News

IT for government and public sector

August 04, 2017 04 Aug'17
ICO highlights challenge Slack-like tools pose to public sector FOI request compliance

The Information Commissioner’s Office outlines how the growing use of cloud-based communication channels could complicate how public sector organisations respond to Freedom of Information requests
August 04, 2017 04 Aug'17
Manchester to host international freedom of information event

Manchester is to host an international conference exploring the future of transparency and access to information in the UK and worldwide
August 04, 2017 04 Aug'17
Nearly 7,000 civil service jobs at risk in government-as-a-platform strategy

Business case for Government Digital Service’s GaaP programme has predicted thousands of Whitehall job losses from new digital tools
August 04, 2017 04 Aug'17
MPs demand answers from HMRC over Childcare Service website problems

Treasury committee chair Nicky Morgan writes to HM Revenue & Customs CEO after users reported difficulties using the new digital service

August 03, 2017 03 Aug'17
Cyber criminals make it difficult to follow the money

Following the money is a classic technique used by law enforcement to link criminals to crimes by tracing associated financial exchanges, but that may not be easy in the case of the WannaCry attacks
August 03, 2017 03 Aug'17
Sub-postmasters allege 'bullying and intimidation' by Post Office over Horizon IT system

Campaigners have submitted initial evidence in group litigation against Post Office over controversial Horizon IT system
August 02, 2017 02 Aug'17
US plans IoT security legislation, but UK unlikely to follow

US Republican and Democrat senators have proposed legislation seeking to address security vulnerabilities in IoT devices
August 01, 2017 01 Aug'17
UK to call on US tech giants to step up fight against extremism

The UK is to call on US tech giants to take more decisive action against extremist groups that use their online platforms
August 01, 2017 01 Aug'17
Why Facebook’s AI termination raises safety concerns

Revelations that researchers at Facebook had to switch off two bots that went rogue have raised questions about the safety of artificial intelligence
July 31, 2017 31 Jul'17
Parliament’s digital chief quits to become Arup CIO

Rob Greig is leaving in September for a new role in the private sector

July 28, 2017 28 Jul'17
DVLA trials Amazon’s Alexa for MOT and vehicle tax updates

Intelligent voice service will enable motorists to check whether their vehicle tax and MOT are up to date
July 26, 2017 26 Jul'17
Nordic digitisation brings unwanted consequence of heightened cyber security risks

The Nordic region is becoming highly connected – which has not gone unnoticed by cyber criminals
July 26, 2017 26 Jul'17
GDS wants IT suppliers to use its GaaP products – but won’t offer service guarantees

The Government Digital Service encourages tech firms to adopt the platform services it has developed – but can’t offer any service or support guarantees
July 26, 2017 26 Jul'17
UK police forces taking action to quash data misuse

With nearly 800 reported incidents of potential data misuse by police in less than 16 months, at least 34 police forces are taking steps to improve monitoring systems to address this problem
July 25, 2017 25 Jul'17
Ransomware threat escalating, warns Europol

Europol warns that the threat of ransomware continues to escalate as it marks the anniversary of a cross-industry anti-ransomware initiative
July 25, 2017 25 Jul'17
Big data means big risk, Swedish Transport Agency leak shows

The Swedish Transport Agency exposed sensitive information by transferring its databases to a third party cloud provider without following data protection procedures
July 25, 2017 25 Jul'17
CIF gears up to target public sector cloud

Cloud Industry Forum wants to help the UK government achieve its digital strategy, but working with government is still a big challenge for many providers
July 25, 2017 25 Jul'17
London security centre handed £14.5m to get off the ground

The government is to fund a new cyber security innovation centre in the capital and has launched a competition to develop and design it
July 24, 2017 24 Jul'17
IR35 reforms: IT contractor fleshes out details of potential HMRC legal challenge

Following the early-stage success of efforts to crowd-fund a legal challenge against the IR35 reforms, one of the IT contractors behind the campaign outlines details of what could happen next
July 24, 2017 24 Jul'17
European Commission calls for free flow of data after Brexit

