Opinion

Opinion

Europe and Middle East information technology (IT)

• Why Brexit will make software licence transfers and database copyright harder for UK firms

  Brexit will make it more difficult for UK companies to sell unused software licences and to enforce their database rights in Europe. Firms will face a legislative disadvantage over AI-generated databases  Continue Reading

• EC publishes approach to human and ethical implications of AI, but what will UK do?

  The European Commission has published a guide to the EU’s approach to the human and ethical effects that artificial intelligence might bring  Continue Reading

• The art of surveillance: the Stasi archives and the Investigatory Powers Act

  A photographic exhibition captures the chilling impact of surveillance in the UK and the former German Democratic Republic  Continue Reading

• Should tech companies capitalise R&D spending?

  Technology companies frequently ask whether they should capitalise their research and development costs. There are clear benefits, increasing reported profit and hence potential valuations, but what are the risks?  Continue Reading

• What the UK can learn from the Nordics when it comes to digital ID

  The UK and other countries can learn from the Nordic region when it comes to digital identity  Continue Reading

• Facebook’s high-stakes privacy gamble goes to Dublin court

  A high-wire gamble with billions in compensation at stake for European internet users – part of a complex case between Facebook and the Irish information commissioner – hides challenge to the unlawfulness of US state internet surveillance  Continue Reading

• Can we live without passwords?

  Can you imagine a future in which we can be secure online without having to remember an unwieldly list of passwords? Solutions are emerging that could make passwords redundant, but there will be other security problems to resolve  Continue Reading

• Douglas Engelbart, the forgotten hero of modern computing

  Half a century ago, Douglas Engelbart demonstrated an experimental computer that laid the foundations for modern computing. His vision to use computing power to solve complex problems in all areas of human activity has become reality, but not in the...  Continue Reading

• More effective digital transformation through the power of your own people

  The old model of escalating decisions up and down the management chain does not work any more. Business leaders need to delegate responsibility for projects to business and technology specialists and eliminate the fear of failure  Continue Reading

• Beyond GDPR: ePrivacy could have an even greater impact on mobile

  From how we monitor air pollution and manage our public transport systems, to how we enable connected cars and the next generation of 5G mobile services, the forthcoming ePR could have a lasting impact on European society  Continue Reading

• Big data skills shortages – and how to work around them

  Businesses are finding it hard to recruit enough people with big data and analytics skills, but for CIOs there are alternative strategies to consider  Continue Reading

• Hacking the internet of things just got easier – it’s time to look at your security

  Are you taking security for internet-connected devices seriously enough?  Continue Reading

• Blockchain: Paving the way for broad adoption

  The foundations have been laid for organisations to begin standardising on the technology, talent and platforms that will drive future blockchain initiatives  Continue Reading

• Protecting your intellectual property in a digital world

  Your business is creating innovative computer code, slick user interfaces, and is using digital technology to solve new problems. How do you protect your investment?  Continue Reading

• Moving away from analogue health in a digital world

  Healthcare records still rely on faxes, email, mail and paper, but the innovative use of technology will lead to major improvements in medical care  Continue Reading

• Driving digitisation: open standards in process automation

  Organisations often can’t take advantage of advances in digital technology due to the lack of interoperability in their IT systems in different facilities, but open standards promise a way forward  Continue Reading

• Europe’s shameful role in spy-tech exports that led to torture and jail

  Governments in Europe actively assisted in government oppression in Iran, Bahrain and Russia by providing states with sophisticated surveillance equipment. The European Parliament is pressing for changes in the law to restrict exports of ...  Continue Reading

• How to boost your personal brand as an IT professional

  Seven steps to help you build a personal brand in the workplace, articulate the value you provide and build your professional reputation  Continue Reading

• How to attract investors for your enterprise software startup

  Are you looking to find an investor for your enterprise software company? This expert advice explains what investors will be looking to find in an innovative software business seeking backing  Continue Reading

