Recent Blog Posts

Among the uncomfortable truths about the government’s response to the pandemic is the fact that some people have and will continue to play the system. At the time it was introduced, the furlough ...

This is a guest blogpost by Ben Tomlinson, Personally Identifiable Information Security Officer and Marketing Manager at Atlas Cloud. Data is arguably now the most valuable resource on earth; the ...

A recent survey from price comparison site, comparethemarket.com, has highlighted the subtext, which obscures a host of unfair assumptions made in the depths of computer systems. These assumptions ...

Concerns over personal privacy, of serious concern to the political activists who might be "picked off" by their opponents but not to the majority of the population, have come ahead of enthusiasm ...

This is a guest blogpost by Anthony Di Bello, VP Strategic Development, OpenText Today’s business landscape is littered with valuable data. The rapid adoption of digital technologies, means that ...

Why do companies find it so hard to get their heads around even the basics of GDPR compliance? I’m not even thinking here of techie stuff like not getting hacked, and not losing a laptop full of ...

This is a guest post by Srinivasan CR, chief digital officer, Tata Communications No matter how much technology keeps evolving, making predictions about the future is always a risky business. But ...

This is a guest blog post by Cindi Howson, Chief Data Strategy Officer, ThoughtSpot. Nothing illustrates the double-edged nature of data use more vividly than the recent general election in the UK. ...

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 Freeform Dynamics crystal ball has been given a polish for 2019. Here's a few of the upcoming events - and risks - that we glimpsed in it... Online privacy back in the headlines A year on from ...

Anyone hoping that we would by now have greater clarity on GDPR will have been sadly disappointed. Large swathes of the Regulation have yet to be tested in a court, and many of the high profile ...

1 in 10 of those who video chat with strangers have been asked to change or undress on camera … we need open and honest debate, not obfuscation and claims that these are technical matters, too ...

By Kevin Cahill The Justice Committee of the European Parliament has set the scene for a major showdown with the US over data transfers between the EU and the US by setting a Sept 1st deadline for ...

By Kevin Cahill The European Court of Justice may not have a hearing into crucial questions about the legality of the EU-US data transfer system for at least 18 months according to a spokesperson ...

People that use online gaming platforms might be being sized up for a job or even by security services

Nobody’s been able to get in contact with Downtime’s marketing manager since our discovery of a GDPR-themed Spotify playlist back in March, but his driving licence was found by the Royal Thai ...

By now, many consumers in Asia and elsewhere would have received at least a couple of e-mails from merchants asking for consent to continue receiving marketing messages under Europe’s General Data ...

There will be a law that reduces the number of required fields in online reforms to reduce the amount of unnecessary information given to organisations.

Young people will start disconnecting from connected world as risks outweigh benefits

Consumers are set to become much more aware of the privacy settings on the websites they use

Cloud-based customer relationship management software supplier Donorfy has taken the initiative in putting data protection officers nationwide out of their misery and compiling what can only be ...

Computer Weekly writes a lot about cyber security – it’s the easily most popular topic among our readers, and always rates as one of the top priorities in our annual survey of IT professionals. ...

IoT Back to Basics, chapter 3: It’s no surprise that security and governance are important considerations when it comes to the IoT, but quite how incredibly important they are may not be ...

Most of us already recognise that technology has the potential to wipe out our privacy, if checks and balances are not in place – or at least I hope we do! What’s scary then in the recent hoo-hah ...

Europeans will in future be able to bring US-style class actions for (alleged) privacy violations, instead of having to sue individually and expensively. It’s thanks to a little-known clause of the ...

In the fast-expanding world of ubiquitous personal data, sometimes it feels like we’re living in an enormous global beta test to work out what’s acceptable and what’s not. This week, Google was hit ...

This is a guest blogpost by Julian Box, CEO, Calligo. The prospect of ambulance-chasing lawyers interesting themselves in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is now very real. With just a ...

Slowly, technology issues are rising to centre of the Brexit debate – as they should. This week saw the publication of the UK government’s Data Protection Bill – our implementation of the European ...

We are deluged with regulation, legislation and opinion on data protection and privacy these days, in a digital world where personal data is proliferating almost beyond control. Enterprises are ...

The tensions over privacy, surveillance, data sharing and civil liability between "ordinary humans" and those promoting big data business models could be used to politicians to take the heat out of ...

Most of the IT industry appears to have little or nothing to fear from the hardest of Brexits. But this illustrates the failure of those of us who have spend decades trying to make a reality of the ...

Data availability and integrity based on robust authentication and encryption over resilient networks are more important than privacy.

Brexit or not, the GDRP will come in to force across the EU in 2018. Here is Quocirca’s whistle stop tour of the regulation and a link to Quocirca’s GDRP buyer's guide on Computer Weekly.

The share prices of Google and Facebook have held up but recent on-line advertising cancellations will force fundamental change.

