News

IT for government and public sector

• May 10, 2024 10 May'24

  MHRA launches AI regulatory sandbox

  The Medicines Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) hopes the AI Airlock sandbox will help in improving safe development and use of medical devices

• May 10, 2024 10 May'24

  NAO report highlights tech failings in flagship DWP project

  Lack of tech skills, disconnected agile development and non-compliance with government standards are among the issues identified in report

• May 09, 2024 09 May'24

  Cyber attack victims need to speak up, says ICO

  The Information Commissioner’s Office is urging organisations to be transparent and learn from each other’s mistakes as it reveals most of the cyber attacks it responds to stem from the same core errors

• May 09, 2024 09 May'24

  Wales gets UK’s first national SOC

  The first national security operations centre of its kind in the UK has opened in the south of Wales to safeguard public sector bodies across the country

• May 09, 2024 09 May'24

  Barrister says Post Office lawyers misled him over Horizon cases

  Simon Clarke told public inquiry he believes he was misled by Post Office internal lawyers over Horizon prosecutions

• May 09, 2024 09 May'24

  Fujitsu’s Post Office Horizon admission was ‘bombshell’ amid ‘religious panic’ over reliability

  Barrister Simon Clarke was representing the Post Office when he discovered an expert witness had misled courts in subpostmaster trials

• May 09, 2024 09 May'24

  Government injects £1.8m into space tech innovation

  Funding is being split between nine projects, covering a range of technologies aiming to support new space capabilities in the UK

• May 09, 2024 09 May'24

  Ofcom publishes draft online child safety rules for tech firms

  In the draft codes, Ofcom calls on technology firms to use ‘robust’ age-checking and content moderation systems to keep harmful material away from children online

• May 08, 2024 08 May'24

  Police accessed phone records of ‘trouble-making journalists’

  The Police Service of Northern Ireland ran a rolling programme to monitor phone records of journalists to identify the source of police leaks, it was claimed today

• May 08, 2024 08 May'24

  Cyber attack ruled out as source of UK Border Force outage

  An IT outage that caused automated passport control e-gates to crash across the UK has been resolved, with a cyber attack ruled out as the cause

• May 08, 2024 08 May'24

  Germany: European Court of Justice ruling on EncroChat could lead to new legal challenges

  A ruling by the European Court of Justice could prompt legal challenges in EncroChat prosecutions in Germany and other EU states

• May 07, 2024 07 May'24

  Chinese APT suspected of Ministry of Defence hack

  A cyber attack on the Ministry of Defence is suspected to be the work of threat actors working on behalf of Chinese intelligence

• May 07, 2024 07 May'24

  Police told in 2016 that Post Office prosecutor withheld evidence of Horizon errors from court

  A campaigning former subpostmaster told Surrey Police he suspected a ‘possible criminal offence’ when he found details of a Post Office prosecutor withholding evidence in a 2010 trial

• May 03, 2024 03 May'24

  EU calls out Fancy Bear over attacks on Czech, German governments

  The European Union, alongside member states Czechia and Germany, have accused Russian government APT Fancy Bear of being behind a series of attacks on political parties and government bodies

• May 03, 2024 03 May'24

  Lords say government must ‘go beyond’ current approach to LLMs

  Chair of the Lords Communications and Digital Committee has written to the UK’s digital secretary about the government’s approach to generative AI, lamenting a lack of support for copyright holders and measures to ensure competition in AI markets

• May 03, 2024 03 May'24

  Post Office legal boss withheld details from statutory body reviewing miscarriages of justice

  The Post Office’s top lawyer held back vital information when requested by the criminal cases review commission, preventing wrongful convictions from being reviewed

• May 02, 2024 02 May'24

  NCSC updates warning over hacktivist threat to CNI

  The NCSC and CISA have warned about the evolving threat from Russia-backed hacktivist threat actors targeting critical national infrastructure, after a number of American utilities were attacked

• May 02, 2024 02 May'24

  Post Office investigators saw subpostmasters as ‘enemies’ – and that’s what they became

