News

Database management

• May 28, 2025 28 May'25

  UK biometric surveillance exists in ‘legal grey area’

  The rapid proliferation of ‘biometric mass surveillance technologies’ throughout the UK’s public and private sectors is taking place without legal certainty or adequate safeguards for the public

• May 28, 2025 28 May'25

  ANZ firms spending more on data management

  Nearly nine in 10 organisations in Australia and New Zealand increased their overall spend on data management last year to cope with higher data volumes and growing use of artificial intelligence, study finds

• May 23, 2025 23 May'25

  Essex Police discloses ‘incoherent’ facial recognition assessment

  An equality impact assessment of Essex Police live facial recognition deployments is plagued by inconsistencies and poor methodology, undermining the force’s claim that its use of the technology will not be discriminatory

• May 21, 2025 21 May'25

  Vast Data launches into AI stratosphere with AgentEngine

  Vast has built out into data management from its roots and will now offer customisable agentic AI agents that can tap into its existing storage, database and messaging capabilities

• May 14, 2025 14 May'25

  UK government outlines plan to surveil migrants with eVisa data

  Electronic visa data and biometric technologies will be used by the UK’s immigration enforcement authorities to surveil migrants living in the country and to ‘tighten control of the border’, attracting strong criticism from migrant support groups

• April 11, 2025 11 Apr'25

  AI surveillance towers place migrants in ‘even greater jeopardy’

  The use of autonomous surveillance towers throughout the English coast forces migrants into increasingly dangerous routes and contributes to their criminalisation

• April 11, 2025 11 Apr'25

  Met Police to deploy permanent facial recognition tech in Croydon

  The Met Police is set deploy permanent live facial recognition cameras on street furniture in Croydon from summer 2025, but local councillors say the decision – which has taken place with no community input – will further contribute the ...

• March 31, 2025 31 Mar'25

  Reassessing UK law enforcement data adequacy

  Computer Weekly takes stock of proposed changes to the UK’s law enforcement data protection rules and how it could affect data adequacy with the European Union

• March 31, 2025 31 Mar'25

  UK law enforcement data adequacy at risk

  The UK government says reforms to police data protection rules will help to simplify law enforcement data processing, but critics argue the changes will lower protection to the point where the UK risks losing its European data adequacy

• March 25, 2025 25 Mar'25

  Scottish police hold almost no data on facial recognition use

  It is currently impossible to assess Police Scotland’s use of retrospective facial recognition for efficacy and fairness because the force does not collect meaningful information that would enable a proper evaluation

• March 17, 2025 17 Mar'25

  Online Safety Act measures come into effect

  Regulator Ofcom is now able to take enforcement action against platforms under the Online Safety Act if they fail to proactively safeguard against content such as terrorist or child sexual abuse material

• March 17, 2025 17 Mar'25

  How Oracle is using AI to combat financial crime

  The tech giant is leveraging artificial intelligence to surface fraudulent financial transactions and improve the efficiency of financial crime investigations, offering relief to banks battling high costs and alert fatigue

• February 27, 2025 27 Feb'25

  MPs grill X, TikTok and Meta about online misinformation

  Representatives from the social media firms said that while the scale of their platforms makes content moderation difficult, they are effectively dealing with the vast majority of misinformation

• February 19, 2025 19 Feb'25

  European and African tech skills programme could increase economic ties

  Africa is a continent on the up, and if Europe wants to form lucrative relationships with its nations, it must have something to trade. IT skills and knowledge exchanges unlock opportunities

• February 12, 2025 12 Feb'25

  MongoDB expands Sydney operations to support local growth

  MongoDB is doubling down on its Australian presence with a new Sydney office, housing engineering, support and go-to-market teams focused on R&D and tackling the region’s legacy technology challenges

• January 23, 2025 23 Jan'25

  UK eVisa system problems persist despite repeated warnings

  Travellers are already having issues boarding UK-bound flights, while refugees have been left with no way to prove their immigration status in the UK, just two weeks after the Home Office transitioned to electronic visas

