News

IT for government and public sector

• March 17, 2025 17 Mar'25

  Online Safety Act measures come into effect

  Regulator Ofcom is now able to take enforcement action against platforms under the Online Safety Act if they fail to proactively safeguard against content such as terrorist or child sexual abuse material

• March 17, 2025 17 Mar'25

  Who takes responsibility? Birmingham’s ERP extraordinary meeting

  Council members took the opportunity to raise their concerns during the Birmingham City Council ERP meeting, which took place on 11 March

• March 17, 2025 17 Mar'25

  Satellite technology to provide broadband to remote areas of Buckinghamshire

  Buckinghamshire Council harnesses low Earth orbit technology to serve the most remote areas of the county with ultrafast broadband

• March 14, 2025 14 Mar'25

  Apple encryption legal challenge heard behind closed doors despite calls for public hearing

  Investigatory Powers Tribunal hearing held behind closed doors as press and civil society groups argue for open hearings

• March 14, 2025 14 Mar'25

  AI Action Summit review: Differing views cast doubt on AI’s ability to benefit whole of society

  Governments, companies and civil society groups gathered at the third global AI summit to discuss how the technology can work for the benefit of everyone in society, but experts say competing imperatives mean there is no guarantee these visions will...

• March 14, 2025 14 Mar'25

  Can a future digital NHS survive another change?

  Computer Weekly looks at the prime minister’s decision to abolish NHS England and the potential impact on the progress of digitising the NHS

• March 14, 2025 14 Mar'25

  Will Whitehall withstand Starmer’s AI revolution?

  As the prime minister sets out plans for the use of artificial intelligence to take over civil service tasks, Computer Weekly looks at potential challenges and concerns around the decision

• March 14, 2025 14 Mar'25

  Minister asks for evidence of Post Office ECCO+ system problems

  Subpostmaster federation is calling on former Post Office crown branch staff to come forward if they experienced problems with ECCO+

• March 13, 2025 13 Mar'25

  US Congress demands UK lifts gag on Apple encryption order

  Apple and Google have told US lawmakers that they cannot tell Congress whether they have received technical capability notices from the UK

• March 13, 2025 13 Mar'25

  SuperBlack ransomware may have ties to LockBit

  Forescout researchers report on a new ransomware gang that appears to be keeping the legacy of the notorious LockBit crew alive

• March 13, 2025 13 Mar'25

  HMRC looks to upgrade SOC with advanced SIEM tech

  HMRC issues a request for information notice ahead of opening up bids for a new security information and event management project that aims to reinforce its ability to respond to cyber threats

• March 13, 2025 13 Mar'25

  Starmer to send AI tech teams into government departments

  In his plans to reform the state, the prime minister is pushing for artificial intelligence to take on tasks for civil servants and calling time on NHS England

• March 13, 2025 13 Mar'25

  Driving licence data could be used for police facial recognition

  The government’s Crime and Policing Bill could allow police to access the UK driving licence database for use in facial recognition watchlists, but the Home Office denies biometric data would be repurposed in this way

• March 13, 2025 13 Mar'25

  IR35 reforms: HMRC’s assessment of private sector impacts called into question

  HM Revenue & Customs recently published figures that show it generated £1.8bn more than expected from private sector roll-out of IR35 reforms, but those figures are being called into question

• March 13, 2025 13 Mar'25

  Major strike by Fujitsu staff at ‘cash cow’ HMRC

  Fujitsu staff working at government department will strike for 22 days in protest over pay offer

• March 11, 2025 11 Mar'25

  March Patch Tuesday brings 57 fixes, multiple zero-days

  The third Patch Tuesday of 2025 brings fixes for 57 flaws and a hefty number of zero-days

• March 11, 2025 11 Mar'25

  Perimeter security appliances source of most ransomware hits

  Perimeter security appliances and devices, particularly VPNs, prove to be the most popular entry points into victim networks for financially motivated ransomware gangs, according to reports

• March 11, 2025 11 Mar'25

  Secret London tribunal to hear appeal in Apple vs government battle over encryption

  Campaigners call for High Court hearing to be held in public as tech giant appeals against UK government order to open a backdoor into its encrypted iCloud service

• March 11, 2025 11 Mar'25

  UK government under-prepared for catastrophic cyber attack, hears PAC

  The Commons Public Accounts Committee heard government IT leaders respond to recent National Audit Office findings that the government’s cyber resilience is under par

• March 11, 2025 11 Mar'25

  Government to create pathfinder programme for digital spend

  Changes to government digital spending will include staged funding with regular review and a pathfinder programme to test new funding models suitable for digital projects

• March 11, 2025 11 Mar'25

  Post Office scandal data leak interim compensation offers made

  Some subpostmasters affected by Post Office data breach offered interim compensation payments

• March 10, 2025 10 Mar'25

  Peter Kyle sets stage for making tech work

  During his speech at the Tech Policy conference, Kyle announced a number of initiatives to support AI and other new technologies

• March 10, 2025 10 Mar'25

  Goverment overhauls AI funding to drive agility

  A startup mindset is at the heart of a Labour’s approach to how it wants to speed up AI innovation in the public sector

• March 10, 2025 10 Mar'25

  Government announcement on Fujitsu talks add ‘vague words’ and no interim payment

  Peer James Arbuthnot says he is ‘disappointed’ that there was no mention of an interim payment in announcement of government’s latest talks with Fujitsu

• March 09, 2025 09 Mar'25

  David Willetts to chair Regulatory Innovation Office

  The former science minister will lead the Regulatory Innovation Office, which aims to remove barriers and outdated regulations to speed up the road to market for innovative products and services

• March 07, 2025 07 Mar'25

  Government to create digital sourcing strategy

  Government officials revealed to the Public Accounts Committee that it will develop a sourcing strategy for digital technology, steering departments on what to build themselves and what to procure

• March 06, 2025 06 Mar'25

  UK cyber security damaged by ‘clumsy Home Office political censorship’

  Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre secretly censors computer security guidance and drops references to encryption

• March 06, 2025 06 Mar'25

  Why did IT suppliers allow Birmingham City Council to go live with Oracle?

