11 Stories And Trends That Dominated Tech In 2016

FBI and Apple lock horns

One of the more interesting sagas of the year surrounded Apple’s dispute with the FBI over access to a terrorist’s iPhone. The phone in question belonged to one of the shooters responsible for the San Bernardino attack which killed 14 people in December 2015. A Federal judge ordered Apple to provide “reasonable technical assistance” in allowing the FBI to access the iPhone, but Tim Cook refused, saying the demand set a “dangerous precendent” for the future.

This launched an explosive data privacy and encryption debate throughout the industry, with Apple receiving criticism and support in equal measure. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak publicly backed CEO Cook and the company’s firm stance was also praised by Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai and Whatsapp’s founder Jan Koum. However, the family of murdered Fusilier Lee Rigby condemned Apple for its actions.

In the end, the FBI managed to crack the iPhone through other means, prompting Apple to announce an even more aggressive stance on encryption at its developer conference in June.

The positive side of the whole debate is that it has pushed the issue of data privacy firmly into the spotlight, both for businesses and consumers. It may have caused some initial distress, but the long-term benefits of an increased focus on privacy and security will be worth it.

GDPR changes the game

One of the main issues giving businesses a headache throughout 2016 has been data protection. More specifically, the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which was approved by the European Parliament in April after nearly four years of negotiations and will come in force in May 2018.

In a nutshell, GDPR aims to give citizens back control over their data in the digital age and imposes tough financial penalties on businesses for not protecting customer data – 4 percent of their global revenue for the previous year or €20 million (£15.8m), which ever is greater. The regulations have received mixed reviews from the industry, with the majority of businesses not confident of achieving compliance by 2018.

Although positive news for consumers, the updated rules are certainly placing a lot of pressure on businesses. GDPR is expected to require the introduction of “at least” 75,000 extra data protection officers worldwide and the number of small businesses in the UK that don’t understand the regulations is worryingly low. There’s lots of work ahead in 2017!

Trump takes control

Typical Americans, they always have to do things bigger and better than us. We had Brexit, they had the even-more-unexpected election of notorious billionaire entrepreneur Donald Trump to President of the United States.

Although not specifically a technology issue, the election has prompted concern within the sector. The majority of tech firms were rooting for Hillary Clinton, with 100 Silicon Valley executives – including representatives from the likes of Slack, Tumblr and Qualcomm – putting their name to an open letter denouncing Trump as the future President.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, HP Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk all publicly voiced their support for Clinton, but as we now know, their efforts were in vain.

Whatever policies President-elect Trump goes instate during his time in the White House, technology is likely to play a key role. Current President Barack Obama has already urged him to focus on improving cyber security and The Internet Association, a trade group representing Facebook, Amazon, Google and other prominent tech companies, has called on Trump to support encrypted communications and net neutrality.

BT Openreach future and Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall on page 4…