EC digital leader says EU must avoid “data nationalisation” after the UK leaves – but also warns EU states
July 24, 2017 24 Jul'17
UK government wants to give 6,000 teenagers cyber security training

Government launches £20m Cyber Schools Programme aimed at students aged between 14 and 18
July 21, 2017 21 Jul'17
Destruction of service attacks an existential threat to business, says Cisco

Security threats and attacks against the network are set to become far more destructive, according to Cisco’s mid-year security report
July 20, 2017 20 Jul'17
Government confirms tech experts advising on digital economy

Experts from across UK technology sector will help government implement digital economy policies
July 19, 2017 19 Jul'17
Newcastle council data leak shows need for security automation

Leak of child adoption information by Newcastle City Council resulted from accidental email attachment by employee
July 19, 2017 19 Jul'17
Government IT projects improving - but several still in doubt

Watchdog says no Whitehall IT programmes received its highest 'red' rating this year - but others still need attention
July 19, 2017 19 Jul'17
Bristol Council opens its fibre network to commercial operators

Small business owners in Bristol will now be able to take advantage of ultrafast broadband connectivity using the local council’s fibre backhaul network
July 19, 2017 19 Jul'17
US bipartisan alliance to defend elections from cyber attack

Former Democrat and Republican campaign managers are joining forces with security experts to defend US elections from cyber attack
July 18, 2017 18 Jul'17
TfL starts ESN pilot build on the London Underground

At a GLA Oversight Committee hearing, TfL’s CTO revealed the organisation is building a pilot version of the Emergency Services Network on the London Underground
July 18, 2017 18 Jul'17
UK industrial control systems targeted, warns leaked NCSC document

Industrial control systems across several UK sectors have been targeted in recent activity by known state-sponsored attackers, according to a leaked report by the UK National Cyber Security Authority
July 18, 2017 18 Jul'17
Traditional outsourcing boosts overall spending in first half of 2017

Spending on traditional IT services contracts by Emea organisations increases in the first six months of 2017
July 17, 2017 17 Jul'17
Lords’ inquiry finds data flows key to post-Brexit trade and security

The free flow of data after Brexit is essential for UK trade and security, a Lords’ inquiry has found, urging the government to ensure transitional measures are in place
July 17, 2017 17 Jul'17
Post Office defence in computer system legal case due this week

The Post Office will this week present its defence against allegations brought by subpostmasters in a group legal action
July 17, 2017 17 Jul'17
Global cyber attack could cost up to $120bn, warns Lloyd’s

A global cyber attack could have a similar economic impact as a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina, according to the world’s oldest insurance market
July 17, 2017 17 Jul'17
Norway’s Railway Directorate moves fully to the cloud

Norway’s railway regulator is following the government’s advice and moving IT into the cloud
July 14, 2017 14 Jul'17
Defence minister opens £3m cyber security centre in Gloucester

UK minister for defence procurement has opened Lockheed Martin’s job-creating cyber security centre aimed at boosting UK cyber defence capability and skills
July 13, 2017 13 Jul'17
HMRC delays digital tax for businesses until 'at least' 2020

HMRC has pushed back the go-live date of its Making Tax Digital project following concerns the timetable was too risky
July 13, 2017 13 Jul'17
Encryption keys too predictable, warn security researchers

Encryption keys are not as random as most people think, which means encrypting data is often not as secure as it could be, according to security researchers
July 13, 2017 13 Jul'17
HMRC’s customs IT system may not be ready before Brexit

National Audit Office is concerned that customs declaration service will not be ready in time for the UK’s departure from the EU because significant challenges remain
July 12, 2017 12 Jul'17
MoJ electronic monitoring programme fails to achieve value for money, says NAO

National Audit Office slams severely delayed MoJ electronic tag project for series of failures, including being too ambitious, not delivering benefits and procurement shambles
July 12, 2017 12 Jul'17
UK ranked as top 10 digital economy

