IT news in your industry sector

UK government allocates £17.5m to farming innovation programme

Farming innovation initiative aims to drive productivity and sustainability among farmers, growers and other businesses Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Spectra Logic unveils Vail hybrid cloud storage virtualisation

Vail provides single pool of storage overlay to on-premise flash, disk and tape, plus cloud via object storage interface with Posix-compliance promised in future releases Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

US intelligence agencies issue advisory on BlackMatter gang

Joint advisory on ransomware gang warns about potential of further attacks on critical infrastructure providers Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Lloyds Bank closes more branches as customers migrate to digital channels

Banking group has announced more closures as part of the ongoing reduction of its branch network Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

LightBasin hackers breach 13 telcos in two years

Hackers have obtained an undisclosed volume of subscriber information and call metadata in a sustained campaign against telecommunications firms Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Forget the 'free' software, the real value of open-source is the collaboration

It’s a cliché, but why are we still reinventing wheels? It is increasingly clear that the real value and opportunity in open-source isn’t so much the actual software itself, but the collaborative ... Continue Reading

By

• Bryan Betts, Freeform Dynamics

Oracle NetSuite embeds HSBC corporate banking services into ERP

Oracle Netsuite integrates HSBC corporate banking services into its latest software Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

American Express announces global hybrid working model

US credit card giant is latest corporate to formalise hybrid working following the success of informal policies introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

What does Saudi Arabia’s autonomous vehicle agenda mean to the rest of the world?

If all goes according to plan, within a few years, one million people will live in Saudi Arabia’s ‘city of the future’ – and every one of them will depend on a fleet of self-driving cars Continue Reading

By

• Pat Brans, Pat Brans Associates/Grenoble Ecole de Management

DWP IT chief outlines the challenges of establishing a Chief Data Office

According to DWP chief Katharine Purser, interoperability between government systems is one of the main barriers to improving the handling of data Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Police IT buyers should compel suppliers to prove AI claims

House of Lords told that UK law enforcement bodies should use their position as buyers to compel private sector suppliers to divulge more information about how their AI-powered technologies work Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Zopa becomes unicorn with latest funds to go to bank operation

Zopa will invest in its growing digital bank operation after becoming a unicorn in its latest fund-raising round Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Want to sidestep public cloud? AuriStor offers global file storage

Built to scale hugely, and built for high performance and security, Auristor offers NAS-like Posix-compatible storage to customers that want to avoid public cloud Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Singapore pulls ahead with public sector 5G trials

Singapore’s public sector organisations are testing the use of 5G connectivity to remotely operate an autonomous vehicle for road-sweeping, among other use cases Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Time to take a step back on police use of facial recognition

We’ve all seen the detective shows on TV. The cops find a CCTV picture of the likely “perp”. The put-upon junior detective is tasked with wading through a database of photos in the hope of finding ... Continue Reading

By

• Bryan Glick, Editor in chief

Government launches consultation on future of medical devices

UK government aims is to gather views on possible changes around innovations in the medical device field, including the creation of a regulatory framework for software and artificial intelligence Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

How Samlesbury, Lancashire became the home of the National Cyber Force

The National Cyber Force, a new branch of the military, is gearing up to fight battles in cyber space from the fields of Lancashire. Its presence is expected to bring a high-tech renaissance to the region Continue Reading

By

• Bill Goodwin, Computer Weekly

Argos topped online sales for sports and outdoor gear in 2020

Research by betting firm Wette.de has found Argos was the top retailer for online sales of sports-based and outdoor goods during the height of the pandemic Continue Reading

By

• Clare McDonald, Business Editor

Manchester City teams up with Qualtrics for fan experience management

Manchester City is teaming up with online survey software firm Qualtrics, part-owned by long-term City Football Group supplier SAP, to engage more intelligently with the football club’s fanbase Continue Reading

By

• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

Global IT outsourcing sees record spending and no sign of slowing

Cloud services are being taken up by enterprises rapidly as they accelerate digital transformations Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Apple scheme to detect child abuse creates serious privacy and security risks, say scientists