If GDPR compliance is not near the top of IT leaders’ priorities for 2017, you have a problem. GDPR – the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation – was always going to be a major ...

The Tech Community needs to take politics seriously before it is too late

Twice in the past week, the UK government has passed legislation despite overwhelming concerns from the technology community. The Digital Economy Bill – a mostly sensible attempt to update laws ...

Information management company Veritas Technologies is attempting to provide (even) greater control for data workloads that reside in cloud computing environments. The firm's NetBackup 8.0 is now ...

In this guest blog by Cloud4Wi's Jeff Abramowitz, we explore the need to balance public Wi-Fi network installations with advanced security measures to protect users. Connecting to the internet in ...

Digital rights management is evolving in response to the rise of cloud services, the diversification of user end-points and increasing cyber-threats. New products are emerging to overcome the ...

One of the greatest challenges faced by Privacy and Data Protection professionals is demonstrating that their organisations have complied with the requirements of the various laws governing the ...

Information management company Veritas held its Veritas Vision 2016 conference this week at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Company CEO Bill Coleman spoke to selected press prior to his ...

For commercial, legal and moral reasons the EU GDPR, or something that mimics it, will apply in the UK following Brexit.

As the use of drones for commercial and recreational purposes increase consideration needs to be given to privacy and information security.

Effective pan-EU co-operation to redress the balance and build confidence in safer, more secure on-line world could have a bigger impact on our wallets than the putative benefits or costs of Brexit ...

The measures planned for inclusion in the Digital Economy Bill are unlikely to address the growing divide between the advertising-funded business models of global internet service providers and ...

The Vodafone Big Data survey reveals a crisis of trust which Internet Service Providers continue to ignore at their peril.

The Department for Business, Innovation & Skills' report on data sharing recommends that GOV.UK Verify opens up for private-sector attribute providers - but that's already happening as fast as ...

With a US$200,000 fine levied by the FTC, has TRUSTe shown that privacy seals don't work?

…or “How the Reputation Management Industry Came of Age" Much fuss has been made in the press about the European Court of Justice’s decision that search engines (and Google in particular) must ...

The Government Digital Service's (GDS) has announced the next round of procurement for the Identity Assurance Programme (IDAP), which will expand the use of a federation of private-sector Identity ...

This week is Gartner's annual Identity and Access Management shindig in London. I was fortunate enough to attend for the first time in 2011, when there was a real sense of mixed feelings amongst ...

One of our long-standing problems with Internet privacy is the tracking of user activities, more often than not without any meaningful opt-out mechanism: if you don’t want to be profiled by, say, ...

This year's RSA Conference Europe is themed around how 'Big Data Transforms Security,' requiring support from and feeding into the corporate security function. The tone was set by one quotation ...

The call for papers for 2014's IAPP Europe Data Protection Intensive comes to a close this Wednesday. If you're a privacy professional then this will be the most important event in London next ...

In recent months the fuss about surveillance revelations has distracted attention from some good work in the European Commission to try to align and push forward a harmonised electronic identity ...

I've a lot of time and respect for my GP, not least because we see eye-to-eye on privacy matters. He shares my concern about the centralisation and automation of healthcare data, not because of any ...

So the iPhone 5s, Apple's newest shiniest consumer thing, has had its new biometric security broken by no less than the famous Chaos Computer Club (CCC). Using a simple spoofing attack which ...

One of the common concerns about identity-related technologies is the potential for abuse of privacy, and for function creep of the identity system itself: mechanisms which are designed to support ...

A number of today's papers are reporting on the government's plans to offer up Royal Mail for private investment, and the implications for the Postcode Address File (PAF). Cabinet Minister Francis ...

The government's plans to tackle digital exclusion - the significant user population that cannot or will not use online services - are essential if we are to achieve 'Digital by Default' targets ...

A simple way to build online trust, or another failed technology project in the making? Toby Stevens explores the government’s new identity assurance programme and considers what it means for your ...

One of the more contentious areas of debate about the Identity Assurance programme has been the selection of potential Identity Providers (IdPs), not so much for who is on the list, but who is ...

  Raj asked the following: "1. Government's Identity Assurance program accepted eight IdP. I wonder whether all these eight IdPs have the same trust level? Or who will be responsible in defining ...

The government's Identity Assurance programme has finally announced its eighth candidate Identity Provider, in the form of PayPal; the announcement had been delayed pending the completion of ...

Consumer empowerment think-tank Ctrl-Shift is carrying an interview with me on the significance of the Identity Assurance programme, in which I speculate on how IDA will grow over the coming months ...

The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) has announced the first seven Identity Providers (IDPs) who will be eligible to provide consumer-facing services within the government's new Identity ...

The past week has seen a surge in media coverage of the government's new Identity Assurance (IDA) programme, as the Department for Work & Pensions prepares to announce the first group of ...

It's October, the time of year when another intake of students are released from school into the adult world of university, and fill the pubs and clubs of university towns. These establishments are ...

