UK Law and Practice Contributed by: Lisa Lunt and Sarah Samuel, Fletchers Solicitors
Cybersecurity, Software Integrity and Connected Products A notable area of convergence between product safety and digital regulation is cybersecurity. Cybersecurity risks are increasingly treated as inherent safety risks, particularly for connected consumer and industrial products. The Product Security and Telecommunica - tions Infrastructure Act 2022 and its accompanying regulations already impose baseline security obliga - tions for certain consumer devices, including require - ments relating to vulnerability disclosure and software update support. Looking ahead, policymakers are expected to build on this framework by integrating cybersecurity and software integrity more explicitly into general product safety obligations, reinforcing expectations around secure design, patching and life cycle risk manage - ment. AI, Automation and Emerging Technologies Artificial intelligence and automated systems remain a key area of future policy attention. While the UK has opted for a sector-led, principles-based approach rather than bespoke AI liability legislation, regulatory guidance and enforcement activity are increasingly addressing AI-related risks through existing safety and liability regimes.
This raises ongoing policy questions around: • how defect should be assessed for adaptive or learning systems; • the relevance of foreseeability where system behaviour changes over time; and • allocation of liability between developers, manufac - turers, deployers and downstream users. These issues are likely to inform both future regula - tory guidance and any eventual reforms to the CPA or Taken together, future policy development in England and Wales points towards an increasingly integrated approach to product liability and product safety, in which software, cybersecurity and AI considerations are treated as core aspects of product risk rather than peripheral issues. While large-scale legislative reform has yet to materialise, incremental change through consultation, secondary legislation and regulatory guidance is expected to continue, with a longer-term emphasis on ensuring that liability and safety frame - works remain workable for both consumers and busi - nesses in a digitally mediated economy. related legislation. Direction of Travel
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