News
IT for government and public sector
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December 18, 2024
18
Dec'24
Axon still in possession of Police Scotland encryption keys
Supplier’s possession of encryption keys for Police Scotland data sharing system opens potential for access and transfer of sensitive data without the knowledge or consent of the force
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December 17, 2024
17
Dec'24
Conservative MP adds to calls for public inquiry over PSNI police spying
Conservative MP David Davis calls for a public inquiry following a court ruling that the PSNI and Metropolitan Police unlawfully placed journalists under electronic surveillance
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December 17, 2024
17
Dec'24
Ofcom publishes Illegal Harms Codes of Practice
The codes of practice and guidance from Ofcom outline the steps online services providers can take to protect their users from illegal harms
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December 17, 2024
17
Dec'24
Latest list of AI in government decision-making published
The government wants to show it’s being transparent over the use of algorithms that directly impact citizens
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December 17, 2024
17
Dec'24
Digital Ethics Summit 2024: recognising AI’s socio-technical nature
At trade association TechUK’s eighth annual Digital Ethics Summit, public officials and industry figures and civil society groups met to discuss the ethical challenges associated with the proliferation of artificial intelligence tools globally and ...
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December 17, 2024
17
Dec'24
Tribunal criticises PSNI and Met Police for spying operation to identify journalists’ sources
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal has criticised the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Metropolitan Police for unlawfully spying on journalists
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December 17, 2024
17
Dec'24
Government promises redress and justice to Post Office Capture system users
The government has officially recognised that users of the Post Office’s Capture software experienced shortfalls caused by the system’s errors
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December 16, 2024
16
Dec'24
Post Office ‘weaponised’ IT system in most ‘extensive and prolonged’ miscarriage
In closing, public inquiry counsel made clear that it’s not a computer system being investigated, but rather human beings
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December 16, 2024
16
Dec'24
Top 10 IT leadership interviews of 2024
The top technology leaders talk to Computer Weekly to discuss the challenges they face and the strategies, solutions and successes they are delivering
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December 13, 2024
13
Dec'24
Computer Misuse Act reform gains traction in Parliament
An amendment to the proposed Data (Access and Use) Bill that will right a 35-year-old wrong and protect security professionals from criminalisation is to be debated at Westminster
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December 13, 2024
13
Dec'24
Post Office scandal 2024 – part 3: Fujitsu’s 12-month fall from grace
After years of refusing to comment, Fujitsu was unable to continue hiding from its role in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal as politicians and a public inquiry demanded answers
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December 12, 2024
12
Dec'24
Emerging Ymir ransomware heralds more coordinated threats in 2025
A newly observed ransomware strain has the community talking about more collaboration, and blurred lines, between threat groups next year, according to NCC’s monthly cyber barometer
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December 12, 2024
12
Dec'24
Post Office scandal in 2024 – part 2: Capture, the prequel
Users of the Post Office’s Capture system had similar experiences to those who struggled with the Horizon system, which came later, but their stories are only just coming out now
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December 11, 2024
11
Dec'24
Police not ruling any person or crime out of Post Office scandal investigation
Metropolitan Police provides update on Operation Olympos, its national investigation into potential criminality in the Post Office Horizon scandal
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December 11, 2024
11
Dec'24
Post Office scandal in 2024 – part 1: A year in the mainstream
Read this year’s 10 most read Computer Weekly articles about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal
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December 10, 2024
10
Dec'24
Dangerous CLFS and LDAP flaws stand out on Patch Tuesday
Microsoft has fixed over 70 CVEs in its final Patch Tuesday update of the year, and defenders should prioritise a zero-day in the Common Log File System Driver, and another impactful flaw in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
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December 10, 2024
10
Dec'24
iOS vuln leaves user data dangerously exposed
Jamf threat researchers detail an exploit chain for a recently patched iOS vulnerability that enables a threat actor to steal sensitive data, warning that many organisations are still neglecting mobile updates
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December 10, 2024
10
Dec'24
UK police continue to hold millions of custody images unlawfully
Annual report from the biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner of England and Wales highlights the ongoing and unlawful retention millions of custody images of innocent people never charged with a crime by police
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December 10, 2024
10
Dec'24
Government launches £100m innovation fund for public service reform
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster calls on Whitehall to adopt a ‘test-and-learn’ culture and pledges to make government ‘more like a startup’
