away from complexity. We’ve just been talking about one area of complexity, and that, crucially, the UK and particularly regulators, have worked constructively with industry. I think, as I said before, that dialog is really key. We can’t afford to be in silos, and then that regulation, hopefully has kept pace with technology. And by that, what I mean is that it’s not too slow, and clearly there’s always a pacing challenge, but it’s not too slow, but also that it’s not too fast, because really fast regulation can also be ill-considered regulation, right? So you have to get that pacing right, so that you are taking a balanced approach, you are taking an evidence based approach, but at the same time, you are acting before there are harms. And as I mentioned, I think that outcome based regulation is big part of the answer to that. For the UK, the regulation has supported innovation, as we’ve been talking about that it’s also protected and empowered people online and maintained public trust. Now, those are easy things to say, but that’s where the vision is. And let’s hope that we go there. And I hope that the DRCF, which, as I mentioned, is purely really a collaboration organization, I hope that we are helping with the implementation of that vision.

Kimberley Cole 36:40
Yes, and I think, look, trust comes up time and time and time again on, you know, so many of these podcasts, it’s absolutely key. If you’re going to leave one message with our listeners to take away about regulation and innovation, what would that be?

Kate Jones 36:55
So, I mean, I think there are huge opportunities with the growth of AI and other technologies at the moment, but I also appreciate that that can make change feel overwhelming to some people, and I think therefore, the message that I would like to give people is that regulation shouldn’t be shutting innovation down, but that it should be giving people confidence to innovate responsibly, and then consumers confidence that innovations are responsible, and that’s really what it’s all about. So I think that is the one message.

Kimberley Cole 37:36
Fantastic. And now I’ve added a question, because we run a Risky Women Write competition that we’ve been running for the last two years, and the winner wrote the Obituary for the Risk Matrix, which was a really amusing article, but very good. So I’m asking everyone this season on the podcast the same question, if you had to write the next obituary for an outdated tool or practice in GRC? What would that be?

Kate Jones 38:06
So I love it. I love this idea of an obituary. Do you know Little Dorrit by Dickens? Do you know that novel? Okay, so in Little Dorrit, Dickens, in lots of his books, has wonderful descriptions of government and lawsuits. And you know how people get bogged down in process, basically. But in Little Dorrit, there’s this entity called the Circumlocution Office in government. And I love it. I love even the name is brilliant. And basically it’s this government department which is responsible for all of the boards, all of the minutes, all of the memoranda, all of the sort of shunting around that happens with decisions, so that it can make a simple decision, as complicated as you like, and it can even mean that things that are promised in manifestos and so on don’t even happen at all. And I raise that because I’m afraid I don’t have one tool. Not being a GRC professional, I don’t have one thing to kill. But I do think that Dickens there was irony, but he was making a real social comment. And I do think that even now, we have to be constantly alert, you know, that we’re actually focusing on the substance and not getting kind of stuck on box ticking and form filling and so on. And I think for us as regulators and for the GRC profession, I think that, you know, that always has to be the goal.

Kimberley Cole 39:28
Absolutely. It sounds like it’s a bit of a, you know, look what happens on Yes Minister. Or in Australia, we have a show called Utopia, which is a similar thing about all these kind of decisions that could happen or approvals that could happen, but then just go around and around.

Kate Jones 39:44
Yeah, I’ve never thought about drawing a line from Dickens to Yes Minister, but that’s a really good point.

Kimberley Cole 39:51
Fantastic. Well, I think we covered a lot there on innovation and regulation. I can see we’ve got lots of information that we can continue to share and put out as all of these developments and these papers come out and webinars, etc. So thank you for sharing all of that with us, Kate. Now we wrap up on what we call of our Rapid Fire Round, which I’ve got a few new questions that are meant to be sort of one word or short answers. So let’s see how we go on these ones. So now you’ve got a choice between a couple of things, and then some of them are sort of one word answers. So are you a risk taker or risk averse?

Kate Jones 40:33
Risk taker

Kimberley Cole 40:34
Your leadership, superpower?

Kate Jones 40:37
Diplomacy

Kimberley Cole 40:38
One word that defines your career?

Kate Jones 40:41
Diverse

Kimberley Cole 40:42
Top skill required for the future?

Kate Jones 40:45
People leadership

Kimberley Cole 40:46
And what’s the future of GRC in a single word?

Kate Jones 40:51
Well, not quite one word, but adaptability to embrace opportunities in parallel with managing risks.

Kimberley Cole 41:00
Okay, I’ll let you have that. One phrase!

Kate Jones 41:06
Exactly!

Kimberley Cole 41:08
Let’s end on a quote or a message to inspire a Risky Woman for the year ahead. What’s one thing that you’d like to leave them with?

Kate Jones 41:18
Embrace regulation for Responsible innovation.

Kimberley Cole 41:23
Very good. Okay, I love it. We’re ending on a high and people can think how they’re going to apply that. So that’s absolutely brilliant.

Kate Jones 41:30
I hope there’s one word answers made some degree of sense. The conversation we’ve had, it was pretty challenging.

Kimberley Cole 41:36
It’s all a bit of fun at the end, so that we can see what everyone says. So Kate, it has been absolutely wonderful speaking with you. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. I’m sure all of our listeners will. And you know, thank you so much for your time.

Kate Jones 41:51
It’s been an absolute pleasure, Kimberley. Thank you so much. It’s been an honour to be on Risky women and

Kimberley Cole 41:56
Become a risky woman!

Kate Jones 41:58
become a risky woman myself! Absolutely risk taker, as I say, yeah. So thank you very much for the opportunity.

Kimberley Cole 42:06
Well, thank you. We will continue to watch all of the activity at the DRCF, and thank you for joining us.

Kimberley Cole 42:11
Thank you for listening to this episode of Risky Women Radio, be part of the ongoing conversation and learn more about our events and other programs at riskywomen.org