News

Europe and Middle East information technology (IT)

• January 22, 2024 22 Jan'24

  Dutch companies not ready for AI

  Many Dutch organisations are not ready to start working with AI, according to the Cisco AI Readiness Index

• January 22, 2024 22 Jan'24

  Upgraded Arabic large language model is twice as big

  Techniques that were used to double the power of what was already the largest LLM for Arabic can now be applied to other languages whose native speakers do not yet have access to AI

• January 22, 2024 22 Jan'24

  Chat control: Tech companies warn ministers over EU encryption plans

  Tech companies have written to EU ministers to urge them to back the European Parliament, rather than the European Commission, over proposed regulations to police child abuse

• January 15, 2024 15 Jan'24

  Santander bank added 4,500 tech staff last year

  Santander added thousands of IT staff to its global operation last year, as part of its digital transformation

• January 08, 2024 08 Jan'24

  Inside the Met Police’s investigation into EncroChat crime gangs

  The Met’s senior investigating officer responsible for investigating criminals using the EncroChat encrypted phone network tells the inside story of the UK’s biggest organised crime bust in a BBC podcast series released this week

• January 03, 2024 03 Jan'24

  Dutch working to promote cooperation in Europe to keep internet safe

  A Dutch cooperative approach offers national and international cooperation opportunities for ISPs to guard against DDoS attacks, lawful interception and detect abuse in networks

• January 03, 2024 03 Jan'24

  Artificial intelligence to the front in Sweden’s National Technology Strategy

  Sweden focuses in on artificial intelligence in its latest far-reaching national IT strategy

• December 22, 2023 22 Dec'23

  Top 10 Middle East stories of 2023

  Middle Eastern countries are on digital journeys, with many pinning their futures on expertise in advanced technologies

• December 20, 2023 20 Dec'23

  Top 10 Benelux stories of 2023

  The Benelux region is researching some of the latest digital technologies of the future with efforts to ensure the region keeps pace in quantum computing and artificial intelligence

• December 19, 2023 19 Dec'23

  Top 10 Nordic stories of 2023

  Known for its advances in digital technology, the Nordic region continues to pioneer the startup sector while making serious waves in Quantum computing and artificial intelligence

• December 11, 2023 11 Dec'23

  Nordic governments join forces to protect data transfers

  Nordic countries deepen their cooperation over cyber security amid heightened threat from neighbouring Russia

• December 08, 2023 08 Dec'23

  Fancy Bear targets Nato entities via critical Outlook flaw

  A vulnerability patched in March has likely been exploited by the Russian state actor Fancy Bear, for over two years, according to the latest intelligence

• December 07, 2023 07 Dec'23

  Finnish IT industry talent fears amid government restrictions

  Finnish businesses concerned over the immigration plans of the country’s right-wing government

• December 04, 2023 04 Dec'23

  Atos selected for UEFA Euro 2024 IT contract

  IT services company Atos will deliver on-site and remote IT services for next year’s international football event in Germany

• November 20, 2023 20 Nov'23

  Defence lawyers seek appeal of tribunal ruling on police EncroChat cryptophone hack

  Defence lawyers are seeking leave to appeal against a tribunal ruling that found the National Crime Agency had lawfully obtained warrants to access messages from 9,000 cryptophones used in the UK

• November 13, 2023 13 Nov'23

  Encrypted mail service Tuta says it was wrongly accused of being a front for intelligence services

  German encrypted email service Tuta, formerly known as Tutanota, has denied claims by a former Canadian police intelligence officer accused of passing secrets to criminals that it was compromised by intelligence services

• November 08, 2023 08 Nov'23

  AI Summit not the place for human rights, says French finance minister

  Despite commitments at the UK’s AI Safety Summit to respect and protect human rights, the French finance minister said it was not the right forum to discuss signatories' human rights records

• November 06, 2023 06 Nov'23

  Netherlands starts building its own AI language model

  Dutch government allocates €13.5m to develop an open artificial intelligence language model according to national values and guidelines.

• November 02, 2023 02 Nov'23

  EU digital ID reforms should be ‘actively resisted’, say experts

  Over 300 cyber security experts have called for the EU to rethink its proposals for eIDAS digital identity reforms, saying some of the provisions risk damaging user privacy and security

• November 01, 2023 01 Nov'23

  AI Summit: 28 governments and EU agree to safe AI development

  In a joint communique at the UK government’s AI Safety Summit, all participating governments agreed to deepen their cooperation around the risks associated with artificial intelligence

• October 27, 2023 27 Oct'23

  Germany: European Court opinion kicks questions over EncroChat back to national courts

  Germany lawfully obtained data on German EncroChat users from France, but whether the evidence is legally admissible is a matter for national courts

• October 20, 2023 20 Oct'23

  Collaboration paramount in KPN’s successful business transformation

  KPN tells Oracle CloudWorld 2023 how it transformed when its legacy systems became obstacles to supporting its customers on their digital journeys

• October 20, 2023 20 Oct'23

  Belgian researchers raise speed limit in European datacentres

  Researchers have developed a prototype of an optical receiver that will help datacentres process data at a much higher rate

• October 18, 2023 18 Oct'23

  What are the cyber risks from the latest Middle Eastern conflict?