• My brother Lauri Love should have the right to a trial in the UK

  Lauri Love should face trial over hacking allegations in a British Court, rather than be extradited to the US, where his extraordinary skills will be lost to society, says his younger sister  Continue Reading

• A guide for businesses to China’s first cyber security law

  Companies that break China’s new cyber security law may be fined or even have their licence to trade in the country removed  Continue Reading

• Roam like at Home will prompt European telco consolidation

  Mobile users are understandably looking forward to an era of low phone costs now they can roam freely around the European Union, but it is very possible that they will be disappointed  Continue Reading

• Storm clouds gather for US-EU Privacy Shield data deal

  The European Parliament justice committee launches unprecedented criticism of Privacy Shield, while the Irish Court mulls future of binding corporate contracts  Continue Reading

• PSD2 – time to open and secure APIs and rethink business models

  With the EU’s Payment Service Directive (PSD2) going into effect in January 2018, banks have no time to waste in preparing for the changes it will bring  Continue Reading

• Building business value with IT4IT

  To reinvent IT, CIOs must go beyond current process-based approaches and equip their teams with the right information and tools, completely automate end-to-end workflows, and provide the business with the controls to govern IT  Continue Reading

• European Commission announces initiatives on the data economy, e-Privacy and data protection

  The European Commission (EC) recently announced the final packages to be adopted under its Digital Single Market strategy: an initiative on the data economy and proposals for the review of the e-Privacy Directive and the protection of personal data  Continue Reading

• A Good American: a personal take on mass surveillance

  Director Friedrich Moser draws some conclusions on mass surveillance from his groundbreaking documentary on the work of NSA whistleblower, Bill Binney  Continue Reading

• Data breaches: Different regions, very different impacts

  The cost, scrutiny and pressure of dealing with a data breach will become more apparent in the near future as European legislation takes effect  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: EU data security principles apply, regardless of Brexit

  What are the pros and cons of Brexit for information security professionals and data protection?  Continue Reading

• Six essential processes for keeping data secure

  Data security is increasingly vital for organisations as the countdown begins for compliance with new rules imposed by the EU’s general data protection regulation  Continue Reading

• Privacy Shield gets green light – for now

  Privacy Shield faces inevitable legal challenges, so organisations should prepare by considering legal and practical alternatives  Continue Reading

• Brexit and technology: How network effects will damage UK IT industry

  Although largely ignored in the Brexit debate, network effects will damage the UK's high-tech industry if Britain leaves Europe  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: Infosec pros need to identify and protect GDPR-relevant data

  What is the role of information security professionals in helping organisations to ensure they are compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: Understanding compliance with the GDPR

  What is the role of information security professionals in helping organisations to ensure they are compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: All aboard as European data regulation nears final station

  What is the role of information security professionals in helping organisations to ensure they are compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: How infosec pros should influence prep for GDPR

  What is the role of information security professionals in ensuring organisations comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: Key GDPR issues for infosec pros to address

  What is the role of information security professionals in ensuring organisations comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: Infosec pros can kickstart GDPR prep with data audit

  What is the role of information security professionals in ensuring organisations comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018?  Continue Reading

• Security Think Tank: Information security professionals have key role in GDPR compliance

  What is the role of information security professionals in helping organisations to ensure they are compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by 25 May 2018?  Continue Reading

• The European Cloud Initiative: A silver lining for data sharing?

  The European Commission has published proposals for a new cloud initiative – part of a package of measures designed to enhance the EU’s position in the global, data-driven economy  Continue Reading

• Privacy Shield: Imperfect and incomplete

  Adoption of Privacy Shield is unlikely before June 2016, and the scheme is likely to be challenged by national data protection authorities and individuals, writes Huw Beverley-Smith  Continue Reading

• Brexit debate: Why IT pros should vote to leave

  IT consultant Peter Chadha gives five reasons why the UK would be better off leaving the European Union  Continue Reading

• EU moves towards digital single market with online content portability

  Lawyers Chris Watson and Tom Scourfield explain how the EU is moving towards the creation of a digital single market with its proposal for online content portability  Continue Reading

• Network security systems – dedicated or multifunction?

