News

IT for government and public sector

• July 25, 2023 25 Jul'23

  Small satellite testing gets funding boost

  A new facility has been established as part of the government’s £200m funding for Earth Observation

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  CIO interview: Sean Green, University of East Anglia

  In his role as director of digital and data at the University of East Anglia, Sean Green provides high-performance computing to researchers and manages the diverse needs of a campus with the characteristics of a small town, all while finding the ...

• July 24, 2023 24 Jul'23

  Tribunal investigates complaint that journalists’ phones were unlawfully monitored

  The Investigatory Powers Tribunal has agreed to investigate complaints by Northern Ireland investigative journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey that they were unlawfully placed under surveillance

• July 21, 2023 21 Jul'23

  Government boosts protection for encryption in Online Safety Bill but civil society groups concerned

  House of Lords adopts amendment to require Ofcom to commission a report before requiring technology companies to scan encrypted messages, but drops proposals for judicial oversight

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  Electronic Trade Documents Act receives royal assent

  Digital trade documents are to be accorded the same status in law as paper ones under a law implemented to help reduce paper waste and speed up the UK’s foreign trade

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  Online Safety Bill screening measures amount to ‘prior restraint’

  The Open Rights Group is calling on Parliament to reform the Online Safety Bill, on the basis that its content-screening measures would amount to “prior restraint” on freedom of expression

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  Interview: Richard Corbridge, CDIO, DWP

  Only 13 weeks into his new role, the Department for Work and Pensions’ CDIO speaks to Computer Weekly about plans for artificial intelligence, data modernisation and how to complete a business plan in record time

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  How the DSMA balances security and privacy with press freedom

  In a world of information sharing and 24-hour news cycles, the Defence and Security Media Advisory committee have to balance national security and data privacy with freedom of the press

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  BBC outsources IT to India’s Tata Consultancy Services

  TCS continues to build its UK public sector business, with the BBC its latest customer

• July 20, 2023 20 Jul'23

  AI and data experts to be brought into government through secondment programme

  The government has announced plans for a secondment programme designed to bring digital experts into government departments

• July 19, 2023 19 Jul'23

  ‘Significant gaps’ in UK AI regulation, says Ada Lovelace Institute

  UK government’s plans to diffuse regulatory responsibility for AI among existing regulators will mean the tech is “only partially regulated”, while its data reforms will undercut already-limited existing protections, says Ada Lovelace Institute

• 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 17, 2023 17 Jul'23

  Subpostmaster compensation deadline will be missed, warns public inquiry chair

  Subpostmasters that successfully sued the Post Office and exposed the Horizon scandal are at the ‘back of the queue’ and won’t receive compensation by current deadline

• July 17, 2023 17 Jul'23

  Police Scotland use cloud for biometric data despite clear risks

  Police Scotland confirms it has stored significant volumes of biometric data on a cloud-based digital evidence sharing system despite major ongoing data protection concerns, bringing into question the effectiveness of the current regulatory approach...

• July 14, 2023 14 Jul'23

  UCLH uses machine learning to cope with emergency beds demand

  University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has deployed a machine learning tool which uses real-time data to predict how many emergency beds will be needed

• July 13, 2023 13 Jul'23

  Civil society groups call on EU to put human rights at centre of AI Act

  Dozens of civil society groups are calling on EU institutions to prioritise people and human rights in AI legislation as secretive negotiations begin

• July 13, 2023 13 Jul'23

  MPs launch inquiry into government use of data

  The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee is to investigate the possibility of reforming the way government collects and analyses data, and whether the UK census could be scrapped

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Digital public services ‘riddled’ with problems, says TUC

  The UK’s increasingly digitised public services are plagued by design, governance and workplace issues that are undermining the government’s stated goal of improving efficiency, but can be alleviated by giving public sector workers a greater say in ...

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Ofcom’s online safety preparedness efforts hobbled by government

  Despite Ofcom’s progress so far, UK government changes to the scope and timetable of the Online Safety Bill are hobbling the ability of the regulator to successfully prepare for the new regime

• July 12, 2023 12 Jul'23

  Cozy Bear lures victims with used BMW 5 Series

  A recent Cozy Bear campaign saw the Russian APT group pivot to exploiting an advert for a used car as it targeted diplomatic missions in Kyiv

• 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

  Horizon inquiry adjourned as Post Office disclosure failures threaten to ‘derail’ proceedings

  Statutory public inquiry into Post Office Horizon scandal adjourned because of Post Office disclosure failures, ‘retraumatising’ victims of a scandal that destroyed the lives of thousands of people

• July 11, 2023 11 Jul'23

  Peer calls for every Post Office prosecution to be reviewed

  Post Office prosecutions should be reviewed in light of damning evidence laid bare by statutory public inquiry into Horizon scandal, says peer James Arbuthnot

• July 10, 2023 10 Jul'23

  Met Office bids to make climate data more accessible with Esri

  The Met Office is offering a new data portal, built on Esri’s geographic information systems technology, to enable users to understand local and national impacts of climate change

• July 07, 2023 07 Jul'23

  House of Lords launches an investigation into generative AI

  The government wants the UK to lead AI regulation, but technology is developing at a breakneck pace

• July 06, 2023 06 Jul'23

  Biometrics watchdog calls for public space surveillance review

  The biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner is calling for a review of public space surveillance to gain a clearer picture about the proliferation of Chinese surveillance technology across the public sector, but warns against applying double...

