News

IT for government and public sector

• October 30, 2023 30 Oct'23

  Frontier AI Taskforce starts recruitment drive

  The second progress report from the Frontier AI Taskforce reveals new hires plus vacancy posts for software and research engineers

• October 27, 2023 27 Oct'23

  Tech firms cite risk to end-to-end encryption as Online Safety Bill gets royal assent

  Tech firms continue to be concerned that the Online Safety Bill could undermine end-to-end encryption despite government reassurances

• October 27, 2023 27 Oct'23

  Domestic abuse charities surface fresh worries over NHS data sharing

  With new NHS data access options coming into effect at the end of October, a group of campaigners including womens' charities and the BMA have warned that the revived GP-patient data sharing scheme risks putting vulnerable people at risk

• October 27, 2023 27 Oct'23

  ‘Egregious’ to link passport data with facial recognition systems

  The Scottish biometrics watchdog has spoken out against the UK policing minister’s plans to integrate passport data with police facial recognition systems

• October 27, 2023 27 Oct'23

  UK regulators confident they are ready for AI safety governance

  MPs at a recent artificial intelligence governance meeting were keen to hear how Ofcom, the FCA and the ICO are preparing for UK AI legislation

• 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 26, 2023 26 Oct'23

  Sunak sets scene for upcoming AI Safety Summit

  Prime minister Rishi Sunak has outlined how the UK will approach making AI safe, but experts say there is still too big a focus on catastrophic but speculative risks over real harms the technology is already causing

• October 25, 2023 25 Oct'23

  Government-led Smart Data Discovery Challenge launched to stoke innovation

  A government-led coalition has launched an open-call competition for ideas using smart data to help support individuals and small businesses, emulating open banking

• October 25, 2023 25 Oct'23

  UK IT professionals express concerns about government’s generative AI goals

  Research reveals 93% of UK IT professionals are concerned by the government’s current plan to become a global leader in artificial intelligence because of lack of training and risk assessment

• October 24, 2023 24 Oct'23

  Michelle Donelan reaffirms UK's commitment to AI safety

  In a keynote speech, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology discussed the UK's pro-innovation approach to AI safety

• October 24, 2023 24 Oct'23

  Government puts £75m into innovation hubs

  Eight innovation ‘launchpads’ will each get a share of the funding for projects covering sectors such as agri-tech, digital healthcare, renewable energy and technologies for the creative industry

• October 23, 2023 23 Oct'23

  Taxpayers to fund a further £150m for Post Office IT scandal

  Total bill for the scandal goes well over £1bn, as subpostmaster campaign leader considers private prosecutions of Post Office executives

• October 20, 2023 20 Oct'23

  Five Eyes chiefs warn of Chinese spying campaign to steal high-tech secrets

  Intelligence chiefs warn high-tech companies and universities they may be the target of attempts by the Chinese Communist Party to steal technology secrets

• October 20, 2023 20 Oct'23

  Public Accounts Committee highlights smart meter failures

  In spite of failing to meet roll-out targets, millions of smart meters are not working, and some will break once 3G and 2G networks are switched off

• October 19, 2023 19 Oct'23

  Sellafield local authority unsure if data was stolen six years on from North Korea ransomware attack

  Senior managers at an ‘Achilles heel’ local authority for Europe’s biggest nuclear site ‘still don’t know what was lost’ in a 2017 cyber attack, according to a council source

• October 19, 2023 19 Oct'23

  Government concedes it will miss 2024 e-prescribing target

  The government won’t meet its target to get rid of paper prescribing in hospitals by 2024, and has pushed the goal post back two years to 2026

• October 19, 2023 19 Oct'23

  Post Office auditors presumed subpostmasters were ‘on the fiddle’ or ‘in a muddle’

  Public inquiry into Post Office scandal hears how head office staff routinely made negative assumptions about subpostmasters in small branches

• October 18, 2023 18 Oct'23

  Former Post Office executive admits he wouldn’t sign unfair contract he pushed on subpostmasters

  Former contract manager said contract that subpostmasters had to sign with Post Office “put them on the hook” for everything

• 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 17, 2023 17 Oct'23

  Government to pump £30m into NHS medtech

  The government hopes the funding, which is available to integrated care systems across the country, will ease winter pressures through the help of technology

• October 13, 2023 13 Oct'23

  UK startups pilot semiconductor funding

  ChipStart is a new initiative from the UK government to help build out the National Semiconductor Strategy by supporting startups

• October 13, 2023 13 Oct'23

  ‘Angry’ lawyer warned against Post Office computer investigation in 2010 email

  Angered by his exclusion from an important discussion, former Royal Mail lawyer told colleagues of the risks to the Post Office if, as planned, they publicly investigate allegations against its computer system

• October 12, 2023 12 Oct'23

  Scottish biometrics watchdog outlines police cloud concerns

  Police Scotland’s response to the biometrics commissioner’s formal information notice ‘did not ameliorate’ his concerns about the sovereignty and security of the sensitive biometric information being uploaded to cloud infrastructure that is subject ...

• October 11, 2023 11 Oct'23

  Public sector buyers of AI tech must interrogate its suitability

  The Ada Lovelace Institute has published a review on public sector use of artificial intelligence foundation models, looking at the risks and opportunities associated with the technology, and how these can be dealt with from the early stages of ...