  For small and medium-sized businesses looking to secure their networks, multifunction security systems are a better option than best-of-breed technology  Continue Reading

• Can a digital single market give Europe the lead?

  The objective of the European digital single market looks hard to achieve. A focus on digital platforms could provide a way  Continue Reading

• European regulation shakes up online payments security

  Payment service providers and merchants should lose no time in assessing the affect of proposed European security regulations  Continue Reading

• Drones in UK skies: an increasingly crowded regulatory airspace

  With drones becoming commonplace in the UK, the law has been required to evolve and play catch-up  Continue Reading

• Turkey’s internet restrictions – a hindrance to the country’s IT ambitions?

  Legal experts examine recent changes to Turkish Internet Law and the potential impact on the country’s IT business environment  Continue Reading

• Germany and the UK - Europe’s technology pioneers

  Stephen Georgiadis, managing director at investment bank Altium, explores the thriving technology sectors in the UK and Germany  Continue Reading

• The legal considerations of the internet of things

  As with many new technologies, there are a number of tricky legal challenges to consider as part of widespread IoT adoption  Continue Reading

• Two years after 'unacceptable' - the state of government IT today

  Two years ago, G-Cloud founder Chris Chant called government IT 'unacceptable'. Now outside Whitehall, what does he think has changed?  Continue Reading

• Why NSA spying is breaking UK law

  A former White House lawyer confirms Fisa corporations were under secret court orders to spy on their customers outside the US  Continue Reading

• Why Europe is wrong to kill Safe Harbour

  Suspending the EU-US Safe Harbour agreement on data protection will do nothing to address surveillance, says international policy analyst  Continue Reading

• European Cloud Computing Strategy to create 2.5 million new jobs

  All those involved in cloud computing, whether providers or customers, should follow developments in Europe in 2014 closely  Continue Reading

• Cloud supplier lock-in – our experience

  Always ask before entering into any agreement, “How do I get my data out in the future if I need or want to?"  Continue Reading

• Google, privacy and data protection: One step beyond (the law)?

  A hearing in the High Court has seen Google challenge the applicability of English Law to its operations in the UK, which run off servers based in California  Continue Reading

• Is the smart meter programme really doomed? Don’t panic...

  The UK's £11bn smart meter roll-out has been heavily criticised - but is it really the disaster in the making that it has been portrayed?  Continue Reading

• Whiteboard it – the power of graph databases

  Graph databases map relationships between entities in a network. They won’t replace conventional relational databases, but for harnessing the value of interconnectedness they mark a breakthrough  Continue Reading

• Interflora versus M&S: taking advantage of the internet

  The long-standing dispute on the trademark infringement of the Interflora brand by M&S in keyword advertising will be decided by the High Court in mid-April 2013  Continue Reading

• Building trust and transparency into business culture

  As controversy over the Libor fixing rate continues, ethics and transparency are highlighted as priorities for company executives  Continue Reading

• BYOD: Businesses must be clear on data privacy

  Businesses looking to implement a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program must be aware that the parameters of what they can and cannot do with a mobile device management (MDM) platform are governed by local data privacy legislation, which ...  Continue Reading

• Delivering social change through crowdsourcing

  Free and open source tools now mean that anyone can quickly create an online map to visualise the issue they most care about and use it to build a compelling case for action.  Continue Reading

• Emerging markets: The future home of IT spend?