  Post Office investigators were only focused on getting money from subpostmasters blamed for accounting shortfalls, according to a 2013 report commissioned by organisation’s legal boss

• May 02, 2024 02 May'24

  BBC instructs lawyers over allegations of police surveillance of journalist

  Lawyers for the BBC have written to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal over allegations that the Police Service of Northern Ireland spied on investigative journalist Vincent Kearney

• May 01, 2024 01 May'24

  EMEA CISOs must address human factors behind cyber incidents

  The 17th annual Verizon report on data breaches makes for sobering reading for security pros, urging them to do more to address the human factors involved in cyber incidents, and highlighting ongoing issues with zero-day patching

• May 01, 2024 01 May'24

  DWP anti-fraud measures will allow monitoring of bank accounts of landlords, carers and parents

  Parliamentarians raise concerns that a proposed law to require banks to monitor the accounts of millions of people receiving state benefits could lead to those on welfare being denied accommodation or bank accounts

• May 01, 2024 01 May'24

  Autonomous weapons reduce moral agency and devalue human life

  Military technology experts gathered in Vienna have warned about the detrimental psychological effects of AI-powered weapons, arguing that implementing systems of algorithmic-enabled killing dehumanises both the user and the target

• April 30, 2024 30 Apr'24

  Persistent data breaches deny people with HIV dignity and privacy

  The ICO has urged charities and healthcare organisations that work with people living with HIV to do better when it comes to protecting their personal data, after the HIV status of more than 100 people was accidentally disclosed by London’s Central ...

• April 30, 2024 30 Apr'24

  Global majority united on multilateral regulation of AI weapons

  Foreign ministers and civil society representatives say that multilateralism is key to controlling the proliferation and use of AI-powered autonomous weapons, but that a small number of powerful countries are holding back progress

• April 30, 2024 30 Apr'24

  Barnsley Council drives social care efficiency with Copilot

  Microsoft generative AI tool Copilot is being used to streamline many of the admin tasks Barnsley Council social care workers need to do

• April 29, 2024 29 Apr'24

  Post Office misjudged campaigner it labelled a ‘bluffer’

  Social media, a trade union and tech expertise helped former subpostmasters expose Post Office bug myth

• April 26, 2024 26 Apr'24

  Post Office scheme was a ‘charade’ that never intended for large compensation pay-outs

  The Post Office established a scheme to compensate subpostmasters affected by tech faults, but it was just a ‘charade’, says Public Inquiry KC

• April 26, 2024 26 Apr'24

  European Parliament approves platform worker directive

  The approval of the platform worker directive gives member states two years to incorporate its measures into their national legislation, which includes provisions on how to classify the employment of gig workers and deploy algorithmic ...

• April 26, 2024 26 Apr'24

  Post Office ‘lied’ to subpostmasters when forced to meet them, says former federation representative

  Post Office executives were forced to meet subpostmasters to discuss an unexplained error in their branch, then misled the branch managers over remote access

• April 25, 2024 25 Apr'24

  More evidence emerges that Post Office executive misled High Court judge

  Evidence in the questioning of 35-year Post Office veteran reveals the lengths the Post Office went to in hiding computer system vulnerabilities

• April 24, 2024 24 Apr'24

  Lords debate amendment to law on use of computer evidence in light of Post Office scandal

  Peers to debate amending the law on the use of computer evidence in court, which is partly to blame for the wrongful prosecutions of hundreds of former subpostmasters

• April 23, 2024 23 Apr'24

  Post Office boss used husband’s descriptions in 'Orwellian' ploy to downplay Horizon problems

  Post Office CEO sought advice from husband on what words to use in reports to downplay known errors in software, inquiry told.

