News

IT for government and public sector

• February 01, 2021 01 Feb'21

  West Midlands refreshes digital strategy

  Combined authority’s 2021-2026 digital roadmap aims to address the digital divide and make the West Midlands the most digitally connected region in the country

• February 01, 2021 01 Feb'21

  UKRI suspends services after ransomware attack

  UK Research and Innovation was hit by an undisclosed strain of ransomware at the end of January

• February 01, 2021 01 Feb'21

  ‘Victory for free speech and openness’ after tribunal confirms no territorial restrictions to FOIA

  Freedom of information tribunal rules that investigative journalists and others can use the Freedom of Information Act if they live outside the UK or are not British citizens

• January 29, 2021 29 Jan'21

  Biometrics ethics group addresses public-private use of facial recognition

  Home Office’s Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group releases briefing note on the use of live facial recognition in public–private collaborations following a year-long investigation

• January 29, 2021 29 Jan'21

  Revealed: Brits who fuelled ‘vicious’ conspiracy theory by Trump supporters

  Trump supporters have apologised and paid millions in damages to the family of murdered Democratic Party staffer Seth Rich for promoting false allegations that Rich – not Russian agents – stole emails from the Democratic National Committee

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  Conservatives broke data law to racially profile millions

  The Conservative Party acted illegally in collecting data that inferred voters’ ethnicity and religious background, a Select Committee has heard

• January 26, 2021 26 Jan'21

  Cyber fraud a national security issue, says Rusi report

  A report from the Rusi think tank calls for fresh approaches to how we think about fighting fraud

• January 25, 2021 25 Jan'21

  Department for International Trade signs £2.6m deal with Capita

  Deal will see department deploy a digital platform to distribute grants to small and medium-sized enterprises

• January 22, 2021 22 Jan'21

  Sepa data leaks as agency resists ransom demands

  The Scottish Environment Protection Agency is resisting extortion demands from a ransomware gang, but has suffered a data leak in retaliation

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Immigration exemption in data protection law faces further legal challenge

  Human rights groups set to take legal challenge against immigration exemption to Court of Appeal on the basis that everyone, regardless of their nationality or residence, should have their fundamental rights and freedoms protected as stated in the ...

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Hackney Council tenders for cyber security upgrade

  Suppliers are being invited to tender for enhanced cyber security capabilities at ransomware victim Hackney Council

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Gamarue malware found on government-issued school laptops

  Devices handed out by the government to support vulnerable children contain malware that appears to be contacting C2 infrastructure in Russia

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  UKtech50 2021: Vote for the most influential person in UK technology

  Our judges have picked a shortlist, and now we invite readers to tell us who should be chosen as the most influential person in the UK tech scene for 2021 – submit your vote now

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Interview: Tony Porter, chief privacy officer, Corsight AI

  Tony Porter speaks to Computer Weekly about the changes in facial-recognition during his time as surveillance camera commissioner, the ethics of using the technology, and his new role as chief privacy officer at Corsight AI

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  NHS Business Services Authority launches digital strategy

  NHS body’s digital strategy aims to change culture, practices and processes to create an environment where people can do their best

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Government needs to ‘take stock’ of digital progress, says Reform

  Think-tank says Covid-19 has shown the importance of a ‘digitally enabled’ public sector, but there is still a long way to go to realise the full potential of technology

• January 21, 2021 21 Jan'21

  Digital knowledge must be integral part of Dutch police training

  Research reveals gaps in digital knowledge among Netherlands police, with calls for a training ‘roadmap’ to get officers up to speed to tackle cyber crime

• January 20, 2021 20 Jan'21

  More subpostmasters’ prosecutions sent to appeal for wrongful conviction

  Four more subpostmasters are to have their appeals against criminal convictions heard in the appeal courts

• January 20, 2021 20 Jan'21

  PAC demands rejigged IT investment action plan from HMRC by end of March 2021

  A report by the Public Accounts Committee confirms HMRC is spending too much money on patching legacy IT systems, and needs to prioritise investing in the modernisation of its digital estate

• January 20, 2021 20 Jan'21

  IT scandal exposes legal rule that made it easy for Post Office to prosecute the innocent

  Lawyers call for changes to digital evidence rule that made it easier for the Post Office to ‘bamboozle courts’ and make subpostmasters pay a heavy price for its IT failings

• January 18, 2021 18 Jan'21

  MoD reports 18% rise in data loss incidents

  The Ministry of Defence reported more than five hundred data security incidents in 2019-20, with seven serious enough to warrant disclosure to the ICO

• January 18, 2021 18 Jan'21

  Nottinghamshire uses citizen engagement tools to inform residents

  Nottinghamshire Council is seeking to expand Granicus integrations after success in using its communications services to keep citizens informed during pandemic

• January 18, 2021 18 Jan'21

  UKtech50: The 2021 longlist

  Each year, Computer Weekly launches its annual search for the most influential people in UK IT, where the tech industry nominates who it thinks should be in the top 50 – here is the longlist for 2021