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December 10, 2024
10
Dec'24
DWP ‘fairness analysis’ reveals bias in AI fraud detection system
Information about people’s age, disability, marital status and nationality influences decisions to investigate benefit claims for fraud, but the Department for Work and Pensions says there are ‘no immediate concerns of unfair treatment’
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December 10, 2024
10
Dec'24
Controversial Horizon system to remain in Post Office branches as part of tech ‘fusion’, says source
A source says the Post Office is set to buy the Horizon system from Fujitsu and combine it with both in-house developed and commercially available software
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December 09, 2024
09
Dec'24
Bahrain faces legal action after planting Pegasus spyware on UK blogger
A court has given the go-ahead to UK-based blogger Yusuf Al-Jamri to seek damages from the Kingdom of Bahrain after it deployed spyware from Israel’s NSO Group to hack his phone
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December 09, 2024
09
Dec'24
Post Office senior leadership warned of IT project data safeguarding risk
Post Office board members and senior executives have been made aware of the risk to data related to its ill-fated Horizon system replacement project
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December 06, 2024
06
Dec'24
What do the home secretary’s policing reforms mean for the future of the Police Digital Service?
The government is to create a new central body for policing with IT strategy in its proposed purview, but what does this mean for the Home Office-backed Police Digital Service?
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December 05, 2024
05
Dec'24
Met Police challenged on claim LFR supported by ‘majority of Lewisham residents’
A community impact assessment for the Met Police’s deployment of live facial-recognition tech in Lewisham brings into question the force’s previous claims to Computer Weekly that its use of the technology is supported by ‘the majority of residents’
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December 05, 2024
05
Dec'24
Post Office Fujitsu contract extended by a year as decision time looms
The Post Office has let contractors and third parties go as it completes its analysis of the future Horizon replacement options
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December 04, 2024
04
Dec'24
Shared digital gateway was source of three NHS ransomware attacks
Alder Hey children’s hospital confirms ransomware operators accessed its systems through a shared digital gateway, but is standing firm in the face of the gang’s demands
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December 03, 2024
03
Dec'24
Australian utilities explore potential of AI
Australia’s utilities sector is exploring and implementing AI to enhance grid stability, manage rooftop solar and prepare for the influx of electric vehicles
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December 02, 2024
02
Dec'24
NCSC boss calls for ‘sustained vigilance’ in an aggressive world
NCSC CEO Richard Horne is to echo wider warnings about the growing number and severity of cyber threats facing the UK as he launches the security body’s eighth annual report
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November 29, 2024
29
Nov'24
Swedish authorities urged to discontinue AI welfare system
Amnesty International is calling on Sweden’s social insurance agency to immediately discontinue its machine learning-based welfare system, following an investigation by Lighthouse Reports and Svenska Dagbladet that found it to be discriminatory
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November 28, 2024
28
Nov'24
Fujitsu’s charity boss made redundant while Post Office scandal victims await support
At a time when it could give something back to Post Office Horizon victims persecuted as a result of its faulty software, Fujitsu makes UK charity boss redundant
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November 28, 2024
28
Nov'24
Chulalongkorn University debuts GenAI platform
Thai university teams up with Google Cloud to empower its community with responsible and customisable AI tools for research, learning and administration
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November 27, 2024
27
Nov'24
Post Office Capture users invited to pivotal meeting with government
About 80 former Capture users have now come forward for legal support in making claims against the Post Office
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November 27, 2024
27
Nov'24
Dutch politicians raise concerns over Big Tech reliance
Dutch political parties have warned about the Netherlands’ growing reliance on US tech giants
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November 26, 2024
26
Nov'24
Post Office scandal redress echoes Windrush compensation problems
Campaigning former subpostmaster Sir Alan Bates met with Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) over financial redress scheme
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November 26, 2024
26
Nov'24
Russian threat actors poised to cripple power grid, UK warns
UK government escalates cyber rhetoric in a speech at a Nato event, saying Russian advanced persistent threats stand ready to conduct cyber attacks that could ‘turn off the lights for millions’
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November 25, 2024
25
Nov'24
Metropolitan Police officer dismissed for unlawfully accessing Sarah Everard files
Over 100 Met Police officers and staff have been investigated for accessing sensitive data related to the Sarah Everard case, leading to the dismissal of a Roads and Transport officer who accessed the information while off-duty
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November 25, 2024
25
Nov'24
Post Office scandal: How much deeper and wider can it get?