The UK has been ranked among the top 10 nations in terms of digital capabilities
July 12, 2017 12 Jul'17
Home Office confirmed as early adopter of Oracle’s UK cloud region

The Home Office is to be one of the first public sector organisations to access cloud services from Oracle’s UK cloud region
July 11, 2017 11 Jul'17
Airbus helps drive critical infrastructure cyber security

Airbus is helping to drive the cyber security market for industrial control systems used throughout industry, including many providers of critical national infrastructure
July 11, 2017 11 Jul'17
Government should invest in tech to support ‘gig economy’ workers, says Taylor review

Matthew Taylor’s review on the ‘gig economy’ calls on government to invest in digital technology to support self-employed people
July 11, 2017 11 Jul'17
Met Police signs £8m digital forensics deal

MASS wins seven-year contract to supply a digital forensics managed service to London’s Metropolitan Police Service
July 11, 2017 11 Jul'17
Political uncertainty is holding back digital transformation plans, say CIOs

UK businesses are investing in IT to help them deal with changes that could be around the corner amid geo-political uncertainty
July 10, 2017 10 Jul'17
Vodafone Qatar pushes IoT adoption in Middle East

Vodafone Qatar is harnessing a network of partners to support organisations in the Middle East with their internet of things strategies
July 07, 2017 07 Jul'17
Second phase of Dubai Health Authority’s electronic records implementation to start in August 2017

Unified electronic medical record (EMR) system to be rolled to more medical facilities across Dubai
July 07, 2017 07 Jul'17
Citizens Advice calls for roll-out of Universal Credit to be paused

A report by the advisory charity highlights issued around making and managing claims online, lack of digital skills and problems with identity verification through Gov.uk Verify
July 06, 2017 06 Jul'17
UK government digital services below average, international ranking shows

UK government is placed fourth overall in the International Civil Service Effectiveness Index, but only 23rd out of 31 countries for digital services
July 06, 2017 06 Jul'17
Young people without workplace skills fear competition from robots

Young people are worried they will not have the skills necessary to set themselves apart from robots when leaving education
July 06, 2017 06 Jul'17
UK must tackle impact of rapid technological change, says Corbyn

Setting out plans for Labour’s National Education Service, Jeremy Corbyn says the country needs to invest in skills and training to ensure benefits of technological change and not leave people behind
July 06, 2017 06 Jul'17
Andy Burnham plans to make Manchester world-leading digital hub

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham announces plans to make the region one of the “best digital hubs in the world”, and a £2m digital skills fund
July 06, 2017 06 Jul'17
TfL figures reveal massive contactless adoption

Transport for London figures for the use of contactless payments on its network add weight to its plans to sell its expertise to other cities
July 05, 2017 05 Jul'17
CityFibre moves into consumer broadband services

Following the success of a joint FTTP broadband trial in York, CityFibre is to market its metro fibre network to consumer ISPs for the first time
July 05, 2017 05 Jul'17
Atos targets universities and research centres with quantum computing simulator

Atos has made a quantum computing simulator available for sale so that organisations can test out the algorithms of the future
July 05, 2017 05 Jul'17
London tech sector attracts record investment

Despite uncertainties surrounding Brexit, the London tech sector has seen record levels of investment so far this year
July 05, 2017 05 Jul'17
ICO launches international strategy to meet Brexit and GDPR challenges

The ICO has set out a four-year international strategy on how to tackle international data protection challenges, aiming to enhance the safeguarding of UK citizens’ data
July 05, 2017 05 Jul'17
Sweden trials blockchain for land registry management

Swedish land registry is trying out blockchain as a means of proving ownership
July 04, 2017 04 Jul'17
WannaCry a signal moment, says NCA

The National Crime Agency believes the recent WannaCry attacks represent a “signal moment” in terms of awareness of cyber attacks and their real-world impact
July 04, 2017 04 Jul'17
Major cyber incidents accelerating, says NCSC

The UK is seeing an acceleration in major cyber security incidents, according to the country’s cyber security protection agency
July 03, 2017 03 Jul'17
Cyber security comes down to culture, say Dutch security experts

