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Webinar recording: securing the UK's next generation of connectivity (Building Trust in 6G)

29 October 20262 min read
Event Round-up
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When the network itself becomes a sensor, security can no longer be bolted on. The UK leads the world in ISAC research, but turning that strength into products, protecting what the network sees, and building trust from the hardware up will decide who wins the 6G race. 

techUK hosted the first session of Building Trust in 6G on 20 October, run by our Advanced Connectivity Technologies and Cyber Resilience programmes. Three speakers from industry and academia explored integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) and secure-by-design 6G, before a panel took audience questions. 

techUK Webinar Recording: ISAC and Cybersecurity Sensing, Security and Trust by Design

techUK

ISAC and the UK’s position

6G will be more than a faster radio: a software-defined network with AI across the RAN, edge and core that senses its environment as well as its traffic. When the network becomes a sensor, openness and security can no longer be treated separately. The session was framed around four challenges: 

  • Legacy security debt inherited from previous generations. 

  • The integrity of sensing applications, algorithms and AI models. 

  • Governance of sensing data and public trust. 

  • Accountability across disaggregated, multi-vendor ecosystems. 

The UK ranks third globally for ISAC publications and second for citations, but only around eighth or ninth on patents. Counter-drone detection near prisons, infrastructure and defence sites is a leading use case because ISAC reuses existing infrastructure and works in low light, but small drones remain hard to detect, so it will sit within a layered approach alongside cameras, microphones and RF detection. 

Underneath it all is a hardware problem. Processors designed for performance rather than security leave memory vulnerabilities that let attackers move laterally and break out of containers. CHERI-style architectures address this by enforcing bounds and permissions on every memory access, but processors must be rebuilt from the ground up. 

AI-native networks and cognitive cities 

Smart cities react; cognitive cities predict, sensing and learning to optimise transport, healthcare and air quality before problems occur. Demonstrations showed what ISAC can already do: 

  • Healthcare: an X-band radar measured the vital signs of moving people while communicating in real time. 

  • Robotics: sensing was used to monitor and synchronise a robotic arm remotely. 

  • Non-line-of-sight: intelligent surfaces steered beams to monitor two people’s breathing and heart rate despite an obstructed path. 

AI-native networks build on O-RAN to decouple RAN software from hardware, enabling much faster innovation. Pilots are already testing spectrum sensing, agentic security and drone classification. Industry is not waiting for 6G standards, and drone detection is expected to drive the first deployments, though false detections, sensor overload and integration with existing radar, video and LiDAR systems remain challenges. The panel agreed that no cognitive city exists yet. Privacy was described as the biggest question mark for ISAC’s acceptability, with no clear guidelines so far. On who is winning the race, panellists argued that patents and papers matter less than control of the value chain, and that the challenge is too large for any one country to solve alone. 

What’s next

The session left five clear messages. The UK leads on ISAC research, but products and IP lag behind. Trust must be built in from the hardware up, at every layer, rather than added later. Governance is lagging the technology, with privacy and data authorisation still open questions. Drone detection is likely to come first, but it must integrate with existing sensor systems. Above all, collaboration is essential, since no single country or organisation can solve this alone. 

The Building Trust in 6G series continues with Telecoms Modernisation and the Future of IoT on 17 November, followed by a session on the AI-native edge-cloud-space continuum. Thank you to our speakers and everyone who joined. A recording has been shared with registrants, and to get involved with the Advanced Connectivity Technologies programme, please contact the ACT team. 

Click below to download the webinar slides.

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