  The outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel in October 2023 has seen a wide variety of accompanying cyber attacks from hacktivists and other groups. We look at the risks to organisations

• October 17, 2023 17 Oct'23

  Hacktivist attacks against Israeli websites mirror attacks following Russian invasion of Ukraine

  Hacktivists supporting Gaza and Palestine have launched hundreds of website defacement attacks against Israeli websites, mirroring the pattern of attacks that occurred after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

• October 13, 2023 13 Oct'23

  UAE makes significant contribution to AI computing power

  UAE technology holding company G42 recently began a partnership with US-based Cerebras Systems to build a cluster of supercomputers and a set of accompanying technologies that will speed up the training process for large language models

• October 04, 2023 04 Oct'23

  UK emphasises EU split by kicking digital trade scheme into long grass

  Former Gaia-X CEO talks exclusively to Computer Weekly about UK inertia on cross-border data tech

• October 03, 2023 03 Oct'23

  Top science journal faced secret attacks from Covid conspiracy theory group

  A conspiratorial group of extreme Brexit lobbyists mounted an extraordinary campaign against one of the world’s most prestigious science journals – part of a series of joint investigations between Byline Times and Computer Weekly

• September 28, 2023 28 Sep'23

  Strasbourg court condemns Turkey for jailing teacher for using ByLock encrypted messaging app

  The case is expected to have implications for the use of digital evidence in prosecutions against users of other encrypted phone apps

• September 15, 2023 15 Sep'23

  TikTok fined €345m under GDPR for failing to protect children’s privacy

  Data protection regulators warn social media companies to take all necessary measures to protect children’s privacy

• September 13, 2023 13 Sep'23

  GCHQ breached privacy rights of IT professional and security researcher, human rights court rules

  The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg finds UK intelligence services breached the privacy rights of two overseas nationals – an IT professional and a security researcher

• September 13, 2023 13 Sep'23

  Banks less focused on metaverse technology than last year

  Senior banking executives have reduced their focus on investigating metaverse technology in the past 12 months

• September 12, 2023 12 Sep'23

  European enterprises to spend more on generative IT to close gap on US

  European organisations are upping their spending on generative AI innovation, but face challenges recruiting the right people to support this

• September 12, 2023 12 Sep'23

  European fintech investment plummets, but more sustainable future lies ahead

  Investment in European fintechs has seen a dramatic drop, but a more sustainable sector will result from investment discipline

• September 07, 2023 07 Sep'23

  Finnish government to bolster spending on cyber-AI defences

  Finland’s government will increase spending on cyber security amid heightened threats from artificial intelligence-based attacks

• September 06, 2023 06 Sep'23

  Saudi Arabian fintech gets Mastercard boost

  Saudi-based fintechs could soon benefit from Mastercard's extensive payments network

• September 05, 2023 05 Sep'23

  Ryder Cup testbed to feature tech firsts in Rome

  This year’s Ryder Cup will test out technology to improve how fans digitally consume the event while reducing the workload on IT teams

• August 31, 2023 31 Aug'23

  Sandworm attacks Ukraine with Infamous Chisel malware

  The UK and its allies have attributed a novel malware campaign against Ukrainian state targets to the Russian intelligence-backed Sandworm APT

• August 18, 2023 18 Aug'23

  Europe’s fastest supercomputer trains large language models in Finland

  Much of the innovation in natural language processing comes from large enterprises in the US, resulting in proprietary technology with a bias towards English. One consortium in Finland decided to change the game

• August 16, 2023 16 Aug'23

  Accenture’s Brussels AI lab to focus on European public sector and health

  Accenture will use its Brussels AI lab to test AI and generative AI's application in the European public sector

• August 02, 2023 02 Aug'23

  Cubbit offers cut-price cloud with DS3 distributed storage

  Cubbit’s DS3 offers cloud at up to 20% the cost of the main providers via on-premise software that builds a cloud with other users and targets unstructured data use cases such as backup

• July 18, 2023 18 Jul'23

  NATO membership to drive Nordic cyber security sector growth

  The Nordic cyber security sector will see increasing demand as Finland and Sweden joint NATO

• July 18, 2023 18 Jul'23

  Traditional IT outsourcing rockets as Europe’s businesses cut costs

  Overall spending on IT services is up in European countries despite continued reduction in investments in cloud-based contracts

• July 13, 2023 13 Jul'23

  CaixaBank adds hundreds more IT professionals to support digital transformation

  CaixaBank is recruiting 200 more IT professionals in Spain to support its ongoing digital transformation

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Forensic Institute provides Hansken viewing method for Dutch lawyers

  Dutch lawyers can now view crypto communication in criminal cases from their own workplace via digital search engine Hansken. Previously, this had to be done at an external location

• July 11, 2023 11 Jul'23

  EU formally grants data adequacy to US

  The European Commission has formally granted the US data adequacy, allowing companies and organisations to freely transfer personal data across the Atlantic via the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. But privacy activist Max Schrems has already committed...

• July 11, 2023 11 Jul'23

  Finland’s VTT partners Nokia on data market

  Finish state’s involvement in Nokia project will add weight and capital to work on creating a market for data

• July 05, 2023 05 Jul'23

  Germany: European Court of Justice hears arguments on lawfulness of EncroChat cryptophone evidence

  The European Court of Justice will decide whether the collection and sharing of data intercepted by law enforcement from EncroChat crypto phone network is compatible with European law

• July 04, 2023 04 Jul'23

  EU judgment sinks Meta’s argument for targeted ads

  The EU Court of Justice has issued a significant judgment against Meta, ruling that national anti-trust bodies can investigate GDPR breaches, disrupting the platform’s entire basis for carrying out targeted advertising

• July 03, 2023 03 Jul'23

  BBVA launches tech job portal as it continues to add talent

  Spanish bank BBVA ramps up its tech recruitment strategy with new online portal and target of 2,600 more people