Government and critical infrastructure organizations are deeply confused about messaging security, with the vast majority using consumer messaging apps for sensitive discussions, according to BlackBerry research.

In a survey of 700 security decision-makers in the US, UK, Canada, and Singapore, researchers at BlackBerry Secure Communications have found that 83% use WhatsApp for sensitive communications.

Indeed, they said, it's the most-used communication method, at 83%, way ahead of personal email, at 54%, and Teams at 50%.

They showed little understanding of what security these apps actually provide, with 52% wrongly believing that encryption protects metadata, including location data, IP addresses, and communication patterns, and 47% thinking it prevents impersonation, deepfake, or spoofing attacks. More than four-in-ten thought that communications are still secured, even after a device has been compromised.

"Consumer messaging apps were never designed to handle sensitive communications, protect confidentiality, or meet the demands of high-security environments," said Christine Gadsby, chief security advisor at BlackBerry Secure Communications.

"They rely on phone numbers, not verified identities – and encryption protects the channel, not who is on it. That gap is already being exploited, as recent intelligence warnings show, and governments and critical infrastructure organizations are responding by moving toward communications infrastructure they own and trust."

The problem is that only 10% fully understand what encryption actually protects, with more than seven-in-ten viewing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) as a comprehensive security solution.

Their main misconceptions are that E2EE protects data before or after decryption, that it verifies or protects the identity of communicating parties, hides or protects metadata, and can secure devices that may have already been compromised. This misunderstanding was found pretty uniformly across all four countries surveyed, ranging from 89% to 91%.

"Organizations believe one thing while doing another. They recognize threats but trust tools that do not address them. They require capabilities their platforms cannot provide. They express confidence that exceeds their actual preparedness," the researchers concluded.

The problem, they said, is a mismatch between what security tools do and what organizations believe they do, and between policy requirements and infrastructure architecture.

"This translation failure has been enabled by marketing that emphasizes strengths while obscuring limitations, by procurement processes that accept vendor claims without independent verification, and by the natural human tendency to believe that visible security measures provide comprehensive protection," the researchers said.

Intelligence agencies in the US, the UK, and Europe have repeatedly warned about the risks of messaging apps.

Last month, the US' FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) warned that the Russian Intelligence Services were bypassing encryption in commercial messaging applications to compromise individual user accounts, including current and former US government officials, military personnel, political figures, and journalists.

And there's been similar activity from China-affiliated APT31 and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Local areas can now bid for government support of up to £20 million each, to help them boost regional science and tech expertise.

Through the new Local Innovation Partnerships Fund (LKRI), research funding body UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is inviting local and regional groups to bid for government funding.

The aim is to support research and innovation projects right across the UK, and UKRI said it's looking for partnerships that help regions build on their existing strengths. It wants proposals that can turn existing research breakthroughs into practical solutions that create jobs and improve people's lives, it said.

"This fund is our Plan for Change in action," said science and technology secretary Liz Kendall. "It empowers local leaders, researchers, and businesses with skin in the game to deliver transformational research that creates jobs and improves lives in their area."

Ten regions across the UK have already been given backing through the fund. They include established innovation hubs in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands, and West Yorkshire, as well as Glasgow City Region, Cardiff Capital Region, and an innovation corridor linking Belfast and Derry-Londonderry in Northern Ireland.

Each of these will be given at least £30 million to invest in their regional innovation strengths, which, said the government, include advanced manufacturing, life sciences, digital technologies, and clean energy.

"Ten regions already have our support and will be able to deliver game-changing innovations to benefit their communities," said Kendall.

"Now we're extending this opportunity to the rest of the country, and I encourage partnerships everywhere to come forward, and show how they can unlock their local expertise to create tomorrow's innovations."

The LIPF is a new program that will invest up to £500 million into the development and scaling of innovation clusters with good potential across the UK. Investment through the fund will go to both established clusters with a proven track record of innovation and to emerging clusters that are in the earlier stages of development but that have significant potential to generate economic value.

The investment can be used for a wide range of activities, from R&D infrastructure and the adoption of new technologies to research commercialization, business growth initiatives and talent and skills development.

The allocation of funds will be handled through a two-stage selection process, with interested areas first submitting expressions of interest – there's more information here.

UKRI said it will then create a shortlist of partnerships and work with them to develop detailed proposals that demonstrate how they can turn research into real-world solutions.

Finally, an independent assessment panel will evaluate the applications to pick the winners based on their potential for economic impact, the strength of local partnerships, and their alignment with national priorities.

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• UK government invests £1 million in program to boost regional tech

The government has announced 14 new local tech projects as part of a £1 million Regional Tech Booster program.

