News

Privacy and data protection

• February 25, 2026 25 Feb'26

  The UK’s proposed social media ban explained

  The UK government will use new legal powers to lay the groundwork for an under-16 social media ban after its consultation on children’s digital well-being, but opponents warn the measures being considered will only treat the symptoms of the problem ...

• February 25, 2026 25 Feb'26

  Police created ‘intelligence profile’ of BBC journalist subject to phone surveillance

  Police and MI5 conducted seven unlawful operations to obtain phone data relating to former BBC journalist Vincent Kearney, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal heard today

• February 23, 2026 23 Feb'26

  Innovate UK cyber startup programme gets £10m funding booster

  Graduates of DSIT and Innovate UK's CyberASAP scheme to commercialise cutting-edge cyber research projects have raised nearly £50m in the past decade

• February 23, 2026 23 Feb'26

  Why crypto agility is key to quantum readiness

  With quantum computing threatening current encryption standards, experts call for organisations to achieve crypto agility by managing the lifecycle of certificates and cryptographic keys through automation

• February 19, 2026 19 Feb'26

  ICO wins appeal over data protection obligations in Currys cyber attack

  The UK Information Commissioner’s Office has won an important appeal relating to data protection obligations arising from a 2017-18 cyber attack at electronics retailer Currys PC World

• February 19, 2026 19 Feb'26

  PromptSpy Android malware may exploit Gemini AI

  A newly uncovered malware targeting the Android operating system seems to exploit Google’s Gemini GenAI tool to help it maintain persistence

• February 17, 2026 17 Feb'26

  Businesses may be caught by government proposals to restrict VPN use

  Labour proposals to restrict social media use to people aged 16 and under could have unintended consequences for businesses using virtual private networks

• February 17, 2026 17 Feb'26

  Government wages cyber campaign as half the UK’s SMEs are breached

  UK government says half of all small businesses have been cyber breached in the recent past as it urges them to ‘lock the door’

• February 17, 2026 17 Feb'26

  British Transport Police start using live facial recognition

  British Transport Police will deploy facial recognition for six months despite calls for the government to halt its rapid expansion of the technology

• February 12, 2026 12 Feb'26

  European Commission: TikTok’s addictive design breaches EU law

  In a preliminary ruling, European Commission says TikTok’s additive design features are in breach of laws designed to create safer digital spaces

• February 09, 2026 09 Feb'26

  UAE’s TII challenges big tech dominance with open source Falcon AI models

  Through its Falcon models and an open, efficiency-driven research strategy, the Technology Innovation Institute is positioning the UAE as a producer of foundational AI, not merely a consumer of global platforms

• February 09, 2026 09 Feb'26

  US bid for Dutch ID infrastructure raises sovereignty concerns

  Kyndryl’s proposed takeover shows how critical systems become exposed to foreign control without an overarching policy decision

• February 04, 2026 04 Feb'26

  UK government must get its hands dirty on security, report says

  As the UK government develops its National Cyber Action Plan, a report from the Rusi think tank urges Westminster to take a more interventionist approach

• February 03, 2026 03 Feb'26

  Infosecurity Europe launches cyber security startups stream

  Infosecurity Europe 2026 will feature a cyber security startup exhibition zone and a competition for business support, in conjunction with the UK Cyber Flywheel organisation

• February 03, 2026 03 Feb'26

  Banks on the hook for £173m in APP fraud reimbursement

  Banks paid 88% losses claimed by customers that fell victim to authorised push payment fraud last year

• February 02, 2026 02 Feb'26

  Canva uses 1Password to secure ID during growth phase

  As it underwent a growth spurt in the early 2020s, graphic design platform Canva turned to 1Password to manage identity across its expanding organisation

• January 30, 2026 30 Jan'26

  Home Office announces sweeping police technology plans

  The Home Office plans to ramp up its deployment of artificial intelligence and facial-recognition technologies under wide-ranging reforms to UK policing

