News

IT legislation and regulation

• February 11, 2022 11 Feb'22

  CMA secures final Privacy Sandbox guarantees from Google

  The CMA has secured a final set of Privacy Sandbox commitments from Google relating to the proposed removal of third-party cookies from its Chrome browser

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  IR35 reforms: HMRC slammed for ‘over-collecting tax’ from non-compliant public sector bodies

  HMRC has moved to play down claims it is collecting more tax than it is due when tackling non-compliance with the IR35 reforms in the public sector

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  How diplomatic immunity silenced the prosecutor who coordinated Sweden’s EncroChat probe

  Defence lawyers claim Swedish court decision not to hear evidence from a Swedish prosecutor leaves important legal questions unanswered over international police operation to hack EncroChat cryptophone network

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  UK second in money laundering hall of shame

  Banks need to step up their anti-money laundering processes if billions of pounds’ worth of criminal activity is to be prevented

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  IR35: NAO slams HMRC’s ‘haphazard’ roll-out of off-payroll reforms to public sector

  National Audit Office’s 60-page report on the 2017 roll-out of the IR35 reforms claims HMRC’s actions made non-compliance a ‘highly likely’ outcome for public sector bodies

• February 10, 2022 10 Feb'22

  Call for easier consolidation as Ofcom investigates UK mobile market shake-up

  UK communications regulator sets out initial thinking on how the UK mobile market might develop and how networks might need to evolve to meet future demand

• February 09, 2022 09 Feb'22

  Minister defends digital economy legislation before Lords

  A digital minister has said that the UK’s forthcoming digital markets legislation is ‘superior’ to similar efforts in the EU, but could not commit to a specific time frame for when it will be introduced to Parliament

• February 08, 2022 08 Feb'22

  The Security Interviews: Building the UK’s future cyber ecosystem

  As the government lays out the next iteration of its Cyber Security Strategy, we speak to Plexal and Lorca’s Saj Huq about his work building a cyber ecosystem to support the UK’s future ambitions

• February 08, 2022 08 Feb'22

  Parasol data breach: Contractors rage as fallout from umbrella cyber attack continues

  Contractors working for the Parasol umbrella company are querying why it has taken so long for news of the firm's data breach, which is linked to a cyber attack on its systems five weeks ago, to come to light

• February 08, 2022 08 Feb'22

  Porn sites will be legally required to verify users’ ages

  Porn sites could be legally obliged to verify that their users are 18 or over under proposed online safety rules, in UK government’s second attempt to prevent children from accessing pornography online

• February 08, 2022 08 Feb'22

  Right to disconnect and less monitoring key to better remote work

  The World Health Organisation and International Labour Organisation warn against invasive workplace surveillance and promote right to disconnect in joint briefing on how to promote healthy and safe remote working

• February 07, 2022 07 Feb'22

  Umbrella IT contractors urged to seize on court ruling to reclaim withheld holiday pay

  The outcome of a court ruling concerning a holiday pay dispute between Pimlico Plumbers and one of its former employees could have costly implications for the umbrella company sector, it is claimed

• February 07, 2022 07 Feb'22

  Global IT companies ready to fight for Russian market

  International IT firms have begun the process of complying with the latest regulations imposed on them by the Russian government

• February 07, 2022 07 Feb'22

  Met police deploy facial recognition in Westminster

  Police facial recognition deployment resulted in four arrests, but questions remain about the necessity, proportionality and legality of the technology’s use

• February 03, 2022 03 Feb'22

  EC proposes new directive to improve gig economy work conditions

  Gig economy workers in Europe could be entitled to more rights and better workplace protections under a directive proposed by the European Commission

• February 03, 2022 03 Feb'22

  6GHz Wi-Fi spectrum critical to enable Australian technology innovation

  Global spectrum organisation calls on Australia to set aside the full 1200MHz of available 6GHz spectrum for Wi-Fi applications under the country’s communications and media authority licensing framework

• February 03, 2022 03 Feb'22

  Brookson and Parasol cyber attacks: Contractor complaints about delayed payments continue

  Several weeks on from the suspected ransomware attack that blighted two of the umbrella industry’s biggest players, contractors are still chasing their missing money

• February 03, 2022 03 Feb'22

  French Supreme Court raises constitutional questions over EncroChat hacking secrecy

  Conseil Constitutionnel to decide whether ‘defence secrecy’ over state EncroChat cryptophone hacking breaches French constitution

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  Mechanism underlying cookie popups found in breach of GDPR

  A fundamental element of the mechanism by which the advertising industry requests tracking consent from web users has been found in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  UK government slammed for not living up to broadband promises

  Broadband industry criticises UK government for not living up to its promises as new connectivity goals announced

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  Reforms needed to tackle economic crime, says Treasury Committee

  The Treasury Committee is disappointed at progress towards tackling economic crime and fraud in both the online and offline worlds, and is calling for more action

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  Nationwide Building Society streamlines digital onboarding through API

  Building society is improving its digital onboarding process through application programming interface-based technology from a US startup

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  MPs call on government to ‘push harder’ and ‘act faster’ amid online fraud epidemic

  MPs on the Treasury Committee want the government to act quickly to reduce the amount of money being stolen through online fraud

• February 02, 2022 02 Feb'22

  British Council data exposed by third-party cyber failure

  The British Council entrusted confidential data on its students to a third-party and was let down

• February 01, 2022 01 Feb'22

  Met Police faces legal action over Gangs Matrix

  Campaign group Liberty is taking legal action against the Met over its use of the Gangs Matrix, claiming it is driven by racial stereotypes and disproportionately affects people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds

