News

IT for government and public sector

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  ICT disaster threatens Dutch environment law

  The Dutch government’s revamp of its construction planning law faces major IT challenges and scepticism

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  Tech and data key to achieving low-carbon economy, says Royal Society

  Report says net-zero transition should be data-led, and calls for coordination between government, regulators, industry and third sector

• December 03, 2020 03 Dec'20

  ‘Significant risk’ UK won’t be ready by end of Brexit transition period, says PAC

  Public Accounts Committee is concerned with IT systems still being in development stage, leaving ‘little margin before they must be operational’, and criticises government for seeming to take ‘limited responsibility’ for readiness

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  Greater Manchester launches digital inclusion taskforce

  The group including industry, community and government representatives will aim to fix the digital divide in the region

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  Covid-19: Cyber criminals will target vaccine programmes

  Interpol issues a global alert to law enforcement as the UK becomes one of the first countries to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for use

• December 02, 2020 02 Dec'20

  Singapore government remains ‘juicy target’ for cyber attackers

  The government is baking security into the design and implementation of its IT systems and looking to increase bug bounties to fend off cyber threats

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  Wayra partners with UK government for Latin American scaleup project

  Two scaleups from three Latin American countries – Argentina, Chile and Uruguay – will be selected by a project that will help the growing firms expand overseas into the UK market

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  22,000 malicious .uk domains suspended in past year

  Nominet has suspended just over 22,000 domains in the 12 months to 31 October 2020, continuing a downward trend, and with less impact from Covid-19 than might be expected

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  Greenwich launches four-year digital strategy

  Strategy is based on six principles, including focusing on the needs of residents and being data-led and agile, and aims to create a truly digital council and borough

• December 01, 2020 01 Dec'20

  Government covers its ears as complaint by victims of Post Office abuse heads to ombudsman

  Government denies responsibility for the abuse inflicted on subpostmasters by the Post Office over faulty IT system

• November 30, 2020 30 Nov'20

  More than 1,300 teachers trained by National Centre for Computing Education

  Government-funded centre aimed at supporting computing teachers has reached more than 29,000 teachers and trained over 1,300 to deliver computing curriculum

• November 30, 2020 30 Nov'20

  MI5 accused of withholding surveillance compliance failures from cabinet minister

  MI5 withheld high-risk concerns about its ability to comply with legislation from the home secretary when it submitted applications for surveillance warrants, NGOs Privacy International and Liberty claimed last week

• November 30, 2020 30 Nov'20

  $60m Middle East tech fund targets 120 startups

  Venture capital fund expects rapid regional technology growth in the post-Covid-19 world

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  Lords propose making tech giants pay for using news

  Digital platforms such as Google and Facebook profit from running adverts alongside publishers’ content, but no financial compensation is given for carrying that content, says Lords committee

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  NI police unable to delete data seized unlawfully from journalists for 10 years

  The Police Service of Northern Ireland is unable to delete terabytes of unlawfully seized data taken from journalists who exposed police failings in the investigation of the Loughinisland sectarian murders

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  Algorithmic transparency obligations needed in public sector

  Public sector’s use of algorithms with social impacts needs to be more transparent to foster trust and hold organisations responsible for the negative outcomes their systems may produce, says report

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  Government pumps £20m into AI research projects

  Alan Turing Institute’s artificial intelligence (AI) research fellows will receive funding for 15 projects including using AI to detect cancer and improve the performance of virtual personal assistants

• November 27, 2020 27 Nov'20

  Spending Review commits £32m to Gov.uk Accounts

  Government Digital Service’s Gov.uk Accounts project will allow people to sign into government services online and get a personalised experience tailored to their needs

• 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