• January 27, 2026 27 Jan'26

  Saudi Arabia ordered to pay £3m to UK dissident targeted with Pegasus spyware

  A court has found that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia subjected a London-based human rights activist to abuse and physical violence after infecting his phone with Pegasus spyware

• January 23, 2026 23 Jan'26

  Singapore debuts world’s first governance framework for agentic AI

  The Infocomm Media Development Authority has released a guide to help enterprises deploy artificial intelligence agents safely and address specific risks such as unauthorised actions and automation bias

• January 22, 2026 22 Jan'26

  Sportswear firm Under Armour falls victim to data breach

  Details of over 70 million customers of US sportswear giant Under Armour were leaked following a supposed ransomware attack by the Everest gang

• January 21, 2026 21 Jan'26

  UK and China reach out across cyber no-man's land

  London and Beijing have supposedly conducted high-level talks seeking to establish a joint security forum to help de-escalate potential cyber flashpoints, according to reports

• January 21, 2026 21 Jan'26

  AI slop pushes data governance towards zero-trust models

  Organisations are implementing zero-trust models for data governance thanks to the proliferation of poor quality AI-generated data, often known as AI slop

• January 15, 2026 15 Jan'26

  Zoho opens its first UAE datacentres to boost cloud adoption

  New Dubai and Abu Dhabi facilities support data sovereignty, providing CIOs with local access to more than 100 Zoho and ManageEngine cloud services

• January 13, 2026 13 Jan'26

  Microsoft patches 112 CVEs on first Patch Tuesday of 2026

  January brings a larger-than-of-late Patch Tuesday update out of Redmond, but an uptick in disclosures is often expected at this time of year

• January 13, 2026 13 Jan'26

  ‘Dual-channel’ attacks are the new face of BEC in 2026

  Business email compromise remains a significant threat as cyber fraudsters deploy a more diverse range of tactics against their potential victims, according to a report

• January 12, 2026 12 Jan'26

  Business leaders see AI risks and fraud outpacing ransomware, says WEF

  C-suite executives are more concerned with risks arising from AI vulnerabilities and cyber fraud than ransomware, according to the World Economic Forum

• January 12, 2026 12 Jan'26

  Ofcom begins investigation of explicit image generation on Grok

  Elon Musk’s Grok image generator, from parent company X, is being investigated by the UK regulator under the Online Safety Act

• January 12, 2026 12 Jan'26

  Intersec Dubai highlights why AI has become critical in the race against cyber attackers

  Cigna Healthcare’s Jean Wiles warns that healthcare security teams must act faster without sacrificing accuracy or compliance as threats driven by artificial intelligence scale

• January 08, 2026 08 Jan'26

  Like it or not, AI will transform cyber strategy in 2026

  Bubble or no bubble, from cyber skills to defensive strategies to governance, risk and compliance, artificial intelligence will remake the cyber world in 2026

• January 06, 2026 06 Jan'26

  Privacy will be under unprecedented attack in 2026

  The UK and Europe are ramping up opposition to encryption and stepping up surveillance of private communications. Here is what to expect this year

• December 31, 2025 31 Dec'25

  Top 10 surveillance, journalism and encryption stories of 2025

  A transatlantic row between the UK and the Trump administration erupted after the UK attempted to force Apple to break its advanced encryption. That was just one of a series of stories reporting on the tension between state surveillance and privacy ...

• December 30, 2025 30 Dec'25

  Top 10 technology ethics stories of 2025

  Here are Computer Weekly’s top 10 tech ethics stories of 2025

• December 29, 2025 29 Dec'25

  Top 10 cyber security stories of 2025

  AI dominated all tech conversations this year, but the concerns of cyber security professionals extend far beyond. From remote work to supply chains, quantum to identity, there were plenty of other topics for the industry to chew over in 2025.

• December 24, 2025 24 Dec'25

  Top 10 cyber crime stories of 2025

  In many regards, 2025 proved to be a relatively normal year for the cyber security world as threat actors and security pros continued their long-running cat-and-mouse game, but it was also a stand-out year that saw some of the largest cyber attacks ...