It took decades to expose the Post Office Horizon scandal but that effort has laid the groundwork for others to seek justice and financial redress
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November 25, 2024
25
Nov'24
Microsoft calls on Trump to ‘push harder’ on cyber threats
Microsoft’s Brad Smith urges president-elect Donald Trump to keep the faith when it comes to fighting back against hostile cyber actors from China, Iran and Russia
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November 25, 2024
25
Nov'24
Geopolitical strife drives increased ransomware activity
The lines between financially motivated cyber criminals and nation state APTs are rapidly blurring, as geopolitical influences weigh heavily on the threat landscape, according to data from NCC
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November 22, 2024
22
Nov'24
Convictions of Post Office Capture system users to be reviewed by statutory body
Statutory body to look at the convictions of subpostmasters who used a pre-Horizon branch accounting system
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November 22, 2024
22
Nov'24
NHS Federated Data Platform celebrates first birthday
In its first year, more than 100 NHS organisations have signed up to the controversial platform, aiming to bring together data from different IT systems
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November 22, 2024
22
Nov'24
Government looking into third faulty Post Office IT system
The Department for Business and Trade will look into claims that a third Post Office branch system caused unexplained shortfalls that branch workers and subpostmasters were blamed for
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November 21, 2024
21
Nov'24
BianLian cyber gang drops encryption-based ransomware
The Australian and American cyber authorities have published updated intelligence on the BianLian ransomware gang, which has undergone a rapid evolution in tactics
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November 21, 2024
21
Nov'24
Microsoft slaps down Egyptian-run rent-a-phish operation
Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has conducted a successful takedown of almost 250 malicious websites used in the cyber criminal ONNX phishing-as-a-service operation
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November 20, 2024
20
Nov'24
ORG urges ICO to revise public sector enforcement approach
The Open Rights Group is urging the Information Commissioner’s Office to revise its light touch approach to public sector data protection issues, arguing that its experimental policy of limiting its enforcement actions to reprimands and notices, ...
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November 20, 2024
20
Nov'24
Apple addresses two iPhone, Mac zero-days
Two zero-day vulnerabilities uncovered in Apple’s operating systems could have allowed for arbitrary code execution and cross-site scripting attacks
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November 20, 2024
20
Nov'24
Post Office to harness technology to automate scandal financial redress payments
Technology that could speed up financial redress for subpostmasters is being worked on in-house by the Post Office
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November 20, 2024
20
Nov'24
Government issues strategic priorities for online safety regulator Ofcom
Technology secretary Peter Kyle sets out the government’s strategic priorities for how Ofcom should approach regulating online safety, including embedding safety by design and supporting innovation in technologies to help protect people online
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November 20, 2024
20
Nov'24
Post Office project taking control of Horizon data from Fujitsu as part of messy split
The Post Office will no longer rely on Fujitsu for Horizon data past and present once cloud migration project is complete, in a major uncoupling of the 30-year relationship