IT security can no longer be seen as just a technical matter. People, education and management matter too, but culture is the overarching and binding element, says security executive at Dutch bank
July 03, 2017 03 Jul'17
Digital Economy Council aims to boost UK tech sector

Government launches Digital Economy Council with the aim of bringing together industry leaders and academia to collaborate on implementing the UK’s digital strategy
June 30, 2017 30 Jun'17
Liberty gets go-ahead to challenge Snoopers’ Charter

Civil rights organisation Liberty has been given the go-ahead to challenge in the High Court controversial surveillance legislation it believes breaches UK citizens’ rights
June 30, 2017 30 Jun'17
UK needs urgent response to online fraud, says NAO

Online fraud is the most commonly experienced crime in England and Wales and demands urgent response, a report by Parliament’s independent public spending watchdog has concluded
June 30, 2017 30 Jun'17
GovTech sector will be worth £20bn by 2025, says report

Investment firm Public launches GovStart programme, aiming to help tech startups transform public services
June 30, 2017 30 Jun'17
NCSC rolls out four measures to boost public sector cyber security

Active Cyber Defence measures will immediately help to improve basic cyber security across UK business and government departments, says NCSC
June 29, 2017 29 Jun'17
Print management a UK public sector GDPR blind spot

Print and document management is a potential blind spot for the public sector when it comes to compliance with the GDPR, a survey has revealed
June 29, 2017 29 Jun'17
How Donald Trump has nudged French CIOs still further from US cloud storage

French CIOs are looking at alternatives to storing data with US-based suppliers
June 29, 2017 29 Jun'17
Royal Society and British Academy call for data governance body

The Royal Society and the British Academy have jointly released a report urging the UK government to set up a public body to oversee data use
June 29, 2017 29 Jun'17
Policing should embrace IoT opportunities

The internet of things brings more opportunities than challenges for the UK’s police forces, according to a TechUK report that urges the police to embrace digital technologies
June 29, 2017 29 Jun'17
Cyber security in industrial control systems poor, says Crest

A lack of standards-based technical security testing is putting industrial control environments and critical national infrastructure at risk of cyber attack, a report reveals
June 29, 2017 29 Jun'17
London economy threatened by poor connectivity, says London Assembly report

The London Assembly Regeneration Committee describes the capital’s digital connectivity as “embarrassing” and calls on the new chief digital officer to solve the problem
June 28, 2017 28 Jun'17
Cyber preparedness low among UK councils, survey shows

Confidence among UK local authorities about being prepared and well equipped to deal with a cyber attack is relatively low, a survey has revealed
June 28, 2017 28 Jun'17
Half of highly skilled EU workers in UK are considering leaving

Retaining IT staff might be as much of a challenge as retaining them after Brexit as EU workers get itchy feet
June 28, 2017 28 Jun'17
DVLA aims to slash IT costs by moving to public cloud and open standards

Agency’s IT strategy for 2019/20 will see a concerted move to deprecate legacy systems, deploy applications in the cloud and develop in-house IT
June 28, 2017 28 Jun'17
Finnish government scraps paper and digitises archives

The government in Finland is digitising 94 shelf kilometres of documents to save millions of euros and make the information easier to access
June 27, 2017 27 Jun'17
Met Police vulnerable to cyber attacks due to Windows XP use, GLA warned

The Greater London Authority fears the Metropolitan Police is vulnerable to cyber attacks after figures reveal more than 18,000 devices in the force still run on Windows XP
June 27, 2017 27 Jun'17
Caroline Nokes takes on digital government responsibility post-election

Cabinet Office parliamentary under secretary will take on ministerial responsibility for GDS while Damian Green will “retain oversight”
June 27, 2017 27 Jun'17
Co-op digital chief Mike Bracken quits to focus on digital government consultancy

The former GDS chief is leaving the Co-op to work on advising governments around the world on their digital strategy
June 27, 2017 27 Jun'17
Government needs to build digital skills, says Civil Service Group director-general