Designed to support tech businesses and founders and grow local tech ecosystems, the projects will give them targeted training, expert guidance, help to build networks, and support to scale their operations from within their communities.

The program also includes a series of investment events, through a National Investment Corridors initiative, with the first two set to take place in Bristol and Leeds later this year.

"We want UK tech to grow and succeed from any and every corner of the country," said tech for growth minister Kanishka Narayan.

"It's a no-brainer that supporting projects like these, and encouraging more investment across the UK, will catalyse our tech brilliance to boost economic growth and opportunities for communities nationwide."

Projects include a support scheme for early-stage gaming startups in Scotland, with an emphasis on community building, peer learning, ethical strategy, and sustainable business growth.

Another Scottish project is ScotlandIS: Future Ready In Scotland. Aimed at giving tech founders in rural or remote communities the same opportunities as those in more urban or connected areas, this will provide peer networks and targeted training, as well as connecting isolated founders to national support and organizations.

In Wales, Tramshed Tech's AI Innovation Challenge will give businesses practical AI skills through workshops, mentorship, and hands-on learning, while helping startups and scale-ups integrate AI solutions.

"This initiative aims to position Wales as a hub for AI-driven growth and entrepreneurship," the government said.

And there's a similar AI focus in Northern Ireland, where Activate AI combines AI-powered tools with hands-on support, targeting women, minorities, and rural entrepreneurs through masterclasses, peer collaboration, and regional showcases.

Meanwhile, a pilot in the East Midlands is offering a structured support pipeline – from rapid prototyping and pre-launch programmes to scale-up and funding readiness – through workshops, mentoring, tech tours, and showcase events.

Other projects include programs to create pathways from further education to entrepreneurship in Lancashire, unlock growth for tech businesses that are ready to scale in Yorkshire, and accelerate the growth of the advanced connectivity technology industry in Suffolk.

"The sheer volume of strong applications we received shows there is a huge desire to grow tech ecosystems across the whole of the UK," said Dr David Dunn, UK Tech Cluster Group lead on Catalyst Pilot Projects.

"As the projects are delivered, we are excited to share learning across other ecosystems – it is this multiplier effect of knowledge transfer that really makes the Regional Tech Booster initiative valuable."

The Regional Tech Booster programme will also include workshops on tech ecosystem planning and sharing best practice for ecosystem development with authorities across the country. And, said the government, investment corridor events will be rolled out to more regions over this year and next.

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In a reference to the suave civil servant in 1980s comedy series Yes Minister, the UK government is trialing an AI assistant called Humphrey with local authorities.

The Department for Science, Innovation & Technology (DSIT) said the aim is to help civil servants speed up admin tasks in areas such as planning and social care, as well as in central government.

In a first step, 25 local councils are currently taking part in an early-stage trial, using a tool called ‘Minute’ to speed up note-taking across the services they provide - including the planning process holding back the government’s efforts to build 1.5 million homes by 2030.

The AI assistant also helps social care workers and their supervisors take detailed notes in meetings, with specialized tools to help tweak and correct summaries more efficiently, freeing them up for more important tasks.

"From parking permits and planning permission, local councils handle some of the services that impact our daily lives most. For too long, they have been left to fend for themselves when keeping up with rapid innovations in AI and digital technology – when we know it has huge potential to help solve many of the challenges they face," said AI and digital government minister Feryal Clark.

"That’s why 'Humphrey', a suite of exciting AI tools built in my department, is being sent to town halls to help them fast track planning decisions, build 1.5 million homes and take meeting notes more quickly."

Early tests of the Minute tool in central government showed that officials saved a full hour of admin per one hour meeting, with nearly half of them saying note-taking was the least enjoyable part of their job.

Today's announcement follows the prime minister's pledge to find £45 billion worth of productivity savings within the civil service through the digitisation of government services.

Earlier this year, the government’s State of Digital Government Review found that local councils were spending £5 billion per year on technology, despite employing half the number of digital specialists they should be.

And the report also found that each of the 320 local authorities across the country negotiate their technology contracts with big tech companies independently, rather than banding together for economies of scale.

The government wants to see improved data sharing between councils and other public bodies, as well as helping councils negotiate contracts together and share best practices.

"This is just the first step as we are also going to work with local councils to help them buy and build the technology they need to deliver our Plan for Change and support their local communities more effectively," said Clark.

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• The UK government hopes AI will supercharge public sector digital transformation – IT leaders aren’t so sure

Virtually all UK public sector organizations are still working through digital transformation projects, according to research from SolarWinds, but just 6% say they've fully completed the job.

While six-in-ten public sector IT decision makers told SolarWinds that advancing digital transformation is a top future priority, only 42% say their efforts are well underway.

