Robert Bateman: AI watermarking, recognized legitimate interests and age verification in the UK

Robert Bateman is a Senior Partner at Privacy Partnership, which provides consultancy and training on data protection and AI regulation, as well as legal advice via its associated law firm, Privacy Partnership Law. He also hosts The Privacy Partnership Podcast.

This is Robert’s third appearance on the show. We have covered three hot topics:

1. How far do we take watermarking of AI-generated content under article 50 of the AI Act?

2. How do pre-defined legitimate interest scenarios work under the UK Data (Use and Access) Act?

3. What is the tension between the Online Safety Act and the new data protection framework in the UK?

References:

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• Robert Bateman on LinkedIn

• Robert Bateman on Bluesky

• The Privacy Partnership Podcast

• AI Act (EU Commission’s resources)

• Data (Use and Access) Act 2025: data protection and privacy changes

• The EU approach to age verification (EU Commission)

• EU follows UK with age verification in 2026 (PPC Land)

• Wikipedia loses challenge against Online Safety Act verification rules (BBC)

• Robert Bateman: the EDPB’s Opinion on auditing subprocessors and the future of Meta’s unskippable ads (Masters of Privacy, Nov 2024)

• Robert Bateman: Consent or Pay (Masters of Privacy, Oct 2023)