• January 18, 2021 18 Jan'21

  Community Fibre to supply free 50Mbps broadband for vulnerable London households

  Fibre altnet looks to address growing problem of the digital divide and ensure continuity of education in UK capital

• January 17, 2021 17 Jan'21

  NCSC CyberFirst Girls 2021 contest kicks off

  UK’s national cyber agency says it has already had hundreds of entrants in spite of the challenges presented by the pandemic

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  150,000 records accidentally wiped from police systems

  Home Office claims data wiped from national police systems only relates to people who have never been convicted of a crime or had further police action taken against them following an arrest

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  US cyber security agencies get $9bn in Biden plan

  New funding proposals come as US government reels from the impact of the December 2020 SolarWinds attack

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  Coalition proposes secure standard model for Covid-19 passports

  Vaccination Credential Initiative is working to ensure that people vaccinated against Covid-19 can access their records in a secure, verifiable and privacy-preserving way

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  Tech partnership to drive Finland’s quantum computing project

  Organisations in Finland are developing quantum computing capabilities through a state and private sector partnership

• January 15, 2021 15 Jan'21

  UK government urged to implement cloud-centric transformation plan

  The approach to digital public services needs to be reinvented to catch up with global leaders, according to new research

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Etive to create digital identity trust scheme for residential property market

  The tech company has received funding from Innovate UK to create a digital identity trust scheme, aiming to improve identity verification in the residential property sector

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Scottish councils need better digital skills, report finds

  Councils in Scotland still suffer from a lack of digital skills among staff despite progress during the pandemic, and the Scottish Local Government Digital Office has failed to deliver its goal of common platforms and joint procurement, according to...

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Old, on-premise systems targeted in Hackney ransomware attack

  Council reveals some more insight into how the Pysa ransomware gang infiltrated its systems by exploiting legacy technology

• January 14, 2021 14 Jan'21

  Unforeseen consequences of new technologies put UK at risk

  Lords committee told that the risks associated with various emerging digital technologies must be assessed together, with input from UK citizens, if the government is to avoid ‘siloisation’ of fundamentally interconnected problems

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Covid-19 immunity passport tests to begin in UK

  A Covid-19 immunity and vaccination passport developed by two UK firms and backed by Innovate UK has entered the live testing phase

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  Stolen Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine data leaked

  Data dump understood to include screenshots of emails, peer review information, PDFs and PowerPoint presentations

• January 13, 2021 13 Jan'21

  European IT outsourcing spend up in 2020 after cloud boost

  IT outsourcing sector growth is an indication that businesses are beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel amid the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic disruption it has brought

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Government appoints digital leadership roles and sets up new digital office

  The government is creating a new Central Digital and Data Office, which will be led by Home Office tech boss Joanna Davinson

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Bahrain hopes 5G roll-out will attract more tech firms to its shores

  Bahrain has completed its 5G roll-out, which will support its IT infrastructure in creating the right environment for technology firms

• January 12, 2021 12 Jan'21

  Wales invests £4.9m in digital services improvement

  Government funding aims to accelerate the design and delivery of citizen-focused offerings in Wales

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  The UK’s struggle with digital schooling

  The UK government’s sudden decision to close schools left many either unprepared or unable to provide children with online schooling, so what does home learning currently look like for children across the UK?

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  Ordnance Survey opens up direct, API access to location data for public sector

  Location data made available to public sector organisations via application programming interfaces, reducing data management overheads

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  Tech key to improving lives of people with rare diseases, says government report

  The UK Rare Diseases Framework will build on advances in genomics and data analysis to improve testing and diagnosis

• January 11, 2021 11 Jan'21

  New Zealand central bank IT system breached in cyber attack

  Bank is responding to a cyber attack after hackers breached the system of a third-party supplier

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Government use of 'general warrants' to authorise computer and phone hacking is unlawful

  A court has ruled that the security and intelligence services can no longer rely on ‘general warrants’ to authorise the hacking of large numbers of computers and phones belonging to UK citizens

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Tech sector reacts to Trump social media bans

  Facebook, Instagram and others moved to limit US president’s social media access after the violence in Washington DC, but experts have condemned them for acting too slowly, while disinformation about the riots persists

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Major facial-recognition supplier builds system to identify masked faces

  Facial-recognition supplier claims new system can accurately identify masked faces, therefore promoting public health during the pandemic. But questions remain about whether its existing UK law enforcement clients will be deploying the technology

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  AI Council advises government to do artificial intelligence moonshots

  The AI Council has published a “roadmap” of advice to government in respect of developing a UK state strategy for artificial intelligence, encompassing skills, vendor support and public sector procurement

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Brexit deal grants UK temporary data adequacy

  The EU-UK Brexit deal has granted the UK temporary data adequacy to allow for the continued flow of data across borders, but the agreement has divided data protection experts

• January 08, 2021 08 Jan'21

  Majority of suppliers won’t have software ready for CDS until March

  Brexit IT systems are all up and running, but little traffic through the borders means they haven’t yet been put to the test, and in Northern Ireland, suppliers don’t yet have software ready to use the Customs Declaration Service