News

IT for government and public sector

• March 07, 2019 07 Mar'19

  Ministry of Justice concludes prison biometrics pilots

  Use of iris scanning and facial recognition software is part of a wider crackdown on drug trafficking in UK jails

• March 07, 2019 07 Mar'19

  UK military robotics get multimillion-pound boost

  A budget of £66m from the Ministry of Defence's Transformation Fund has been allocated to a project that will see mini-drones and autonomous vehicles deployed to the battlefield

• March 05, 2019 05 Mar'19

  Government must prioritise replacement of legacy IT, MPs told

  Science and Technology Committee inquiry into digital government told that Treasury needs to offer funding in next spending review to eliminate ageing technology in Whitehall

• March 04, 2019 04 Mar'19

  GDS cut expected benefits of troubled Gov.uk Verify system by 75%

  In a highly critical report, the National Audit Office says it is 'difficult to conclude' that past decisions to continue with the flagship digital identity system have been justified

• March 04, 2019 04 Mar'19

  Cyber awareness of UK boards found wanting

  Boards of many of the UK’s biggest firms must do more to be cyber aware, according to a government report.

• March 04, 2019 04 Mar'19

  Clearer North Korean link to global infrastructure malware campaign

  Researchers have uncovered clearer links between a North Korean hacking group and a cyber espionage campaign targeting government, defence, nuclear, energy and financial organisations around the world

• March 02, 2019 02 Mar'19

  Facebook asked George Osborne to influence EU data protection law

  Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg invited one of the chancellor’s children to Facebook’s office as part of a intensive lobbying programme to influence European data protection legislation

• March 01, 2019 01 Mar'19

  Teen becomes first millionaire through HackerOne bug bounties

  A self-taught teen hacker from Argentina has become the first bug bounty hacker to become a millionaire by hacking to create a safer internet

• February 28, 2019 28 Feb'19

  Six out of eight key government systems unlikely to be ready by Brexit day

  National Audit Office update on the UK government’s readiness for Brexit identifies processes and IT systems that will not be finished by the 29 March deadline

• February 28, 2019 28 Feb'19

  Sextortion accounts for one in 10 spear-phishing emails

  Email sextortion scams have increased in frequency and scope in the past four months, as well as evolving to bypass spam filters and trick recipients into reading the messages, research shows

• February 27, 2019 27 Feb'19

  Icann calls for community collaboration to protect the internet

  The domain name system watchdog Icann has reaffirmed its commitment to engage in collaborative efforts to ensure the security, stability and resiliency of the internet’s global identifier systems

• February 27, 2019 27 Feb'19

  Chinese cyber attack group Bronze Union targeting weapons tech

  Weapons technology is among the latest targets of a highly adaptable cyber espionage group that uses a wide range of publicly available and custom attack tools, presenting a challenge to network defenders

• February 27, 2019 27 Feb'19

  NHS software deal tops public sector spending on new IT contracts in 2018

  Department of Health’s Windows 10 contract was the biggest public sector deal signed last year

• February 27, 2019 27 Feb'19

  Interview: London Grid for Learning CEO on putting technology to work in schools

  John Jackson, CEO of the London Grid for Learning, discusses how the organisation supports technology adoption in schools

• February 26, 2019 26 Feb'19

  Over 100 rural primary schools to get gigabit broadband

  Primary schools could become high-speed broadband hubs for rural communities if government plans reach fruition

• February 26, 2019 26 Feb'19

  TechUK: Digital ethics has to hit the boardroom this year

  UK IT industry lobby organisation releases a position paper contending that digital ethics must become a boardroom matter in 2019

• February 25, 2019 25 Feb'19

  EU gathers momentum in cyber security legislation and cooperation

  The past two years have seen a step-change in the rate at which the European Union is putting legislation in place to support improved cyber security standards, collaboration and sharing of resources, says digital commissioner’s representative

• February 25, 2019 25 Feb'19

  Nordic tech is increasing diversity but more needs to be done

  The shortage of women in the boardroom is a problem in the Nordics, like other regions, but work in its tech sector means the future could be more promising

• February 25, 2019 25 Feb'19

  Cyber power needs wider discussion, says GCHQ director

  The topic of cyber power needs wider discussion, says GCHQ head in a speech about the opportunities of digital innovation such as 5G, as well as the accompanying complexity and risk, with particular mention of China and Huawei

• February 25, 2019 25 Feb'19

  Nominet and Learning Foundation launch digital inclusion taskforce

  Taskforce aims to tackle digital exclusion, which leaves many people in the UK without access to digital technology

• February 22, 2019 22 Feb'19

  Health Secretary Matt Hancock orders ban on use of pagers by NHS staff before end of 2021

  Eradicating use of pagers will save the NHS £6.6m a year, as Health Secretary Matt Hancock outlines the next phase of his plan to modernise communication in the health service

• February 22, 2019 22 Feb'19

  Facebook planned to spy on Android phone users, internal emails reveal

  Facebook planned to use its Android app to track the location of its customers and to allow advertisers to send political advertising and invites to dating sites to ‘single’ people, confidential documents show

• February 22, 2019 22 Feb'19

  Nato supports collaboration on cyber security

  Nato supports collaboration and cooperation on cyber security as an organisation founded on the principle of collective defence, says representative

• February 21, 2019 21 Feb'19

  UK committed to working with EU cyber security partners

  NCSC CEO uses cyber security conference in Brussels to set out his agency’s position on Brexit, 5G security, Huawei, market incentives and international cooperation on active cyber defence

• February 21, 2019 21 Feb'19

  Government and IT industry-funded AI graduate education programme to be rolled out across UK

  UK government announces the launch of a state and IT industry-funded graduate education programme in artificial intelligence, comprising masters degrees, PhDs and Alan Turing Institute fellowships

