News

IT for government and public sector

• June 20, 2023 20 Jun'23

  Union chief calls for outsourced services to be brought in-house

  Unison general secretary calls on Labour to bring outsourced public sector contracts in-house if they fail to meet certain tests

• June 19, 2023 19 Jun'23

  Prime minister Rishi Sunak faces pressure from banks to force tech firms to pay for online fraud

  The UK’s major banks have told the prime minister to force tech firms to do more to prevent fraud that the banks end up paying for

• June 19, 2023 19 Jun'23

  Dutch government puts up €123m to address shortage of ICT workers

  Financial injection aimed at improving cooperation between vocational education and business in the Netherlands, and making the tech professions more attractive

• June 16, 2023 16 Jun'23

  Collaboration in finance sector develops prototype API for digital currency

  The Bank for International Settlements and the Bank of England worked with private sector on central bank digital currency experiment

• June 15, 2023 15 Jun'23

  Exploitation of Barracuda ESG appliances linked to Chinese spies

  Intelligence from Mandiant links exploitation of a flaw in a subset of Barracuda ESG appliances to a previously untracked China-nexus threat actor

• June 15, 2023 15 Jun'23

  Technology secretary Chloe Smith announces £54m package for AI

  In her speech at London Tech Week, Smith launched funding to support a series of AI initiatives, including creating a research and innovation ecosystem for trustworthy and responsible AI, and developing AI technologies to help the UK reach its ...

• June 15, 2023 15 Jun'23

  Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030: Progress report

  Halfway into its plan to give the country a makeover by 2030, Saudi Arabia’s emphasis on technology is starting to pay off

• June 15, 2023 15 Jun'23

  Department for Education plans to assess AI risk and benefits

  The department has begun a consultation looking at the role of generative artificial intelligence in education

• June 14, 2023 14 Jun'23

  EU AI act passes a significant milestone

  The European Union’s AI Act will ban the use of artificial intelligence to profile people based on race or gender and prohibit use of biometric identification in public spaces

• June 14, 2023 14 Jun'23

  Google Cloud signs MoU to accelerate take-up of AI by UK defence sector

  Google Cloud is continuing to make in-roads into the UK public sector after signing MoU with The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory

• June 13, 2023 13 Jun'23

  London Tech Week: Keir Starmer calls for AI job loss discussion

  Labour leader sees a need for a broad regulatory framework and a frank discussion with business to inform policy around job losses arising from artificial intelligence

• June 13, 2023 13 Jun'23

  Delayed Making Tax Digital programme to cost taxpayers extra £1.5bn

  HM Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC) Making Tax Digital programme, which is running several years behind schedule, is expected to cost five times more than planned, National Audit Office (NAO) report finds

• June 12, 2023 12 Jun'23

  Ada Lovelace Institute warns against Covid app reuse

  There are a number of lessons policy-makers should take away from the use of apps developed as part of the Covid-19 response

• June 12, 2023 12 Jun'23

  Rishi Sunak calls for urgency in building out UK tech

  The UK prime minister used his speech during London Tech Week to discuss funding tech, attracting talent and AI safety

• June 09, 2023 09 Jun'23

  UK-US Atlantic Declaration bolsters tech and data collaboration

  Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak agree greater collaboration on responsible artificial intelligence, quantum computing and Open RAN

• June 09, 2023 09 Jun'23

  UK and US move closer to transatlantic data bridge deal

  The British and American governments have committed, in principle, to a new data bridge agreement that will ease the free flow of personal data across the Atlantic

• June 09, 2023 09 Jun'23

  University of Manchester hit by cyber attack

  The University of Manchester has been hit by a cyber attack of an undisclosed nature

• June 08, 2023 08 Jun'23

  CDEI publishes portfolio of AI assurance techniques

  The UK’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation has published a variety of case studies to show how different assurance techniques can build and maintain trust in artificial intelligence systems

• June 08, 2023 08 Jun'23

  Netherlands enables contactless payments on entire public transport network

  All modes of public transport now accept payments using contactless technology after the completion of major project in the Netherlands

• June 08, 2023 08 Jun'23

  Government and industry figures meet to discuss AI regulation

  Tech industry figures are broadly supportive of the need for artificial intelligence to be regulated, but despite growing consensus, there is still disagreement over what effective AI regulation looks like

• June 07, 2023 07 Jun'23

  UKtech50 2023: The most influential people in UK technology

  Computer Weekly has announced the 13th annual UKtech50 – our definitive list of the movers and shakers in the UK tech sector

• June 07, 2023 07 Jun'23

  UKtech50 2023 winner: Michelle Donelan/Chloe Smith, secretary of state, DSIT

  Computer Weekly looks at the achievements and successes of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, as its secretary of state is recognised as the most influential person in UK technology for 2023

• June 07, 2023 07 Jun'23

  Open banking regulator sets out next steps

  Plans for ongoing evolution of the UK open banking sector have been set out by regulator in bid to grow the open banking sector in a ‘safe, scalable and economically sustainable way’

• June 07, 2023 07 Jun'23

  Payments regulator makes APP fraud reimbursement mandatory

  UK payments regulator confirms changes to rules around repaying customers who lose money to authorised push payment fraudsters

• June 07, 2023 07 Jun'23

  Government to test rural broadband options with £7m fund

  Government to fund tests of technologies that could be issued to improve internet connectivity for rural communities

• June 06, 2023 06 Jun'23

  Indian IT services giant takes UK teachers’ pensions contract from Capita

  Tata Consultancy Services bolsters its growing UK public sector customer base with key contract win