Apple’s plan to automatically scan photos to detect child abuse would unduly risk the privacy and security of law-abiding citizens and could open up the way to surveillance, say the world’s top cryptographic experts Continue Reading

By

• Duncan Campbell , 2QQ Ltd, Sussex University

NHS Digital enhances in-house cyber awareness drive

Keep IT Confidential campaign aims to help NHS staff understand more about security threats and learn how to reduce risk Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

UK government advances voter ID project

Cabinet Office-led project will see the introduction of a digital card to be used in future elections Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Darlington Building Society invests in platform for digital transformation

Building society is looking to satisfy existing customers and attract new ones by meeting their digital service-level expectations Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

FCSA clarifies anti-tax avoidance stance of offshore Charter change for umbrella firms

The Freelancer and Contractor Services Association (FCSA) has published a revised version of its membership Charter to reinforce its commitment to ensuring its members do not operate offshore tax avoidance schemes Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

SocGen to cull thousands of jobs and move to single IT platform in merger with subsidiary

French bank’s move to a single banking platform will enable it to cater for changing customer demands Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Institutes of Technology launch to upskill adults in tech careers

Up to 4,000 working professionals will be trained in subjects such as cyber security and agricultural robotics to plug the national skills gap Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Government to launch Gov.uk app

Service to be introduced as part of plans to simplify access to government services Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Post Office Horizon scandal inquiry announces first public hearing

Public inquiry into the Post Office Horizon scandal will hold its first public hearing next month Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Ban UK police use of facial-recognition, House of Lords told

Experts giving evidence to the House of Lords have said that UK police use of facial-recognition technology is disproportionate and ineffective, and further questioned the utility of algorithmic crime ‘prediction’ tools Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Digital gender gap prompts $1tn GDP loss for developing countries

A new study by the Web Foundation investigates the economic cost associated with the barriers preventing women from accessing the internet Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Morgan Stanley brings diverse fintech innovation to London

US bank expands its diversity-focused fintech accelerator programme to Europe with an initial £1m investment Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Nearly half of finance firms will acquire or partner fintechs in next year

UK financial services firms are preparing to acquire or partner fintechs as they target business growth Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

UK government outlines strengths and weaknesses in innovation

As part of the government’s overall innovation strategy, an evidence paper lists factors that influence the pace and direction of developments in the field Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

AI estimated to provide 10% boost to UK GDP by 2030

AI has financial benefits but there are concerns the technology could displace a significant number of human workers in the next decade, says report Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

How AI – and puffins – are boosting renewable energy

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we find out how an artificial intelligence system for tracking puffins could help boost renewable energy use. We examine the often-overlooked, but often damaging, diversity issue of age discrimination in tech. And we look at the key considerations when choosing enterprise cloud file services. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Sensitive documents to stay with whistleblower after deadline for agreement for their return passes

A deadllne to agree the safe return of the sensitive banking details of former and current NatWest Group customers has passed without agreement Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

West Midlands expected to grow by £2.7bn with tech sector drive

The region is expected to create 52,000 job positions in the next four years Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Craft beer specialist Brewdog fixes serious app vulnerability

Vulnerability in brewer’s mobile app could have resulted in serious consequences for its shareholders and customers Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Fast-moving Ryuk campaign targets healthcare organisations

Newly designated FIN12 gang leverages the work of the cyber criminal ecosystem to conduct lightning-fast ransomware attacks Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

NatWest admits to weaknesses in anti-money laundering systems

Bank pleads guilty to failures concerning the laundering of hundreds of millions of pounds, but says it has since improved its anti-money laundering systems Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

ONS publishes technical learnings of UK’s first online census

Use of agile delivery and cloud computing were among the highlights of the Census 2021, which received 22 million responses countrywide Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

HCL Benelux telco partnership targets SME and government

Indian IT service provider signs partnership that will see it modernise the core technology of Proximus to offer its services through Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Is ‘suite’ becoming a dirty word?

