Recent Blog Posts

As the Government Digital Service (GDS) prepares for the winding down of its Gov.uk Verify service, its future plans for digital identity are becoming a little clearer. In recent weeks, GDS has ...

These times of ours, you might have heard, are being described as both “strange” and “unprecedented”. There’s also been some talk of a “new normal”, although while for some that means extra-long ...

The Government Digital Service (GDS) has published its first blog post on Gov.uk Verify since July 2019. Given the dearth of communications about the troubled digital identity system, it tells a ...

In the past couple of weeks, nearly a million people have signed up for Universal Credit as a result of the Covid-19 coronavirus crisis. Never has the UK government’s move to a digital-first world ...

There is much to think about while we are in lockdown if we want to live in a relatively free, safe and democratically accountable society afterwards, for however long it takes us to rebuild ...

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s first Budget was a step towards making good on the new government’s promise to be “unashamedly” pro-technology. Offering £22bn in annual funding for research and ...

The remarkable levels of secrecy and avoidance of scrutiny around the Gov.uk Verify digital identity scheme continue – and if anything, seem to have reached new levels of absurdity. Last week, ...

Imagine you’re a skilled, ambitious IT professional living outside the UK and you want to maximise your earning potential and your exposure to the latest technology. You’re assessing where in the ...

IR35 has claimed its first big name, after Eamonn Holmes failed to convince the courts he’s a freelancer in his case against HMRC. For the humble freelancer, the introduction of the kaleidoscopic ...

The great and the good of the digital identity sector gathered in London yesterday (13 February) for the Think Digital Identity for Government conference – a popular bi-annual event that always ...

It may have gone unnoticed with the January 14 end of support deadline for Windows 7, but Microsoft’s 10 year old OS, had one last Patch Tuesday update. And , surprise, surprise, this included a ...

There’s a new UK government, one with a comfortable majority, and it’s clear it wants to use that advantage for radical change. The new prime minister says the government has “a mission to ...

There are not enough words to fully express the depth of scandal and outrage that should accompany the conclusion of the High Court case that finally and completely found that the Post Office ...

In 2004, Computer Weekly received a letter from Alan Bates, a former subpostmaster in Craig-y-Don, a coastal suburb of Llandudno in north Wales. It’s that long ago that the letter arrived ...

When Computer Weekly set out to compare and analyse the tech and digital policies in the major political parties’ manifestos for the 2019 General Election, the article extended comfortably to ...

Prime minister Boris Johnson and his controversial special advisor, Dominic Cummings, are “secretly” working on a plan to gather citizen data from across Whitehall to be used for targeting ...

The Government Digital Service (GDS) has published details of the planned pilot project for opening up passport data to companies that wish to offer digital identity services. GDS recently held a ...

The Government Digital Service (GDS) insists that its plans for Gov.uk Verify “remain on track” despite the withdrawal of three of the five remaining identity providers (IDPs) supporting the ...

Gov.uk Verify – the government’s flagship digital identity system – faces a critical few months ahead. Again. As the clock ticks down towards the end of March 2020, when further public investment ...

It’s traditional upon the coronation of a new Prime Minister to write a list of all the things they need to address in the tech and digital sectors. It would be a long list – digital skills, IT ...

The latest select committee report by MPs into the progress of digital government in the UK has resurrected a question that has reared its head on several occasions in the past – do we need a ...

Three months ago, the Government Digital Service (GDS) appointed the first ever director of digital identity, Lisa Barrett – tasked with taking on the troubled Gov.uk Verify programme. Barrett ...

I like the Tech UK response to the Doteveryone report but we also need the 80% of optimists to also join the political party of their choice and work to produce policies that will: Address the ...

Gov.uk Verify is the Theresa May of digital government. The embattled Prime Minister faces calls to quit from all around – her own Conservative MPs, grassroots Tory activists, the right-wing press ...

Chancellor of the Exchequer addresses fintechs on day two of Innovate Finance Summit 2019

The digital transformation of government and public service delivery is well under way and is by now – hopefully – unstoppable. It’s taken longer to get here than it should have, and it will take ...

Hello and good luck, to Lisa Barrett  - the newly appointed director of digital identity at the Government Digital Service (GDS). She's taken on what many people outside GDS see as something of a ...

The Post Office likes to describes itself as “the nation’s most trusted brand”. Anyone following the latest developments in the increasingly heated High Court case about its Horizon IT system would ...

It’s not commonly known outside Whitehall that by the time the National Audit Office (NAO) – Parliament’s independent spending watchdog – publishes a report, it will have been through several ...

It’s understandable that people express cynicism when a politician – particularly one with a clear ideological bent – proclaims that “digital” or “technology” can solve the core Brexit issue of the ...