• July 06, 2023 06 Jul'23

  Privacy campaigners call for UK data adequacy to be revoked

  The European Commission should revoke the UK’s data adequacy if its Data Protection and Digital Information Bill passes, which campaigners argue ‘flies in the face’ of the decision

• July 06, 2023 06 Jul'23

  Former Fujitsu IT chief evidence postponed after late Post Office disclosure

  Post Office has disrupted Horizon inquiry schedule through late disclosure of ‘significant’ evidence as key IT witness evidence is postponed

• July 06, 2023 06 Jul'23

  Public inquiry hears how Post Office security withheld evidence from people it suspected of theft

  The Post Office told investigators to include potential evidence in reports to their own lawyers, but not the subpostmasters they suspected of theft

• 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

  ‘Political lethargy’ to blame for digital exclusion, says Lords

  A House of Lords report about digital exclusion across the UK has blamed slow and undedicated government intervention for the extent of digital exclusion

• July 04, 2023 04 Jul'23

  Scotland’s Techscaler programme joins forces with CivTech

  The partnership between the scaler programme and the innovation accelerator means CivTech alumni companies will be offered Techscaler membership and gain access to its technology hubs, education initiatives and support

• July 04, 2023 04 Jul'23

  Coping with the ongoing chip crisis in the UK

  China has imposed export restrictions on key semiconductor compounds, so how will the UK's National Semiconductor Strategy cope?

• July 03, 2023 03 Jul'23

  PAC slams HMCTS justice system transformation programme

  HMCTS has consistently underestimated the scale and complexity of the reforms, and criticises the programme, which only has £120m of its £1.3bn budget left with only just over half of projects completed, MPs say

• June 30, 2023 30 Jun'23

  AI can never be given control over combat decisions, Lords told

  Artificial intelligence is technically incapable of distinguishing between the complex contextual factors of combat situations, and will likely never be able to, according to legal and software experts

• June 30, 2023 30 Jun'23

  NHS data stolen in Manchester Uni ransomware attack

  The ransomware gang behind the cyber attack on the University of Manchester appears to have got its hands on an NHS dataset being used by the university for research purposes

• June 29, 2023 29 Jun'23

  NHS has potential to get digital transformation right

  NHS must address digital skills gap in its workforce, demonstrate the value of the NHS App and address the digital maturity gap in organisations if it wants to succeed, MPs say

• June 29, 2023 29 Jun'23

  NHS England signs five-year Microsoft 365 contract

  Hot on the heels of its earlier deployment of Microsoft Teams, NHS England is now going all-in on the rest of the software giant’s online productivity tools

• June 29, 2023 29 Jun'23

  NHS to launch Digital Health Check

  The NHS Digital Health Check will be rolled out from spring 2024, and allow patients to do certain tests and get advice from their homes

• June 29, 2023 29 Jun'23

  The Finnish Food Authority uses AI to accelerate research

  Researchers have reduced the time taken to get critical insights into potential public health crises and address issues in real-time, through artificial intelligence

• June 28, 2023 28 Jun'23

  Charity demands transparency in digital universal credit system

  The digital universal credit system needs overhauling to ensure greater transparency over benefit claims and more effective means of redress when things go wrong, says child poverty charity

• June 28, 2023 28 Jun'23

  Scottish government tech accelerator opens latest funding round

  The Scottish government’s CivTech accelerator is seeking technology businesses to help develop new tools to improve public services, as well as to address pressing social and environmental issues

• June 28, 2023 28 Jun'23

  GDPR tax reclaim scheme preys on fears of SMEs

  IT suppliers are a target of companies offering a tax reclaim scheme that preys on small businesses’ fears around General Data Protection Regulation compliance

• June 27, 2023 27 Jun'23

  Three years on, EncroChat cryptophone hack nets 6,500 arrests and seizures of €900m

  French and Dutch prosecutors say three years after they infiltrated the EncroChat cryptophone network in a novel hacking operation, Europe’s courts are opening the way for more collaboration and data sharing between law enforcement agencies

• June 27, 2023 27 Jun'23

  UK AI plans offer ‘inadequate’ human rights protection, says EHRC

  The UK’s equality watchdog says the government must properly consider human rights when implementing rules to regulate artificial intelligence, as current plan offers little protection

• June 27, 2023 27 Jun'23

  One Login’s Gov.uk ID check apps downloaded over two million times

  The One Login digital identity system is being used by eight government services, and GDS has issued more than 1.5 million verified identities since summer 2022, while its ID check apps are proving popular

• June 23, 2023 23 Jun'23

  ICO under fire for taking limited action over serious data breaches

  The ICO has come under fire from lawyers and data protection specialists for just issuing written warnings to two public bodies over serious data breaches that placed people’s lives at risk

• June 22, 2023 22 Jun'23

  Manchester University students threatened by ransomware gang

  Students and staff members at the University of Manchester are being pressurised by an unnamed ransomware gang

• June 22, 2023 22 Jun'23

  UK pension scheme expands relationship with IT services giant TCS

  Tata Consultancy Services retains contract with UK pension scheme for another decade after extending a contract that was first signed in 2011

• June 20, 2023 20 Jun'23

  Post Office will not oppose potential Horizon conviction appellants

  Post Office CEO told MPs that the organisation is telling some subpostmasters it won't oppose them if they appeal