How much attention do you pay to the pros and cons of software and service bundling? I was reminded of the topic on a recent briefing call with Dave Russell, Veeam’s VP of enterprise strategy, ... Continue Reading

By

• Dale Vile, Freeform Dynamics

Uber faces legal action over ‘racist’ facial verification system

Two UK-based unions are taking Uber to court, claiming their members have been unfairly dismissed as a result of misidentification by the company’s facial verification system Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Twitch data breach investigations continue

Investigations are ongoing into a 125GB data breach that hit livestreaming platform Twitch, apparently the work of hacktivists Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

CW Middle East: Middle East hospitals accelerate take-up of healthcare technologies

The Middle East is accelerating its take-up of digital healthcare technologies following lessons learned during the Covid-19 pandemic, with regional government turning to technology to track disease trends and monitor treatment. Also read in this issue how the UAE’s National Program for Coders will offer ‘golden visas’ to 100,000 entrepreneurs, enterprise owners and startups. Continue Reading

How data drives Air Canada’s cargo business

Data-driven insights and artificial intelligence are helping Air Canada to find a new business path as it expands its cargo business following the pandemic Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Ron Thompson, CDO, Nasa: Mind the data gap

Data is the crown jewels of business, but is often siloed. We speak to the chief data officer at Nasa about developing a data integration culture Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

French Caisse uses NetApp to move backups to object storage

State financial arm wanted to move backups held on NAS file-based storage to object storage, so stuck with NetApp StorageGRID and achieved near-seamless migration Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Glasgow publishes draft digital housing strategy

Reducing digital exclusion, improving connectivity and citizen services are part of the plan Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

MEPs approve report opposing certain uses of AI by police

European policymakers have approved a report on the use of AI in criminal matters, rejecting several amendments in the process that would have made it easier for police to potentially conduct predictive analytics and biometric surveillance Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

US lawmakers propose ransomware reporting rules

Former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren lends her support to a bill that would require corporate ransomware victims to disclose more information about their attacks to the authorities Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Gaming service Twitch hacked, data leaked

Users of livestreaming platform Twitch may be at risk after a 125GB torrent of data was leaked Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Tech Nation adds 30 fintech scaleups to growth programme as funding continues to rise

UK government-backed startup network adds 30 fintechs to its growth programme amid record investments in finance tech sector Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Ocado gets closer to autonomous delivery with Wayve trial

Startup Wayve takes what it believes is a different approach to autonomous driving by modelling the behaviour of a driver Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

Top women in UK tech, AI on puffin island – Computer Weekly Downtime Upload podcast

In this episode, Caroline Donnelly, Clare McDonald and Brian McKenna discuss CW’s annual programme to choose the most influential women in UK tech, as well as Newham Sparks, and puffin-counting AI Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK
• Clare McDonald, Business Editor
• Brian McKenna, Senior Analyst, Business Applications

5PRING issues call for 5G innovation in UK events sector

West Midlands telecoms industry testbed challenges innovators to help lead the next-generation networks revolution as live events industry gets back to life Continue Reading

By

• Joe O’Halloran, Computer Weekly

Qualcomm and SSW get into gear to strike definitive agreement to acquire Veoneer

Purchase of American-Swedish provider of automotive technology designed to augment comms tech giant’s ability to create an open and competitive advanced driver-assistance systems platform for the global auto industry and take ownership of RCS and active safety businesses Continue Reading

By

• Joe O’Halloran, Computer Weekly

CIO interview: Lisa Heneghan, chief digital officer, KPMG

KPMG UK’s digital leader says that in her 25-year career she has never known a more exciting time to work in IT Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Concerns raised over confidentiality and transparency in government data innovation

National data guardian Nicola Byrne warns about central principles that should be observed as data-driven innovation gathers pace in areas such as health and care Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Microsoft’s financial services cloud available next month