• June 06, 2023 06 Jun'23

  ESA uses NetApp as-a-service for space data ‘hot’ archive

  The European Space Agency collects data from millions of miles away. It must get storage right when there’s no chance of a u-turn to take more photos or re-record data

• June 06, 2023 06 Jun'23

  TechUK publishes ‘UK tech plan’ for next government

  Technology businesses are calling on UK politicians to devise a ‘comprehensive, forward-thinking strategy’ to realise the benefits of technology ahead of the next general election

• June 05, 2023 05 Jun'23

  Workers ‘deeply uncomfortable’ with digital surveillance at work

  Employees express discomfort towards employers’ use of various digital surveillance and monitoring techniques, which are often powered by artificial intelligence

• June 05, 2023 05 Jun'23

  UK has time limit on ensuring cryptocurrency regulatory leadership, says Parliamentary report

  Parliamentary report makes 53 recommendations to the government's plans to regulate cryptocurrency

• June 05, 2023 05 Jun'23

  Medical regulator drops probe into NHS whistleblower Peter Duffy amid dispute over email evidence

  The General Medical Council has dropped an investigation into an NHS whistleblower who exposed widespread clinical harm at Morecambe Bay Trust amid questions over disputed email evidence

• June 05, 2023 05 Jun'23

  Sweden is developing its own big language model

  Artificial Intelligence Sweden is leading an initiative to build a large language model not only for Swedish, but for all the major languages in the Nordic region: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese

• June 01, 2023 01 Jun'23

  AI interview: Dan McQuillan, critical computing expert

  Critical computing expert Dan McQuillan speaks to Computer Weekly about the top-down imposition of artificial intelligence on society, and how AI is a fundamentally political technology shaped by humanity’s most reactionary tendencies

• June 01, 2023 01 Jun'23

  Met Police director of intelligence defends facial recognition

  The Met Police’s director of intelligence has appeared before MPs to make the case for its continuing use of facial-recognition technology, following announcements from the force and the Home Office that they intend to press on with its adoption

• May 30, 2023 30 May'23

  UK, US and Australia jointly trial AI-enabled drone swarm

  British, American and Australian military organisations have trialled the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in drones in a collaboration designed to drive their adoption of AI-powered military tools

• May 30, 2023 30 May'23

  Downstream breaches of Capita customers spreading

  As many as 90 organisations that used Capita services have now reported data breaches arising from various security incidents at the outsourcer

• May 26, 2023 26 May'23

  Birmingham council leader admits £100m budget hole in ERP upgrade

  City council’s plans to replace flagship SAP system, which has been running since 1999, is not going to plan

• May 25, 2023 25 May'23

  Cabinet Office publishes response to data sharing for digital ID consultation

  The majority of respondents to government’s consultation on data sharing for digital identity are critical to the plans and concerned about data privacy, but Whitehall’s response says many of the responses ‘were driven by anti-digital commentaries’

• May 25, 2023 25 May'23

  Alert over Chinese cyber campaign targeting critical networks

  A Chinese threat actor known as Volt Typhoon has been observed infiltrating CNI networks in a cyber espionage campaign, according to intelligence

• May 23, 2023 23 May'23

  Starmer pledges to reform the NHS through technology

  The Labour Party wants to create an NHS powered by ‘groundbreaking technology’, with genomics testing for every baby, modernising appointment booking and overhaul incentives for tech adoption

• May 22, 2023 22 May'23

  Post Office scandal – cover-up a ‘dark chapter’ in government, corporate and legal history

  Third phase of public inquiry into Horizon IT scandal reveals extent of Post Office and Fujitsu cover-up of software problems that went on to write ‘as dark a chapter in our governmental, corporate and legal history as can be imagined’

• May 22, 2023 22 May'23

  Facebook owner Meta fined record €1.2 billion over EU-US data transfers

  Decision could have implications for other companies using Standard Contractual Clauses to share data between Europe and the US

• May 22, 2023 22 May'23

  Worker-focused AI Bill introduced by backbench MP Mick Whitley

  Using the 10-minute motion rule, backbench Labour MP Mick Whitley has introduced a worker-focused artificial intelligence (AI) bill to Parliament, which outlines a similar approach to AI being advocated by unions in the UK

• May 19, 2023 19 May'23

  Spanish lawyers claim police hacking of EncroChat cryptophones breaches human rights law

  Lawyers speaking at the Madrid Bar Association question the legality of a cryptophone hacking which has led to arrests of organised criminals in multiple countries

• May 19, 2023 19 May'23

  National semiconductor strategy: Balancing skills, migration and security

  The UK government is putting £1bn into semiconductor research and design over the next 10 years to develop a robust chip sector

• May 19, 2023 19 May'23

  Campaigning former subpostmaster fears compensation for scandal victims will be delayed to 2025

  The man who exposed the Post Office scandal fears a long delay for victims due to compensation process being "bogged down by bureaucracy"

• May 18, 2023 18 May'23

  Defra's tech review reveals legacy IT issues across government

  The Public Accoubts Committee recently found that Defra has been unable to measure inefficiencies due to running legacy IT

• May 17, 2023 17 May'23

  Home Office pushes for more police facial-recognition deployments

  An independent report commissioned by the biometrics commissioner of England and Wales reveals that the UK policing minister is pushing for wider adoption of facial-recognition technology by police, and further criticises the government’s proposed ...

• May 16, 2023 16 May'23

  Plexal launches Cyber Runway 3.0 accelerator programme

  The latest iteration of Plexal’s government-backed cyber security startup accelerator will run four work streams to boost startups at various stages of maturity and growth

• May 16, 2023 16 May'23

  No10 Innovation Fellowship Programme ramps up AI focus

  Second round of the programme, run jointly by Number 10 and the Government Digital Service, focuses on AI and automation