The government has done something very clever, and people seem not to have noticed. With very little fanfare, it was announced last week that all government departments will share a common logo, ...

The dust has temporarily settled a little on the Home Office's announcement of the Communications Capabilities Development Programme (CCDP), and doubtless some Ministers are now licking their ...

When the Coalition came to power, there was a clear manifesto promise to "roll back the surveillance state," including abandoning the much-hated National Identity Scheme and Contactpoint database, ...

Building identity management systems is a doddle, it really is. All you've got to do is to knock up a web interface with a database behind it, offer a store for trusted attribute data, tie the lot ...

Jerry Fishenden, Chair of the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance Programme Privacy and Consumer Group, has blogged the draft principles for the new identity assurance scheme, with a view to ...

This week's Sunday Times (no link, it's behind the paywall) carries a double page 'exposé' of the trade in stolen personal data from Indian contact centres, data entry services, IT support ...

Google has been in the news again, this time for changes to its privacy practices, which involved consolidating around 60 statements into one to cover all of Google's services, including search, ...

Bored? Killing time before the excitement of Monday's return to work? No, me neither, but either way Lifehacker is carrying a good set of tips to lock down privacy in your personal life, which is ...

Welcome back. Or if you've not been here before, Welcome. I've rather neglected this blog for the past two years because of other commitments, but hopefully I'm now in a position to restart writing ...

The CONSENT project - a collaborative project co-funded by the European Commission under the FP7 programme - is seeking opinions on the use of personal information, privacy and providing consent ...

If you're an innovator with public service delivery ambitions, then you may wish to take a look at DotGovLabs - DirectGov's Innovation Hub which brings together 1,600 SMEs, entrepreneurs and ...

On Tuesday the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham announced the outcome of his office's investigation into alleged security failures by ACS:Law, and the imposition of a £1,000 fine on the ...

(The following article was originally published by Big Brother Watch in their book "The state of civil liberties in Modern Britain"). If the government is serious about its policy objectives of ...

Those of you who follow NO2ID, arguably the most successful civil society pressure group of the past generation, may be aware that National Coordinator Phil Booth has just stepped down from the ...

Quite a lot actually, particularly in the world of social media. The popularity of Facebook, Twitter etc is very much driven by their flexibility in extending our real-world lives into the virtual ...

The European Commission's Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) has published a report on 'The State of the Electronic Identity Market: Technologies, Infrastructure, Services and ...

[I was kindly invited to respond to a speech delivered by former Information Commissioner Richard Thomas CBE at a dinner at the ICAEW. The following is the text of that response] In 1890, Samuel ...

The NHS Choices website is a cornerstone of the government's drive for health service efficiency and to move service delivery online. Users can log on to find out more about NHS services, and to ...

The Information Commissioner's Office has made the first use of new powers to fine organisations for data breaches. Two organisations - Hertfordshire Country Council, and employment services firm ...

Over the next few days I'm going to focus on a number of important stories that relate to freedom of speech, and the unfortunate consequences of using that freedom to say something silly. How many ...

A hidden gem on the BBC website points us to what has to be the very best helpdesk call that has ever been made: US presidential nuclear codes 'lost for months' It would appear that at some time ...

So, to Lille today to attend IMRG's inaugural EbizEU conference. The theme is e-commerce strategy, with a number of speakers looking to the future of cross-border e-retail.The keynote pitch was ...

Online child protection is all over the news this week, with the resignation of Jim Gamble of CEOP (and part of his team) being rued by mainstream media, and welcomed by ISPs. However, a lower ...

It's that time of year again - Computer Weekly's annual blog awards are now open for nominations. You can nominate your favourite blogs under categories that include: CIO/IT director IT consultant ...

Yesterday saw an announcement by the Financial Services Authority that the UK arm of Zurich Insurance Plc has agreed a record-breaking fine of £2.4m as a result of losing 46,000 customer records. ...

As adults we fret that the re-appearance of a photo of teenage high spirits (i.e. that one wearing nothing but a pair of pants on your head and a winning smile) may come back to haunt us, but ...

The BBC reports that the financial failure of gay teenager magazine XY, and its associated database, has given rise to a painful privacy conundrum: what happens to the database of registered site ...

In a world where it's quite possible for minors to be arrested for taking pictures of parades on Armed Forces Day, parents go crying to the press when their children are accidentally phtographed ...

Do you remember the UK ID Cards scheme? You know, the government's promised 'gold standard' of identity? The unforgeable, unbeatable, genius of authentication that was promised to do anything you ...

I've written on a number of occasions about the fallibility of biometrics as a trusted means to find or identify an individual. Setting aside problems with the mathematics of biometrics and ...

Please excuse the lack of posts recently - I've been preparing for an experiment in locational privacy. On 12th June I will set off from John O'Groats to cycle 1,000 miles to Land's End in aid of ...