Financial finance sector-focused cloud service will be available at the beginning of November Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Keeping the UK in the global race to adopt digital identity

The UK government’s proposed digital ID trust framework is a step in the right direction, but more is needed to ensure the successful adoption of digital identity across the economy Continue Reading

By

• Nick Mothershaw, OIX

Direct Line hires former Virgin Atlantic IT chief as CIO

Ash Jokhoo will be joining the insurance company as a member of the executive board Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Nexustorage aims at file and block access to object storage

New Zealand-based startup to release Nexfs, which chops files into sub-file chunks and tiers them off to cheap and deep object stores with NFS and iSCSAI access for Posix applications Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Mandiant name returns to fore ahead of FireEye sale

Mandiant has completed its corporate rebrand pending the imminent sale of the FireEye products business to a private equity group Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

NHSX publishes IT standards and interoperability priorities

The creation of an IT strategy, a governance model and an open source playbook are among the areas of focus for the interoperability team of NHSX Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

NHSX IT chief outlines opportunities of elective recovery tech fund

Priorities for the digital unit of the health service include remote recovery with virtual wards, pre-surgical digital support, and use of robotic process automation to reduce the administrative burden on staff Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

One Identity buys OneLogin for access management expertise

Acquisition of OneLogin adds access management solutions to One Identity’s Unified Identity Security platform Continue Reading

By

• Alex Scroxton, Security Editor

Mastercard acquisition of Aiia is a further sign of open banking’s big future

Mastercard’s acquisition of Denmark-based open banking fintech Aiia follows rival’s takeover of Sweden’s Tink Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Met Police purchase new retrospective facial-recognition system

Retrospective facial-recognition software purchased for £3m by the Met Police will be deployed in coming months amid continuing controversy around the use of biometric technologies by law enforcement bodies Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

BEIS urged to prioritise funding to protect umbrella workers in government Spending Review

In an open letter to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, umbrella regulation draft policymakers Rebecca Seeley Harris and James Poyser urge the government to prioritise funding for a single enforcement body Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

Norway and IoT: A match made in heaven

Norway is becoming a centre of internet of things innovation as tech developers look for answers to some of the country's unique challenges Continue Reading

By

• Pat Brans, Pat Brans Associates/Grenoble Ecole de Management

Local Digital Capital Index: A framework for levelling up

How can the tech sector ensure digital equality across the UK in support of the government's levelling-up agenda? TechUK is trying to set the benchmarks Continue Reading

By

• Julian David, TechUK

IR35: Giant Group cyber attack prompts renewed calls for statutory regulation of umbrella companies

As details about the fallout from the cyber attack on the Giant Group umbrella company emerge, stakeholders say the incident should prompt the government to expedite regulating contractor payroll processing firms Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

subcarrier

A subcarrier is a secondary modulated signal frequency modulated into the main frequency (the carrier) to provide an additional channel of transmission. Continue Reading

By

• Gavin Wright

UK AI strategy focused on economic growth, resilience and ethics

Chris Eastham of law firm Fieldfisher looks at the government’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy, and the merits of the 10-year plan and its approach Continue Reading

By

• Chris Eastham

Digital bank fined by regulator due to weak anti-money laundering controls

German digital bank is fined by financial services regulator for failing in relation to its anti-money laundering practices Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Starling Bank takes its banking-as-a-service into European Union

API-based banking-as-a-service offering means customers can access services such as current accounts or debit cards without the need for heavy tech development or regulatory approval Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

UK government announces industry group to lead digital pound debate

Joint forums set up by HM Treasury and the Bank of England for a Central Bank Digital Currency include representatives from big tech firms, fintechs and incumbent banks Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Dedicated number for victims of fraud launched amid national security threat

Consumers that suspect they are being targeted by fraudsters can call 159 to be directly linked to their bank, as part of a 12-month pilot Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Women in fintech welcome Barclays initiative and demand more from the sector

Women in UK financial technology have welcomed bank’s new female-focused lab and funding initiative and call for more like it from the sector Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

JP Morgan Chase digital investment good for UK IT sector, but what’s in it for the bank?