  Councillors at the local authority’s budget setting and audit committee meetings raised questions as Birmingham faces budget deficits

• March 06, 2025 06 Mar'25

  NHS chief data officers concerned by FDP roll-out

  The Chief Data and Analytical Officers Network has raised concerns over the way the NHS Federated Data Platform is being implemented and NHS England’s approach to its adoption

• March 06, 2025 06 Mar'25

  CFIT publishes blueprint for digital company business IDs

  Plan to increase the use of digital identities by businesses could add billions of pounds to UK economy through compliance savings and reduced fraud

• March 05, 2025 05 Mar'25

  Apple IPT appeal against backdoor encryption order is test case for bigger targets

  The Home Office decision to target Apple with an order requiring access to users’ encrypted data is widely seen as a ‘stalking horse’ for attacks against encrypted messaging services WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal

• March 05, 2025 05 Mar'25

  IR35: Government outlines two-pronged approach to umbrella company regulation

  The government looks set to deliver on its long-promised vow to roll out regulation for umbrella companies

• March 05, 2025 05 Mar'25

  French oceanographers clock up 23 years on Atempo backup software

  Oceanogaphic research institute keeps Atempo backup software for near a quarter century with no plans to replace it for protection of critical data helping map the world’s oceans

• March 05, 2025 05 Mar'25

  NHS investigating how API flaw exposed patient data

  NHS patient data was left vulnerable by a flaw in an application programming interface used at online healthcare provider Medefer

• March 04, 2025 04 Mar'25

  NHS rolls out AI app to predict and prevent falls that could land patients in hospital

  Healthtech company Cera's artificial intelligence app can also predict the onset of winter viruses, and is being keenly adopted across the NHS

• March 04, 2025 04 Mar'25

  Metropolitan Police concern puts brakes on Post Office Horizon data migration

  The Post Office has paused its project to migrate all Horizon data from Fujitsu systems to its own while in discussions with Metropolitan Police

• February 28, 2025 28 Feb'25

  France pushes for law enforcement access to Signal, WhatsApp and encrypted email 

  Proposals to be discussed in the French Parliament will require tech companies to hand over decrypted messages and email or face huge fines 

• February 28, 2025 28 Feb'25

  Post Office makes first official apology to Capture users

  The Post Office has written to former Capture user Ken Tooby to apologise for its failings which devastated his family’s lives

• February 27, 2025 27 Feb'25

  'Positive steps' in redress for Post Office Capture victims

  Lawyers say progress has been made in efforts to provide financial redress and justice for former users of the Post Office's flawed Capture system

• February 27, 2025 27 Feb'25

  MPs grill X, TikTok and Meta about online misinformation

  Representatives from the social media firms said that while the scale of their platforms makes content moderation difficult, they are effectively dealing with the vast majority of misinformation

• February 27, 2025 27 Feb'25

  Peer demands Fujitsu cough up £300m interim payment towards Post Office scandal bill

  Kevan Jones tells fellow peers in the House of Lords that Fujitsu should also be barred from bidding for public sector contracts

• February 27, 2025 27 Feb'25

  CVE volumes head towards 50,000 in 2025, analysts claim

  Many trends, notably a big shift to open source tools, are behind an expected boom in the number of disclosed vulnerabilities

• February 26, 2025 26 Feb'25

  US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard probes UK demand for Apple’s encrypted data

  A secret order issued by the UK against Apple would be a ‘clear and egregious violation’ if it provides back door access to Americans’ encrypted data, says US director of national intelligence

• February 26, 2025 26 Feb'25

  CISOs spending more on insider risk

  Insider risk management budgets have more than doubled in the past 12 months and look set to grow further still in 2025, according to a report

• February 26, 2025 26 Feb'25

  Scottish police fail to record ethnicity in DNA database

  Scottish policing bodies are failing to properly record and publish data on the ethnicity of arrested people, making it impossible to determine whether they are discriminating against certain sections of the population

• February 26, 2025 26 Feb'25

  IoT and SaaS will underpin government legislation introduced to protect rivers

  Tech platform will enable water companies, regulators and the public to monitor pollution levels in rivers

• February 26, 2025 26 Feb'25

  Lord Holmes warns of increasingly ‘urgent’ need to regulate AI

  The real-world negative impacts of artificial intelligence will only get worse if the UK does not move to regulate the technology in a way that centres on accountability, trust and public participation, says Lord Holmes

• February 25, 2025 25 Feb'25

  Government launches Digital Inclusion Action Plan

  Whitehall aims to fix digital exclusion through funding local digital skills, as charities and industry pledge to help with skills training, devices and connectivity

• February 24, 2025 24 Feb'25

  Government seeks payments tech partner through £49m contract

  UK government wants tech partner to help it embed open banking functionality into its Gov.uk Pay platform

• February 24, 2025 24 Feb'25

  European Union calls for more cyber data-sharing with Nato

  Updates to the EU’s Cyber Blueprint, establishing best practice for multilateral security incident response in Europe, include calls for more collaboration with Nato member states, as the geopolitical environment becomes ever more fractious