"These findings show that while digital transformation is high on the agenda, many public sector organizations are still only at the starting line," said Richard Giblin, head of public sector and defence at SolarWinds.

It's no secret that legacy systems are a big problem in the public sector, and SolarWinds’ study found six-in-ten are still relying on traditional, on-premises data center environments, with 42% expecting that to remain the case three years from now.

Meanwhile, a similar number said that workforce skillsets and talent gaps were their biggest problem. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) in particular appeared to be struggling, the report noted, with three-quarters saying these issues are their greatest obstacles.

Security and cost are also tricky issues, both cited by around half of public sector IT leaders.

"The research also echoes broader concerns across the sector that transformation efforts are being held back by legacy mindsets and severe underinvestment." said Giblin

“Skills gaps, legacy infrastructure, and limited budgets are creating a plethora of challenges — and without focused investment and strategic support, the gap between ambition and execution will only grow."

The key to public sector digital transformation?

Recent government research found that public sector legacy tech was holding back productivity, harming public satisfaction in services, and costing the taxpayer £45 billion.

More than one-in-four digital systems used by central government departments were found to be outdated, with this figure rising to seven-in-ten in some cases. The study also highlighted an over-reliance on contractors, largely due to weak salaries and headcount restrictions within departments.

The government is pinning its hopes on AI to help overcome these lingering challenges, however. Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently pledged to send AI teams into every government department to identify areas of improvement.

This move follows the launch of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, which the government said would allow the public sector to spend less time doing admin and more time delivering essential services.

However, the SolarWinds report found that public sector IT decision makers are skeptical. Only three-in-ten said they currently view AI integration as a top priority, while more than half thought that observability was more important.

"The opportunity is there, but we need to act now to equip public sector teams with the tools, training and visibility they need to move forward with confidence," said Giblin

“The public sector plays such an important role in the daily lives of millions - from healthcare and education to social services and public safety. Ensuring the modernization of these essential services isn’t just about efficiency, it's about delivering better, faster and more accessible experiences for all."

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AI adoption could be a major boon for the UK and save taxpayers billions, according to prime minister Keir Starmer.

Speaking at a campus in Hull, Starmer spoke about how technology will help push through much-needed digital reform in government and potentially unlock £45 billion in savings.

The prime minister said the technology represents a “golden opportunity” for the government, enabling it to bolster efficiency across a wide range of services.

“You will already be thinking about how you use it in your work, and that's an opportunity we're determined to seize,” Starmer said.

“We're going to get the best of the best on AI working across government - I'm going to send teams into every government department with a clear mission from me to make the state more innovative and more efficient,” he added.

Starmer pointed to several example of where AI could help improve productivity and efficiency, including the automation of record-keeping in probation work.

He noted that the same is true for planning applications, in which huge amounts of information need to be gathered, a task that can be completed more quickly through AI.

The PM also talked up the importance of training and apprenticeships, remarking on the importance of apprenticeship schemes and how they will bring people into the government who are skilled in AI and tech.

“We're bringing people in to do this, to transform the way that we do our business,” Starmer said.

UK public sector on brink of change

Starmer's comments are the latest in a series of commitments from the Labour government to harness the technology and drive public sector efficiency.

Earlier this month, the UK’s Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) announced a reform to public sector funding that will aim to make the deployment of AI projects quicker and easier.

Before that, the UK announced sweeping changes to the state of its ‘AI Opportunity Action Plan,’ a piece of legislation designed to support and bolster AI use across the country.

The action involved the creation of ‘AI growth zones’ in which planning permission for AI infrastructure will be fast-tracked, as well as a focus on how AI can drive efficiency in the public sector in administration.

Research from Google Cloud in November last year estimated that AI and automation may be able to save the UK government £38 billion in staff time and costs by 2030.

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Public sector AI funding will be overhauled in the UK in a bid to simplify processes and push more projects into development, the government has revealed.

Announced by the UK’s Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the new approach to spending will seek to embed a “startup” mindset and change how the government funds small AI projects and outdated tech replacements.

The move comes after a review found many digital projects contend with complex spending approval processes that can slow or even completely derail them.

Four new approaches to funding will be trialed beginning in April, including building on the government's in-house chatbot to provide ‘staged funding’ for projects.

The government will look to support ideas with more agile funding processes to increase the speed at which prototypes are built and tested. Projects will then be supported by increasingly larger tests if they show promise.

DSIT said there will also be a focus on creating new metrics and evaluation plans for outcomes so the government can ensure value is being delivered for the taxpayer.

“These changes we’re making ensure innovation is the default. We will help give AI innovators in Government the freedom they need to chase an exciting idea and build prototypes almost immediately,” technology secretary Peter Kyle said.