• January 21, 2025 21 Jan'25

  Greek authorities subject refugees to invasive surveillance

  Greek border authorities are subjecting asylum seekers to invasive phone confiscations and artificial intelligence-powered surveillance, in another potential violation of European data protection laws

• January 08, 2025 08 Jan'25

  Software AG shrinks with sale of Alfabet and Cumulocity

  Software AG, Germany’s number two business software company, after SAP, has announced the latest turn in its shrinkage under the umbrella of private equity group Silver Lake

• December 24, 2024 24 Dec'24

  Top 10 police technology stories of 2024

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 police technology stories of 2024

• December 20, 2024 20 Dec'24

  Top 10 data and ethics stories of 2024

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 data and ethics stories of 2024

• December 18, 2024 18 Dec'24

  Axon still in possession of Police Scotland encryption keys

  Supplier’s possession of encryption keys for Police Scotland data sharing system opens potential for access and transfer of sensitive data without the knowledge or consent of the force

• December 10, 2024 10 Dec'24

  UK police continue to hold millions of custody images unlawfully

  Annual report from the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner of England and Wales highlights the ongoing and unlawful retention millions of custody images of innocent people never charged with a crime by police

• December 10, 2024 10 Dec'24

  DWP ‘fairness analysis’ reveals bias in AI fraud detection system

  Information about people’s age, disability, marital status and nationality influences decisions to investigate benefit claims for fraud, but the Department for Work and Pensions says there are ‘no immediate concerns of unfair treatment’

• December 03, 2024 03 Dec'24

  F1 heightens fan experiences with the power of Salesforce

  Learn how the technical teams behind Formula One are using Salesforce’s tools to enhance fan activation and engagement at 24 races across the world, and how they are bringing AI into play with Agentforce capabilities

• November 29, 2024 29 Nov'24

  Swedish authorities urged to discontinue AI welfare system

  Amnesty International is calling on Sweden’s social insurance agency to immediately discontinue its machine learning-based welfare system, following an investigation by Lighthouse Reports and Svenska Dagbladet that found it to be discriminatory

• November 27, 2024 27 Nov'24

  Barings Law plans to sue Microsoft and Google over AI training data

  Microsoft and Google are using people’s personal data without proper consent to train artificial intelligence models, alleges Barings Law, as it prepares to launch a legal challenge against the tech giants

• November 25, 2024 25 Nov'24

  Metropolitan Police officer dismissed for unlawfully accessing Sarah Everard files

  Over 100 Met Police officers and staff have been investigated for accessing sensitive data related to the Sarah Everard case, leading to the dismissal of a Roads and Transport officer who accessed the information while off-duty

• November 22, 2024 22 Nov'24

  IT and business leaders face big gap in understanding of data priorities

  There appears to be a gap between what business leaders want to do with artificial intelligence and the IT capabilities of their organisation

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  ORG urges ICO to revise public sector enforcement approach

  The Open Rights Group is urging the Information Commissioner’s Office to revise its light touch approach to public sector data protection issues, arguing that its experimental policy of limiting its enforcement actions to reprimands and notices, ...

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  Post Office project taking control of Horizon data from Fujitsu as part of messy split

  The Post Office will no longer rely on Fujitsu for Horizon data past and present once cloud migration project is complete, in a major uncoupling of the 30-year relationship

• November 18, 2024 18 Nov'24

  Denmark’s AI-powered welfare system fuels mass surveillance

  Research reveals the automated tools used to flag individuals for benefit fraud violate individuals’ privacy and risk discriminating against marginalised groups

• November 14, 2024 14 Nov'24

  MPs hold first ever debate on live facial recognition

  MPs have held an open debate on police use of live facial recognition technology for the first time since it was initially deployed by the Met Police in August 2016

• November 12, 2024 12 Nov'24

  Police cloud project raises data protection concerns despite legal reforms

  Ongoing data protection issues with the use of hyperscale public cloud infrastructure by UK police could complicate the ambitions of nine forces to move their common records management system into the cloud

• November 11, 2024 11 Nov'24

  Fresh concerns over NHS England registries procurement

  Clinicians and technologists behind a number of medical devices registries being brought together by NHS England on a new common platform have accused the health service of flouting public sector procurement regulations

• November 07, 2024 07 Nov'24

  Interview: Petra Molnar, author of ‘The walls have eyes’

  Refugee lawyer and author Petra Molnar speaks to Computer Weekly about the extreme violence people on the move face at borders across the world, and how increasingly hostile anti-immigrant politics is being enabled and reinforced by a ‘lucrative ...

