Executive snapshot
- Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) backed a joint statement by 61 data protection authorities warning about privacy risks from AI-generated realistic imagery/video of identifiable people without consent, with particular concern for harms to children.
- Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its new Regulatory Priorities: Insurance report, including a planned Q1 2026 “Artificial Intelligence review” to engage industry on AI uses, risks, opportunities, and barriers to safe adoption in insurance.
Regulators and enforcement
- ICO: Joint statement on AI-generated imagery and privacy (23 February 2026). The ICO highlighted a coordinated regulator position that AI systems generating realistic depictions of identifiable individuals without their knowledge/consent raise serious privacy concerns, including risks affecting children.
- FCA: Insurance sector priorities include an AI review (published February 2026). The FCA’s insurance priorities explicitly schedule an AI-focused engagement in Q1 2026 aimed at understanding risk and enabling safe use (a governance signal for model risk, controls, and accountability in insurance deployments).
Conclusion
This report adds two governance signals: privacy regulators are sharpening expectations around AI-generated imagery, and the FCA is formalising AI as a supervisory priority area in insurance, indicating nearer-term scrutiny of how firms manage AI risks in regulated financial services.
Sources: ICO, FCA