Building digital capabilities and common services are key to the future of the civil service, according to Tracey Waltho, director-general of the Civil Service Group
June 27, 2017 27 Jun'17
Hard to find positives for IT industry one year after Brexit vote

Business and tech experts give their verdict on prospects for the UK as Brexit negotiations finally get under way
June 27, 2017 27 Jun'17
IT contractor-led campaign to crowdfund legal challenge to IR35 reforms goes live

Public sector contractors urged to back campaign to explore legal challenge to revamped IR35 tax avoidance rules
June 26, 2017 26 Jun'17
Northern Ireland gets £150m for ultrafast broadband roll-out

Two-year broadband funding package is part of UK prime minister Theresa May’s deal with the DUP
June 26, 2017 26 Jun'17
Business as usual at Parliament after cyber attack

Both Houses of Parliament are to meet as scheduled after a “sustained and determined cyber attack” at the weekend
June 23, 2017 23 Jun'17
Russian hackers traded thousands of UK officials’ credentials

Login credentials of tens of thousands of UK officials were traded online after a 2012 data breach at LinkedIn, an investigation has revealed
June 22, 2017 22 Jun'17
Some government departments lost up to 40% of IT contractors after IR35 changes

Differing approaches to IR35 tax reforms meant some Whitehall teams were harder hit than others by the changes introduced in April 2017
June 22, 2017 22 Jun'17
Russian hackers targeted election systems in 21 US states

Russian hackers targeted voting systems in nearly 50% of states in the 2016 US presidential election, officials have revealed in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee
June 21, 2017 21 Jun'17
Queen’s Speech praised for certainty on data protection

The Queen’s Speech has been praised for removing any doubt about the UK’s commitment to data protection
June 21, 2017 21 Jun'17
Queen’s Speech highlights digital charter and data protection

Government confirms plans to create a digital charter to ensure the UK is “the safest place to be online”, and a new law protecting personal data
June 21, 2017 21 Jun'17
Digital government needs action plan and clear standards, says IfG

Institute for Government report calls on Whitehall to publish a digital government implementation plan and prioritise digital services vital to Brexit
June 21, 2017 21 Jun'17
Dubai extends test run for flying taxis

Dubai transport authority RTA extends trials of autonomous flying cars
June 21, 2017 21 Jun'17
The human apprentices behind robotic automation

IT apprentices are helping large businesses transform their back-office processes through software robots
June 20, 2017 20 Jun'17
Testing was key to Rio Olympics cyber security success

Two years of testing in the run up to the Rio 2016 Olympics were vital to ensuring cyber defences were effective, according to the chief information security officer for the games
June 20, 2017 20 Jun'17
Almost 10% of Londoners still unconnected, says report

On the second annual World Wi-Fi Day, a survey claims substantial numbers of people in the world’s largest cities are still languishing in the digital slow lane
June 20, 2017 20 Jun'17
Republican contractor exposes personal data of nearly 200 million US voters

A misconfigured database containing the sensitive personal details of more than 198 million US voters was left exposed to the internet by a firm working on behalf of the Republican National Committee
June 19, 2017 19 Jun'17
South African game reserve goes digital to save the rhino

Dimension Data and Cisco have teamed up to protect rhinos living on a private game reserve in South Africa with the latest networking and IoT sensor technology
June 19, 2017 19 Jun'17
MEPs propose ban on encryption backdoors

A European parliamentary committee has proposed a ban on backdoors that allow governments to access encrypted communications
June 16, 2017 16 Jun'17
Russia’s startups and corporations hook up at Startup Village

Annual IT event Startup Village in Russia saw blockchain take centre stage and support from the country’s government
June 16, 2017 16 Jun'17
Three fined £1.9m over emergency communications failure

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has hit mobile operator Three with a £1.9m fine after a loss of service left customers unable to contact the emergency services
June 15, 2017 15 Jun'17
International cyber crime crack-down leads to four UK arrests

Four people from across the UK have been arrested on suspicion of using systems testing malware to bypass antivirus software