News

IT for government and public sector

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  Government must hold technology companies to account on e-waste

  MPs urge UK government and global technology companies to deal with ‘tsunami of electronic waste’, which is throwing away valuable resources vital for building a sustainable future

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  Data safes will give users control over their data

  Belgian computer scientist tells Computer Weekly how people can regain control of their online personal information

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  Robots taking jobs, but creating careers

  Robotic process automation developers tell Computer Weekly about the job they never expected to be doing

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  Scottish government hands out laptops and tablets to the digitally excluded

  As part of its Connecting Scotland programme, the Scottish government is giving out 23,000 iPads and Chromebooks to low-income families and care leavers, along with two years of mobile data

• November 26, 2020 26 Nov'20

  CCS looks to hire CDIO

  Crown Commercial Service is offering nearly £150,000 for the role of chief digital information officer, who will be in charge of developing and delivering its digital and data strategy

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Scottish government unveils strategy for digital planning

  Scotland’s government has published a document that describes its strategy for the digitisation of the nation’s planning system

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Government’s infrastructure strategy says technology is key

  The strategy aims to put innovation and technology at ‘the heart’ of its approach to transforming the country, as government launches new national infrastructure bank

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Merger of national policing systems over budget and behind schedule

  UK government effort to replace legacy IT systems suffers further delays, and will not be fully completed until 2025 at the earliest

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Rishi Sunak’s Spending Review pledges £100bn to transform the country’s infrastructure

  Chancellor’s spending promise includes more than £260m for programmes such as 5G testbeds, local full-fibre networks and the Shared Rural Network

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  UK government Geospatial Commission stipulates actions to exploit location data

  Report outlines some actions public bodies and companies can take to make better economic use of location data

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  Securing UK’s critical national infrastructure is a 2021 priority

  Government outlines the UK’s strategic cyber security policies for the coming 12 months, with critical national infrastructure a clear priority

• November 25, 2020 25 Nov'20

  NHSX to launch data strategy for health and social care

  Government sets out plans to ‘bust bureaucracy’ in the NHS, including implementing a new data strategy, consulting on changes to data collection legislation, and making progress on shared care records

• November 24, 2020 24 Nov'20

  Post Office accused of lying and being in contempt of Parliament in IT scandal

  Campaigning politician demands access to documents that could prove that the Post Office lied

• November 23, 2020 23 Nov'20

  MPs subjected to over 22 million malicious email attacks in 2020

  Members of Parliament are targeted by millions of spam and phishing emails every month, according to a Freedom of Information disclosure

• November 23, 2020 23 Nov'20

  Subpostmasters want £300m from a government that allowed Post Office ‘reign of terror’

  The government allowed the Post Office to “run amok” and destroy lives, says complaint to Parliamentary Ombudsman

• November 20, 2020 20 Nov'20

  HM Land Registry drafts digital ID standards

  The department’s draft identity-checking requirements aims to provide clarity for software developers creating solutions to be used for property lawyers

• November 20, 2020 20 Nov'20

  Local authorities lagging behind in digitisation of citizen records

  Nearly a third of councils can't tell how much citizen information they store is in digital format, study shows

• November 19, 2020 19 Nov'20

  Transparency and honesty key to major programmes success, says NAO

  Major government projects often lack underlying data on costs and benefits, and it’s often not clear who is accountable for integration of different elements, according to a National Audit Office report on lessons learned on the programmes

• November 19, 2020 19 Nov'20

  Security sector broadly backs Boris Johnson’s Cyber Force

  Security community says the presence of a robust cyber defence force alongside a robust physical one will be vital to the UK’s national security

• November 19, 2020 19 Nov'20

  Fujitsu staff under investigation for potential perjury in Post Office IT trial named

  Court documents reveal the names of the Fujitsu employees under investigation for potentially providing misleading information in criminal trials

• November 18, 2020 18 Nov'20

  US cyber security chief fired for contradicting Trump

  CISA chief Chris Krebs ousted for doing his job fighting disinformation in an apparent purge of officials deemed disloyal to president Donald Trump

• November 17, 2020 17 Nov'20

  HMRC warns over uptick in Self Assessment tax scams

  HMRC issues updated warnings as 2021 Self Assessment deadlines loom

• November 17, 2020 17 Nov'20

  GDS looks for Gov.uk head of technology and architecture

  GDS role is offering up to £85,000 a year and includes being responsible for developing the Gov.uk programme as government aims to make it a platform for content, rather than just a publishing system

• November 17, 2020 17 Nov'20

  Botched software update to blame for Post Office Horizon crash

  Post Office says planned firmware update caused the problem that left branches unable to do business for 90 minutes

• November 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  Privacy advocates call for European probe into Palantir

  Dutch group SOMI is trying to raise awareness of Palantir’s data privacy practices and how it works with European government agencies

• November 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  NHS completes transition to HSCN

  All 950 NHS, social care, private sector and local authority organisations have migrated from the legacy N3 network to the Health and Social Care Network