• February 21, 2019 21 Feb'19

  Cooperation a key theme of Brussels cyber security symposium

  Fostering trust-based cooperation of like-minded cyber security stakeholders to create new strategies, policies and standards emerged as a key theme at a cyber security conference in Brussels

• February 21, 2019 21 Feb'19

  Government revises outsourcing guidelines to balance risk with suppliers

  The government has published its latest guidelines on public sector outsourcing

• February 20, 2019 20 Feb'19

  MWC 2019: 5G smartphones go live on Vodafone network

  Vodafone has connected three 5G-enabled smartphones to a live network during trials in Spain

• February 20, 2019 20 Feb'19

  Huawei faces battle to win Nordic trust

  Nordic countries are investigating the spying allegations made against Chinese networking supplier Huiawei

• February 20, 2019 20 Feb'19

  UK naïve to think China won’t try to exploit Huawei

  A think-tank report has branded the UK government naïve at best, irresponsible at worst, over its use of Chinese networking equipment in critical national infrastructure

• February 19, 2019 19 Feb'19

  Activist Lauri Love’s computer ‘contained hacked data’, says judge

  Lauri Love, who has been accused of hacking into US government computer systems, has lost a legal action against the NCA for the return of his computers and storage device

• February 18, 2019 18 Feb'19

  NCSC signals UK may take softer line on Huawei

  The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre suggests Huawei will be allowed to form core elements of the country’s 5G mobile network infrastructure after all

• February 14, 2019 14 Feb'19

  Government rules out blockchain at borders until after Brexit due to 'significant work' required

  A previous HMRC pilot of distributed ledger technology will not provide any short-term solution to issues around UK borders after Brexit

• February 13, 2019 13 Feb'19

  London and Helsinki digital partnership challenges big IT platforms

  CDOs of London and Helsinki meet at London’s City Hall to sign a city-to-city digital declaration around AI, open data and digital innovation

• February 12, 2019 12 Feb'19

  IR35 reforms: Contractors lack confidence in private sector to manage April 2020 rule change

  Research from IR35 consultancy Qdos suggests contractors lack confidence in the ability of private sector firms to adequately determine how they should be taxed after April 2020

• February 12, 2019 12 Feb'19

  Dutch developer offers businesses nuclear security option for communications

  Startup that created the secure platform for communication between world leaders at the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands seeks to revolutionise business mail

• February 11, 2019 11 Feb'19

  Lauri Love takes legal action against NCA for return of seized computers

  Lauri Love, a former engineering student who won a battle with the US Department of Justice against extradition to the US to face hacking charges, is suing the UK's intelligence agency, the NCA, for the return of his seized computers

• February 11, 2019 11 Feb'19

  AI and robotics to form part of curriculum for future medical students

  For the NHS to capitalise on the digital future, new technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics will have to be designed into the learning process for medical students

• February 07, 2019 07 Feb'19

  Nordic region primed to pioneer 5G

  The Nordic region could pioneer the commercial use of 5G, with Finland and Sweden hotbeds for the technology

• February 06, 2019 06 Feb'19

  US Department of Defense backs multi-cloud model to support $10bn JEDI mega-cloud deployment

  The US Department of Defense has fleshed out its cloud strategy, as the industry awaits news of who has secured the decade-long contract for its $10bn mega-cloud environment

• February 06, 2019 06 Feb'19

  CIO interview: David Walliker, Liverpool Women’s & Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen NHS Trusts

  Being CIO for two different NHS trusts is not an easy task, but David Walliker splits his time between the two, aiming to deliver digital transformation across the board

• February 06, 2019 06 Feb'19

  NHS screening programmes plagued by ‘not fit for purpose’ IT

  ‘Complex and ageing IT’ is causing issues for several NHS screening programmes, according to the National Audit Office

• February 06, 2019 06 Feb'19

  Suffolk County Council awards 20-year WAN contract

  MLL Telecom will work with CityFibre to extend Suffolk County Council’s existing WAN to 600 sites and offer them ultrafast connectivity services

• February 06, 2019 06 Feb'19

  UK’s IT and BPO spend plummets because of Brexit uncertainty

  UK businesses cut their investment in IT and business process outsourcing last year because of confusion over Brexit, but there was a 68% rise in public sector spending

• February 06, 2019 06 Feb'19

  Tech sector tells government that digital identity policy is 'urgently required'

  The UK tech sector has urged the government to publish policy to support the creation of a “fully functioning” digital identity market, to boost the digital economy

• February 05, 2019 05 Feb'19

  Civil liberties groups to challenge bulk surveillance and intelligence sharing in Strasbourg

  Coalition of campaigning groups wins the right to challenge the UK’s use of bulk surveillance powers, which allows suspicionless surveillance of the population and sharing of intercepted data with overseas intelligence agencies, in European Court of...

• February 05, 2019 05 Feb'19

  Cambridge launches urban data IoT project

  The city of Cambridge will use Telensa IoT sensors and a Microsoft Azure platform to better manage its urban data assets

• February 04, 2019 04 Feb'19

  Government restates SME spend commitment as large suppliers win more cloud hosting deals

  An analysis of the G-Cloud and Digital Outcomes and Specialists (DOS) framework sales figures suggests proportion of cloud hosting deals going to big suppliers is continuing to rise

• February 01, 2019 01 Feb'19

  Met Police deploys live facial recognition technology for ninth time

  Police say technology is helping to prevent and detect crime by identifying wanted criminals, but privacy groups have voiced their opposition

• February 01, 2019 01 Feb'19

  Innocent people arrested following surveillance blunders, IPCO reveals

  Interception of communications commissioner Adrian Fulford warns of “grave” repercussions for people wrongly identified as suspects due to errors made when government bodies access email, phone and telephone data