• April 23, 2024 23 Apr'24

  Expert investigating Capture system refuses to meet ‘untrustworthy’ Post Office

  A former Post Office executive has refused to meet his past employer to discuss the controversial Capture system

• April 23, 2024 23 Apr'24

  Lords split over UK government approach to autonomous weapons

  During a debate on autonomous weapons systems, Lords expressed mixed opinions towards the UK government’s current position, including its reluctance to adopt a working definition and commit to international legal instruments controlling their use

• April 22, 2024 22 Apr'24

  Fujitsu to cut UK jobs as Post Office scandal fallout hits sales

  Japanese supplier’s role in the Post Office Horizon scandal is beginning to hurt its UK business, with job cuts announced

• April 22, 2024 22 Apr'24

  NCSC announces PwC’s Richard Horne as CEO

  Former PwC and Barclays cyber chief Richard Horne set to join UK’s National Cyber Security Centre as CEO

• April 22, 2024 22 Apr'24

  Post Office lawyer was a jack of all trades, but failed his own

  Post Office IT scandal inquiry hears how a lawyer was at the centre of the Post Office’s attempts to prevent problems with its IT system becoming public knowledge

• April 22, 2024 22 Apr'24

  IT leaders hiring CISOs aplenty, but don’t fully understand the role

  Most businesses now have a CISO, but perceptions of what CISOs are supposed to do, and confusion over the value they offer, may be holding back harmonious relations, according to a report

• April 21, 2024 21 Apr'24

  Crime agency criticises Meta as European police chiefs call for curbs on end-to-end encryption

  Law enforcement agencies step up demands for ‘lawful access’ to encrypted communications

• April 19, 2024 19 Apr'24

  Report reveals Northern Ireland police put up to 18 journalists and lawyers under surveillance

  Disclosures that the Police Service of Northern Ireland obtained phone communications data from journalists and lawyers leads to renewed calls for inquiry

• April 19, 2024 19 Apr'24

  Unisys reveals no link to development of controversial Post Office software

  IT supplier finds no evidence that it was involved in the development of controversial Post Office software

• April 19, 2024 19 Apr'24

  Tech companies operating with opacity in Israel-Palestine

  Tech firms operating in Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel are falling “woefully short” of their human rights responsibilities amid escalating devastation in Gaza, says Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

• April 19, 2024 19 Apr'24

  CEST: Putting HMRC’s IR35 status checker under the microscope

  Since its launch in March 2017, HMRC's online IR35 status checker tool has come under fierce criticism and scrutiny, only exacerbated in recent weeks by the disclosure it has not been updated in five years

• April 18, 2024 18 Apr'24

  TUC publishes legislative proposal to protect workers from AI

  Proposed bill for regulating artificial intelligence in the UK seeks to translate well-meaning principles and values into concrete rights and obligations that protect workers from systems that make ‘high-risk’ decisions about them

• April 18, 2024 18 Apr'24

  Lords to challenge controversial DWP benefits bank account surveillance powers

  Members of the House of Lords are pressing for amendments to the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill following concerns over government powers to monitor the bank accounts of people receiving benefits

• April 18, 2024 18 Apr'24

  Gov.uk One Login accounts on the rise

  Since August 2023, more than 1.8 million people verified their identity using the Gov.uk One Login app, while face-to-face verifications have also increased

• April 18, 2024 18 Apr'24

  IT expert who helped expose Post Office scandal offers to investigate second controversial system

  IT expert Jason Coyne, who played a critical part in exposing the Post Office Horizon scandal, said he would examine the Capture System

• April 17, 2024 17 Apr'24

  Mandiant formally pins Sandworm cyber attacks on APT44 group

  Mandiant has formally attributed a long-running campaign of cyber attacks by a Russian state actor known as Sandworm to a newly designated advanced persistent threat group to be called APT44

• April 16, 2024 16 Apr'24

  Post Office boss signed off hush money to cover up smoking gun

  A former Post Office boss admitted the pain and suffering of subpostmasters could have been avoided had the organisation done the right thing

• April 16, 2024 16 Apr'24

  CISOs not yet convinced to invest in AI

  CISOs say their eyes are fixed firmly on threats like ransomware and supply chain attacks, and while AI is becoming a threat that needs to be dealt with, it’s not yet an immediate spending priority