  Cognizant group CEO of technology and operations, R. Chandrasekaran, talks about IT spending in emerging markets  Continue Reading

• Recession could spell the triumph of the cloud service provider

  Recessions provide the strongest possible impulse to cut costs. Will this mean the death of the in-house IT department and the triumph of the cloud service provider?  Continue Reading

• Businesses face tough EC data protection laws

  If leaks are to be believed, a proposed European Commission law will require countries to adopt stringent new data protection measures.  Continue Reading

• Opinion: Personal device momentum will challenge traditional mobile sourcing strategies

  Enterprises are embracing mobility at an unprecedented pace, and this trend will continue to gain momentum over the next five years, writes Brownlee Thomas, principal analyst at Forrester Research.  Continue Reading

• Global sourcing trends in 2011

  Every January, we survey our outsourcing experts in Asia, Europe and the USA about the state of the market and the likely trends over the next 12 months. The results always show interesting similarities – and differences – in attitudes around the ...  Continue Reading

• Opinion: Google Italy convictions a concern

  A mixture of concern and disbelief has greeted the news that three...  Continue Reading

• Opinion: The impact of Google's trademark victory

  The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has delivered its judgment in the landmark case of Google France versus Louis Vuitton Malletier.  Continue Reading

• Do we need a single cyber-security organisation to secure the internet?

  A poll by Infosecurity Europe has found that 60% of organisations think that the internet needs a cyber-security organisation to oversee it. Here industry experts have their say  Continue Reading

• Data can be safer in the cloud than on the desktop

  As computing moves out of the desktop and onto the internet, worries about security have mounted. If you store data in another company's servers, in the cloud, how can you be confident that it is safe? writes Eran Feigenbaum, director of security, ...  Continue Reading

• The future of Indian and Scottish outsourcing

  We discovered a step-change in India's future business model  Continue Reading

• Opinion: Could the Air France crash have been related to on-board computer systems?

  In the aftermath of the Air France Airbus 330 airliner crash in to the Atlantic, questions are once again being raised about the safety of flying by onboard computer systems.  Continue Reading

• Opinion: BBC Click exploited world’s poor and vulnerable

  By purchasing and using an illegal computer botnet, BBC’s “Click” programme chose to educate their affluent English-speaking technically savvy audience about computer security by exploiting 21,000 poor and vulnerable computer users in the developing...  Continue Reading

• Mobile payments offer new hope to smartphone makers

  Non-European countries are rapidly improving their citizens' ability to pay for goods using their mobile phones , writes Elodie Franceschini ,...  Continue Reading

• Email blunders, messaging mishaps and more: Your stories...

  Many people have fallen foul of the ‘email quarantine trap’, or have mistakenly sent the wrong email to the wrong person. Well, we asked for your stories - and you certainly had plenty of blunders to share!  Continue Reading

• How do we tackle political cyber-crime?

  Politically motivated computer crime has been growing steadily since the late 1980s. How should we deal with it? Kent Anderson, managing director at Encurve, LLC and member of ISACA’s Security Management Committee, offers his opinion.  Continue Reading

• Will ID cards ever be in demand?

  As the private sector around the world adopts ID cards for various uses, will voluntary demand for such schemes ever happen in the UK? Home Secretary...  Continue Reading

• IT outsourcing in a global economic downturn

  The continuing global economic downturn presents UK companies with a growing challenge to cut internal fixed costs and maximise profits, writes Nick Holland,...

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• Legal uniformity needed to tackle data breaches

  The clamour for specific security-breach legislation in the UK following the breach at Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs and more recent announcements by major corporations needs to be given more thought.  Continue Reading

• Towards another dotcom boom?

  At the University of Southampton's School of Electronics & Computer Science, we have just witnessed a major increase in computer science undergraduate numbers. In fact, our recent intake of 94 undergraduates, which is 20% higher than last year, is ...  Continue Reading

• DPM's Diary: 27 November 2007

  Catch up with events from Bogcaster Council  Continue Reading

• Your shout: Have your say on ageism contributing to the skills shortage

  In response to Next Move (Computer Weekly, 15 March) where the question was whether 37 is too old to be a network engineer  Continue Reading

• Thought for the day: Breaking the boundaries

  Ten more countries will be joining the UK in the European Union soon, but what will this mean for the IT job market, asks Colin...  Continue Reading

• Why core systems need to be integrated

  Despite the historic problems with the implementation of early enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, major retailers are...  Continue Reading