• October 11, 2023 11 Oct'23

  Why only 1% of the Snowden Archive will ever be published

  Speaking to Computer Weekly after we published new revelations from the Snowden archive, the Guardian’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Ewen MacAskill, explains why more of the Snowden trove is unlikely to see the light of day

• October 05, 2023 05 Oct'23

  Microsoft: Nation-state cyber espionage on rise in 2023

  Microsoft’s latest Digital Defence Report outlines how nation-state cyber activity has largely moved from destructive attacks to espionage and intelligence gathering

• October 05, 2023 05 Oct'23

  Red Cross issues rules of engagement for hackers in conflicts

  The digital rules of engagement are the first time cyber activity has been looked at by the conflict watchdog, but a number of hacker groups have already come out and said they will not be following them

• October 05, 2023 05 Oct'23

  Government launches £60m Regional Innovation Fund

  The £60m fund aims to support universities in areas with lower R&D investment, while the government is also pumping £8m towards AI scholarships

• October 05, 2023 05 Oct'23

  Policing minister wants to use UK passport data in facial recognition

  The policing minister’s plans to integrate the UK’s passport database with police facial-recognition systems have been met with criticism from campaigners, academics, and the biometrics commissioner for England and Wales

• October 04, 2023 04 Oct'23

  IR35: HMRC completes first phase of CEST upgrades with Ocelot platform migration

  HMRC has confirmed that its online IR35 status checker tool has completed its migration to a new platform, as the government tax collection agency’s revamp of the service continues apace

• October 04, 2023 04 Oct'23

  ICO issues guidance on workplace surveillance

  Guidance on employee monitoring covers how employers can conduct their digital surveillance lawfully, transparently and fairly, and warns against businesses intruding on their workers’ private lives

• October 03, 2023 03 Oct'23

  Cyber experts urge EU to rethink vulnerability disclosure plans

  The European Union’s proposed cyber security vulnerability disclosure measures are well-intentioned but ultimately counterproductive, as making unmitigated vulnerabilities public knowledge increases the risk of their exploitation by various actors, ...

• October 03, 2023 03 Oct'23

  Amnesia hides names of individuals behind Post Office’s ‘head on a spike’ strategy

  Former Post Office lawyer deflects individual responsibility for a strategy that crushed subpostmasters, blaming the organisation as a whole

• October 03, 2023 03 Oct'23

  Public sector needs systemic reform of capacity to innovate

  Improving the public sector’s capacity to innovate requires a culture of innovation underpinned by people, skills and new ways of working with the private sector

• 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

• October 02, 2023 02 Oct'23

  Versity targets Exabyte volumes in data archiving

  Versity builds archiving for Exabyte data volumes on tape and in object storage. It has built its own S3 and transitioned to a GPL licence for supercomputing archives

• October 02, 2023 02 Oct'23

  How the Australian government is approaching AI

  The Australian government is experimenting with AI use cases in a safe environment while it figures out ways to harness the technology to benefit citizens and businesses

• September 29, 2023 29 Sep'23

  Government hands over £12.5m to farming tech innovators

  Some 19 projects focusing on automation and robotic technology will get funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to boost the agricultural sector

• September 29, 2023 29 Sep'23

  UK tech sector ‘let down’ and ‘betrayed’ over Rishi Sunak’s net-zero policy tweaks

  Now the dust has settled on the news Rishi Sunak is tweaking several of the policies underpinning the government’s net-zero goal, the UK tech industry has hit back at the news

• September 29, 2023 29 Sep'23

  First subpostmaster Horizon conviction overturned in Scotland

  Scotland has seen its first Post Office Horizon conviction overturned, taking the UK total to 92

• September 29, 2023 29 Sep'23

  Government to hire 2,500 people for digital roles by 2025

  Government is aiming to ramp up digital skills in Whitehall with a promise to recruit 2,500 new tech and digital roles through apprenticeships and talent programmes

• September 29, 2023 29 Sep'23

  Government ‘breached privacy’ of Horizon victims with compensation offer, says lawyer

  The government breached the privacy of victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal through making a compensation offer public

• September 29, 2023 29 Sep'23

  Government launches £65m space tech fund

  The funding from the UK Space Agency is part of the National Space Innovation Programme (NSIP), and aims to support and accelerate innovation in the sector

• September 29, 2023 29 Sep'23

  Scottish watchdog urges wider biometric oversight

  Scotland’s biometrics watchdog urges Scottish Parliament to extend oversight of biometric information to include the entire criminal justice system, not just police

• 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 27, 2023 27 Sep'23

  Five more subpostmasters have IT system-related convictions overturned

  Over 90 former subpostmasters have so far seen wrongful convictions overturned since it was proved that software errors were to blame for accounting shortfalls

• September 27, 2023 27 Sep'23

  Post Office had no interest in subpostmaster welfare when taking legal action, says Fujitsu memo

  Fujitsu memo reveals Post Office didn’t care how legal action would affect its subpostmasters as it placed the reputation of its computer system before their welfare

• September 27, 2023 27 Sep'23

  City of Las Vegas masters cyber incident response with Darktrace

  The high-rolling city of Las Vegas experiences unique cyber security challenges rarely seen elsewhere. CIO Mike Sherwood reveals how he turned to Darktrace to help address incidents quicker and with confidence

• September 26, 2023 26 Sep'23

  UK government quietly disbands data ethics advisory board

  The government has disbanded its Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation’s advisory board in favour of pulling the relevant artificial intelligence (AI) and data knowledge from a pool of external experts

• September 26, 2023 26 Sep'23

  HMRC names and shames non-compliant umbrella firms for running tax avoidance schemes

  The government tax collection agency is stepping up its efforts to prevent contractors falling victim to non-compliant umbrella firms with three new names added to its list of known tax avoidance schemes