JP Morgan Chase’s digital bank allows it to start from scratch in the UK, with no legacy infrastructure to overhaul Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

Rebooting the hospitality sector with technology

Technology is playing a crucial role as the hospitality sector rebounds after the coronavirus pandemic Continue Reading

By

• Roy Castleman

NVMe-over-fabrics: Five need-to-knows

We look at five need-to-knows about NVMe-over-fabrics, such as its implementations – RDMA, Fibre Channel and TCP – use cases, hardware and operating system support Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

UK consumer trust in banks, retailers and telcos declines as scams increase

Consumers are blaming banks, retailers and social media for the huge increase in online scams, survey shows Continue Reading

By

• Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA

AWS launches programme to advance health equity

The $40m global health equity programme will fund projects that improve health outcomes for underserved communities Continue Reading

By

• Aaron Tan, TechTarget

Digital regulators need discrete but cooperative remits

The UK’s information commissioner has told MPs that digital economy regulators need discrete remits backed up by strong information sharing powers to both provide clear focus as well as allow for greater cooperation between their disparate but interlinked regimes Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

Pure launches Fusion cloud control layer for storage

Pure Fusion is a storage control plane across cloud and datacentre. Portworx Data Services also launches to provide database management for container storage platform Continue Reading

By

• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Where vendors too often go wrong: SMBs need enterprise-grade IT too

For far too long now, many vendors seem to have assumed that the IT requirements of small and mid-sized businesses are less complex than those of larger organisations. As a consequence, many of the ... Continue Reading

By

• Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics

Dutch IT firm transforms HR policy built on lessons from pandemic

Software firm rips up human resources rule book and replaces it with a hybrid working policy Continue Reading

By

• Kim Loohuis

Interview: Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak on supporting the UK tech sector

Computer Weekly talked to Sunak at a Treasury event in front of an audience of tech sector leaders, investors and startups, to discuss how the government can support the digital economy. Continue Reading

Government announces data strategy for defence

The plan sets out the goals around treating data as a strategic asset to be achieved by 2025 Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

Uber drivers strike over pay issues and unfair dismissal claims

Unionised Uber drivers take industrial action in response to ongoing disputes over pay and claims that drivers are being unfairly dismissed as a result of the company’s technologies Continue Reading

By

• Sebastian Klovig Skelton, Data & ethics editor

GCP gets triple-redundant NAS and built-in Kubernetes backup

Google Filestore Enterprise will provide synchronous replication across three zones, while Backup for Google Kubernetes Engine brings built-in container cluster data protection Continue Reading

By

• Yann Serra, LeMagIT
• Antony Adshead, Storage Editor

Giant Umbrella contractors suffer salary payment delays following suspected ‘data breach’

Following the discovery of “suspicious network activity” in its systems, payroll processing firm Giant Umbrella has taken itself offline, leaving contractors to fume over missing salary payments Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK

Fixing the SME tech crisis

Although technology can drive post-pandemic economic recovery, the gap between those businesses with sufficient IT skills and those struggling is widening Continue Reading

By

• Cliff Saran, Managing Editor

CIO interview: Jon Braithwaite, CIO, Compass Group UK & Ireland

FTSE 100 catering services company is undergoing a widespread overhaul of its technology and improving the digital offering to customers Continue Reading

By

• Mark Samuels

Scotland sees increase in job opportunities in tech

Driven by startups and scaleups, employment in digital firms in Edinburgh and Glasgow is growing more than in other parts of the UK, according to data Continue Reading

By

• Angelica Mari

IR35 reforms: HMRC confirms compliance checks under way in financial services, oil and gas sectors

Less than six months after the roll-out of the IR35 reforms to the private sector, HMRC has confirmed it has started writing letters to companies requesting details of their compliance procedures Continue Reading

By

• Caroline Donnelly, Senior Editor, UK