• November 06, 2024 06 Nov'24

  Snowflake brings AI to data for Australian businesses

  At the Sydney leg of the Snowflake World Tour, the company showcased how its platform simplifies data management, reduces costs and drives AI adoption for Australian businesses

• October 22, 2024 22 Oct'24

  Dell CTO: Enterprise AI poised to take off in 2025

  After a period of experimentation, the building blocks are in place for wider enterprise adoption of AI, says Dell Technologies’ global CTO, John Roese

• October 21, 2024 21 Oct'24

  Techcombank’s tech investments set to fuel record profit

  The Vietnam bank is targeting $1bn in profit in 2024 while maintaining a flat headcount and reducing physical branches, thanks to its investments in artificial intelligence and a data engine

• October 01, 2024 01 Oct'24

  APAC organisations embrace generative AI

  Study reveals a surge in GenAI adoption across APAC, with businesses looking to train their own models, likely to address specific regional needs and market dynamics

• September 18, 2024 18 Sep'24

  M1 ditches 70% of legacy systems in cloud transformation drive

  Singapore telco M1 is switching off 70% of its legacy systems by the end of 2024 and leveraging Salesforce to offer more personalised services

• September 12, 2024 12 Sep'24

  Data sharing for immigration raids ferments hostility to migrants

  Data sharing between public and private bodies for the purposes of carrying out immigration raids helps to prop up the UK’s hostile environment by instilling an atmosphere of fear and deterring migrants from accessing public services

• September 04, 2024 04 Sep'24

  Retailers question using live facial recognition for shoplifting

  Retailers praise benefits of retrospective over live facial recognition in dealing with shoplifting, but stress there are ongoing concerns around the ethical, legal and safety implications of using the technology in stores

• September 03, 2024 03 Sep'24

  Chief data officers highlight data integrity woes

  In a report from the company co-founded by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, CDOs discuss the challenges of artificial intelligence and using increasing amounts of personal data

• August 21, 2024 21 Aug'24

  QiStor flashes key-value storage software for hardware acceleration

  US-based startup will develop storage software allied with FPGA chips to allow data storage to bypass spinning disk era block addressing to speed performance and cut energy use

• August 14, 2024 14 Aug'24

  Newcastle City Council swaps out Oracle Java for Azul

  Changes to Oracle’s Java licensing meant the council no longer received free security patches

• August 14, 2024 14 Aug'24

  Leeds Teaching Hospitals deploys patient records and data sharing on Azure

  In-house patient records system has been migrated to the Microsoft public cloud, opening up the potential for greater data sharing

• August 13, 2024 13 Aug'24

  Oracle Exadata Exascale: Big architecture shift for small workloads

  Exascale is multitenant architecture for Oracle Database that promises performance equal to dedicated infrastructure and savings compared with existing products, with AI workloads in mind

• July 30, 2024 30 Jul'24

  How India is driving road safety with technology

  Traffic departments, law enforcers and new-tech players are betting on technology tools such as AI-powered drones and mobile apps to improve road safety across India

• July 25, 2024 25 Jul'24

  India bolsters digital agriculture and space tech in Budget 2024

  India will extend its digital public infrastructure to the agriculture sector and set up a venture capital fund for space startups, among other tech initiatives in its latest Budget

• July 12, 2024 12 Jul'24

  AT&T loses ‘nearly all’ phone records in Snowflake breach

  Hackers have stolen records of virtually every call made by AT&T's customers during a six-month period in 2022, after compromising the US telco's Snowflake data environment