• November 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  Human error blamed in Welsh Covid-19 patient data leak

  Public Health Wales accepts recommendations of independent probe into data breach that saw PII on 18,105 coronavirus patients leaked

• November 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  Hackney systems could be unavailable for months, says council

  A month after a highly disruptive cyber attack on its systems, Hackney Council is still struggling to get back up and running

• November 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  Government issues guidance on post-Brexit procurement

  From 1 January 2021, procurement notices will have to be published through the Find a Tender e-notification service

• November 16, 2020 16 Nov'20

  Post Office explanation of IT system outage so vague it is ‘pointless’

  Post Office criticised over vagueness of its explanation of the cause of a UK-wide IT failure that saw subpostmasters unable to do business

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  IT Priorities 2020: European IT budget share reflects home-working challenges brought by Covid

  European organisations are being forced to redivert more limited budgets during the pandemic

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  UK government makes inroads in maritime autonomy

  The Maritime Future Technologies team has been formed to facilitate trials of innovative approaches and support regulatory updates

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  Humanitarian data collection practices put migrants at risk

  United Nations report on smart borders warns that data collection about migrants and refugees by humanitarian organisations risks excluding them from essential basic services like access to food

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  Public sector IT leaders struggle with data infrastructure legacy

  The impact caused by the pandemic means government tech executives in Europe are looking for ways to quickly modernise their estates, research says

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  Police open criminal investigation into potential perjury by Fujitsu staff in Post Office IT trials

  Current and former Fujitsu staff could face prosecution for giving false evidence in the trials of subpostmasters accused of theft and false accounting

• November 13, 2020 13 Nov'20

  UKtech50 2021: Help us find the most influential people in UK IT

  Computer Weekly’s annual search for the 50 most influential people in UK IT is on – let us know who you would like to nominate for this year’s list

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  DCMS opens talks with private sector on future of digital identity market

  Department has met with suppliers to discuss plans for a trust framework to show ‘what good looks like’ as it ploughs ahead with digital identity plans

• November 12, 2020 12 Nov'20

  Company accused of spying on Assange acted for Ecuadorian Intelligence, says ex UC Global manager

  Former operations chief of UC Global told Spanish Court the company accused of spying on Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London was acting on the orders of Ecuadorian Intelligence

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Tim Berners-Lee startup releases decentralisation tech to enterprises

  Roll-out of Inrupt’s decentralised privacy technology to four large organisations is helping the startup to develop explicit use cases, which it hopes will prove the tech and lead to faster adoption

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Amazon charged with breaching EU antitrust rules

  Tech giant accused of using data it collects on smaller retailers to benefit its own e-commerce business

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  Lack of openness on Horizon errors remains as Fujitsu refuses to explain latest outage

  Subpostmasters are being kept in the dark about errors in the branch computer system they use, despite the Post Office and Fujitsu being slammed in court over their lack of openness

• November 11, 2020 11 Nov'20

  EU aid funds used to train ‘unaccountable intelligence agencies’ in high-tech surveillance

  Hundreds of documents obtained by campaign group Privacy International show how the EU is supporting surveillance programmes in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  DCMS’s Whittingdale: National data strategy not tied to EU trade deal

  Minister tells ODI Summit that national data strategy is nearly finished and will fuel UK economic growth post-Brexit and post-pandemic

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Border technologies largely fail to respect human rights

  AI-powered border technologies used to ‘manage’ migration frequently make the process more arbitrary, discriminatory and unjust, says human rights group

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Industry tells House of Lords committee it has ‘grave reservations’ about CDS

  The Customs Declaration Service is untested, unproven and not ready, and HMRC is taking a “cloak and dagger approach” to working with the industry, hears a Lords committee – but HMRC says delivery of Brexit IT is on track

• November 10, 2020 10 Nov'20

  Better data sharing needed to help children during pandemic

  Closing gaps in data infrastructure will help the education sector respond better to children’s needs during the Covid-19 pandemic, says Open Data Institute

• November 09, 2020 09 Nov'20

  EU moves closer to encryption ban after Austria, France attacks

  Draft resolution document setting up an EU-wide ban on end-to-end encryption is set to be waved through this week

• November 09, 2020 09 Nov'20

  Tampere’s perfect storm triggers a startup revolution

  Previously a hub for Nokia and Microsoft, Finland’s second-largest city is capitalising on a wealth of technical knowhow to become the dark horse of the Nordic startup scene

• November 06, 2020 06 Nov'20

  Covid-19 pandemic has significantly affected HMRC’s operations, says NAO

  NAO’s insight into HMRC’s annual report and accounts finds that the pandemic has created challenges for the department’s transformation programmes, including Universal Credit and the end of the Brexit transition period

• November 06, 2020 06 Nov'20

  Finger pointed at Fujitsu as Post Office Horizon system crashes nationally

  Post Office branches offline during busy business hours after suffering an IT error that the Post Office said related to IT from supplier Fujitsu