• December 19, 2025 19 Dec'25

  European Commission renews UK data adequacy agreement, ensuring continued free flow of data

  Despite calls from some data protection campaigners, the UK's agreement to allow data movement with European Economic Area countries is extended until 2031

• December 19, 2025 19 Dec'25

  ‘Sensitive’ data stolen in Westminster City Council cyber attack

  London borough confirms that data breach affecting three neighbouring councils in a shared IT services operation led to personal information being copied by a third party

• December 15, 2025 15 Dec'25

  Top IT predictions in APAC in 2026

  Enterprises across the Asia-Pacific region are expected to prioritise sovereign architectures, double down on securing agentic systems and rewrite their infrastructure playbooks, among other tech trends

• December 12, 2025 12 Dec'25

  Trump plans bonfire of US state-level AI regulation

  US president’s executive order targets state-level AI regulatory frameworks across the country, saying they are too onerous and endangering leadership in the field

• December 09, 2025 09 Dec'25

  MPs maul digital ID plans in Parliamentary debate

  MPs brand the government’s digital ID plans ‘un-British’ and ‘an attack on civil liberties’ during debate on the controversial policy

• December 09, 2025 09 Dec'25

  OAIC to launch blitz on privacy compliance

  Australia’s privacy watchdog will begin the new year with a compliance sweep targeting businesses that run afoul of privacy rules, including the over-collection of personal information in-person, warning that non-compliance could trigger fines

• December 08, 2025 08 Dec'25

  NCSC warns of confusion over true nature of AI prompt injection

  Malicious prompt injections to manipulate GenAI large language models are being wrongly compared to classical SQL injection attacks. In reality, prompt injection may be a far worse problem, says the UK’s NCSC

• December 08, 2025 08 Dec'25

  How police live facial recognition subtly reconfigures suspicion

  A growing body of research suggests that the use of live facial recognition is reshaping police perceptions of suspicion in ways that undermine supposed human-in-the-loop protections

• December 04, 2025 04 Dec'25

  Home Office launches police facial recognition consultation

  The Home Office has formally opened a 10-week consultation on a legal framework for police use of facial recognition technologies, and will consider extending any new rules to police deployments of other biometric and inferential technologies

• December 03, 2025 03 Dec'25

  NCSC and BT block a billion dangerous clicks

  A protective service jointly developed by the NCSC and BT has disrupted over a billion potential cyber incidents by stopping members of the public from clicking through to dangerous websites

• December 03, 2025 03 Dec'25

  UK national security strategy failing to account for online world

  The UK government’s national security strategy is falling short on online matters, according to the independent reviewer of terrorism

• December 03, 2025 03 Dec'25

  Post Office avoids £1m fine over botched website upgrade data breach

  The Information Commissioner’s Office considered fining the Post Office £1m for a 2024 data breach that let subpostmasters down again

• December 03, 2025 03 Dec'25

  Women in Cybersecurity Middle East marks five years of impact at Black Hat MEA

  As AI reshapes the regional cyber security landscape, diversity and skills development remain at the heart of building a resilient digital workforce

• December 03, 2025 03 Dec'25

  Black Hat MEA: Saudi Vision 2030 fuels surge in cyber security innovation

  Global cyber firms are racing to support the Kingdom’s mega-projects, but building trusted partnerships remains key, says Exabeam CEO Pete Harteveld

• December 02, 2025 02 Dec'25

  UK prosecution of alleged Chinese spies was ‘shambolic’ says Parliamentary committee

  The Joint Committee on National Security Strategy reports that China was engaged in malicious cyber attacks against UK Parliament and democratic institutions

• December 01, 2025 01 Dec'25

  Mandatory digital ID paves way for surveillance and exclusion, MPs hear

  It is currently unclear how the UK’s government’s proposed mandatory digital ID scheme will help with its stated goal of curbing illegal migration and working