• February 01, 2022 01 Feb'22

  Dutch software engineers join campaign for research funding

  Software researchers from all over Europe are sounding the alarm: to maintain a strong international competitive position, more financial resources must be committed to software research

• January 31, 2022 31 Jan'22

  Data on children of armed forces personnel exposed in breach

  Data on 4,142 children of serving armed forces personnel was exposed in a data breach at the Ministry of Defence

• January 28, 2022 28 Jan'22

  Cyber skills gap affecting data privacy practice, finds ISACA

  Organisations are struggling to fill both legal and technical privacy roles, with potentially damaging consequences, according to a report

• January 27, 2022 27 Jan'22

  UK spectrum sharing should be a spectrum policy priority, says UK SPF

  UK Spectrum Policy Forum and Ofcom makes call for mobile spectrum sharing to be a policy priority as demand is expected to increase in the coming years

• January 27, 2022 27 Jan'22

  Umbrella company cyber attacks prompt fresh calls for sector regulation to protect contractors

  With the umbrella company industry increasingly finding itself under attack from cyber criminals, contracting market stakeholders embark on a fresh round of calls for the industry to be regulated

• January 26, 2022 26 Jan'22

  MPs to debate landmark IoT security law

  Proposed bill mandates tighter protections for connected products, and adds new rules for broadband roll-out into the bargain

• January 26, 2022 26 Jan'22

  Vodafone UK to begin 3G switch-off in 2023

  UK mobile operator gives notice that it will begin to retire its legacy network in a year’s time, with 4G and 5G networks to get coverage and speed boost from repurposing of 3G spectrum

• January 25, 2022 25 Jan'22

  More evidence needed to establish 5G’s green credentials

  Research paper from UK university cautions that received wisdom of sustainability associated with next-generation mobile technology is not currently backed up by a strong, publicly available, fully transparent evidence base

• January 25, 2022 25 Jan'22

  Cyber Essentials programme gets biggest update since launch

  NCSC implements a thorough revision of its Cyber Essentials scheme to reflect the changing security landscape

• January 25, 2022 25 Jan'22

  Retailers mired by manual data integration

  Retail relies on third-party data sources to drive business decisions and competitive pricing, but many struggle to pull in this data

• January 24, 2022 24 Jan'22

  MPs say Online Safety Bill fails to tackle full range of harms

  A DCMS select committee has warned that the Online Safety Bill should be expanded to cover more types of harmful content, such as child abuse material designed to circumvent content removal

• January 21, 2022 21 Jan'22

  Tinder algorithm charging users more based on age

  Popular dating app Tinder could have broken data protection and equality laws by using personal data about people’s age to set different prices

• January 21, 2022 21 Jan'22

  Mandiant analysts: Russia-backed APTs likely to ramp up attacks

  More cyber attacks like those perpetrated against targets in Ukraine are to be expected, and they may become more destructive

• January 21, 2022 21 Jan'22

  Cyber pros: Don’t revel in REvil’s downfall just yet

  The arrests of REvil’s alleged kingpins is a welcome step, but as with any disruption to cyber criminal activity, it is never wise to assume law enforcement action means the threat has passed entirely

• January 21, 2022 21 Jan'22

  MoJ faces ICO enforcement over subject access requests backlog

  Ministry of Justice receives enforcement notice from information commissioner over ‘substantial’ backlog of subject access requests described as being of ‘significant concern’

• January 20, 2022 20 Jan'22

  Updated cyber security regulations proposed for managed services sector

  The Network and Information Systems regulations are to be updated to include MSPs and outsourcers, following a spate of supply chain attacks

• January 20, 2022 20 Jan'22

  Advantages of traditional banks are weakening amid digital challenge, says FCA

  Weakening of the advantages enjoyed by traditional banks over the years is “driven by digital innovation and changing consumer behaviour”, says regulator

• January 20, 2022 20 Jan'22

  UK parliamentary committee casts doubt on government’s gigabit connectivity targets

  UK parliamentary committee pours scorn on Department of Culture, Media and Sport’s confidence in meeting targets for gigabit connectivity

• January 19, 2022 19 Jan'22

  Investigators find Beijing 2022 app riddled with security flaws

  Security flaws in Olympic app may put personal health data at risk of compromise in a man-in-the-middle attack

• January 19, 2022 19 Jan'22

  Content removal will not stop misinformation, says Royal Society

  Censorship of scientific misinformation online could exacerbate feelings of distrust, so government should look at information literacy and funding fact checkers instead, says report

• January 19, 2022 19 Jan'22

  Twelve million jobs to be lost to automation in Europe by 2040

  Millions of current jobs in Europe will be carried out by robots as software robots automate processes

• January 18, 2022 18 Jan'22

  Police take down VPN linked to multiple ransomware hits

  German police led a multinational effort to seize and take down the LabVPN service, which was allegedly used by cyber criminals to facilitate ransomware attacks

• January 17, 2022 17 Jan'22

  Test police algorithms in court rather than legislate, Lords told

  Police algorithms and their impacts should be tested and challenged in court, rather than controlled by new laws, says policing minister

• January 17, 2022 17 Jan'22

  Umbrella firm Parasol confirms ‘malicious activity’ as root cause of ongoing systems outage

  Umbella company confirms a ‘malicious activity on its network’ as the root cause of a systems outage that has delayed salary payments to thousands of contractors across the UK

• January 14, 2022 14 Jan'22

  Umbrella company Brookson self-refers to NCSC following cyber attack on its network

  Contractor payroll, accounting and compliance firm confirms its networks have been targeted by an ‘extremely aggressive’ cyber attack that has resulted in some of its systems being proactively taken offline