§03 — The future tense

Now the other half — the protection. It is not absent; it is announced. The strategy says the government will modernize consumer privacy legislation (to “enshrine a right to privacy” and safeguard children’s information), will introduce an online-safety regime “to better protect social media and chatbot users,” and will guard against “harmful practices such as deepfakes and surveillance pricing.” Every one of these is a verb in the future tense — “we will,” “will introduce new legislation.” And the reporting that read the documents found the protection thin where the funding was thick.primary

While it proposes new consumer privacy legislation to enshrine a right to privacy and safeguard children’s information — along with a modernization of safety laws — the plan is vague on a timeline and what specific measures will be put forward to do so.BNN Bloomberg, 4 Jun 2026 — “AI strategy pledges thousands of jobs, lacks safety details”

The cleanest specimen is the chatbot rule that did not make it in. Proposed restrictions on chatbots for under-sixteens were left out, the strategy explained, because there is “a current review to determine whether they should be integrated into online harms legislation set for later this year.” That is the future tense doing its work in a single clause: a protection for children, present as an intention, deferred to a bill that does not yet exist. And the criticism was on the record and across the aisle — the Conservative deputy leader, reading the same documents, said the “safety and the security that was promised in this is nowhere to be found in the documents. Certainly, no details.”primary

Present tense · funded now	Future tense · promised later
$700M Compute Access Fund for AI adoption	Privacy modernization — “vague on a timeline,” no funding attached
Work placements for up to 90,000; a health “mission”	Online-safety regime — forthcoming legislation
Government data-integration procurement, live (§06)	Chatbot rules for under-16s — deferred to an online-harms bill “later this year”

Every protection is a verb that hasn’t happened yet. Every capacity is a verb that already has.

Counter: “we will protect you” is a promise; “we have funded this” is a fact. A plan that mixes the two in one sentence is asking you to bank the promise at the value of the fact.