“This review will help us build technology that will mean businesses can skip the admin and get on with driving growth,” Kyle added.

Industry reaction has been largely enthusiastic, with Jordan Legg, chief AI officer (CAIO) at Takara AI, describing the move a “positive development” in the UK tech landscape.

“The procurement and funding processes in the public sector for AI startups like ours are often convoluted and complex. Simplifying and expediting these processes will enhance cost-effectiveness and efficiency, ultimately providing tangible proof of concept,” ” Legg told ITPro.

“However, there remains room for improvement in clearly defining the scope of their initiatives. Merging two entire departments is overly ambitious and likely to falter,” Legg added.

UK public sector in need of digitalization

If this spending reform works, it could provide a much-needed boon to the UK public sector’s ailing digital infrastructure which was described as “archaic” in a recent government report.

The report found that outdated technology is holding workers back, damaging public sector productivity, impacting customer satisfaction, and costing the UK taxpayer £45 billion.

Research from Appian made a similar claim, finding that staff are spending a total of over 30 million hours on unnecessary extra work every week due to inefficiencies in service delivery.

Over 90% of public sector workers said their organization found adapting processes challenging, particularly regarding changing service demands and government policies.

Early last year, the National Audit Office (NAO) warned that the UK government will need to make serious changes in order to reap the benefits of AI as aging IT infrastructure, skills gaps, and data issues threaten to cause problems.

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• UK government signs up Anthropic to improve public services

The UK government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Anthropic to explore how the company's Claude AI assistant could be used to improve access to public services.

According to a statement from government officials, the aim is to advance best practices for the responsible deployment of frontier AI capabilities across the public sector while fostering close cooperation between government and leading AI innovators.

The agreement comes amid the recasting of the UK’s AI Safety Institute as the UK AI Security Institute. The government said it will also look to sign further agreements with leading AI companies.

The collaboration with Anthropic will look at how AI can transform public services and improve the lives of citizens, as well as using the technology to drive new scientific research.

"AI has the potential to transform how governments serve their citizens. We look forward to exploring how Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude could help UK government agencies enhance public services, with the goal of discovering new ways to make vital information and services more efficient and accessible to UK residents," said Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic.

"We will continue to work closely with the UK AI Security Institute to research and evaluate AI capabilities in order to ensure secure deployment."

Government eyes closer ties with Anthropic

The collaboration will also draw on Anthropic's recently-released Economic Index, which uses anonymized conversations on Claude.ai to understand AI's effects on labor markets and the economy over time. This will provide insights to help the UK adapt its workforce and innovation strategies for an AI-enabled future.

There are also plans for collaboration on securing the supply chain for advanced AI and the UK’s future infrastructure, while Anthropic said it will provide tools to support the UK’s startup community, universities, and other organizations.

In a statement, Anthropic said it will work closely with the new UK AISI, adding that it is committed to developing 'robust safeguards' and driving responsible and secure deployment.

Similarly, the government revealed it will prioritize responsiveness to public needs, privacy preservation, and building trust as core principles guiding the development and implementation of its AI-enabled solutions.

The AI Security Institute, however, will now have less of an emphasis on privacy issues.

Instead, it will concentrate on serious AI risks with security implications, such as how the technology can be used to develop chemical and biological weapons, along with how it can be used to carry out cyber attacks and enable crimes such as fraud and child sexual abuse.

"The changes I’m announcing today represent the logical next step in how we approach responsible AI development – helping us to unleash AI and grow the economy as part of our Plan for Change," said secretary of state for science, innovation, and technology Peter Kyle.

"The work of the AI Security Institute won’t change, but this renewed focus will ensure our citizens – and those of our allies - are protected from those who would look to use AI against our institutions, democratic values, and way of life."

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US government IT operations may be wasteful and dated, according to a report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Government IT acquisitions face major challenges and critical action is needed to implement more effective, cost-efficient solutions, the report said. The GAO offered nine actions that must be taken to make these changes.

A strengthening of oversight and management is needed, the report detailed, including improved effectiveness of those in IT leadership positions such as CIOs and chief artificial intelligence officers (CAIOs).

There needs to be a more detailed strategy for the management of IT systems and applications, and improved levels of monitoring of the performance of IT investments.

Government departments must improve IT acquisition and development practices and strengthen the management of cloud services, supply chains, and telecommunications services.

Similarly, the review called for expanded federal IT capacity and capability through workforce management, technology management, and improved digital services for federal customers.

The federal government invests over $100 billion in maintaining existing IT systems and developing new ones but, according to the GAO, these investments frequently fail, exceed budget, or go over schedule.

“The federal government is not fully reaping the benefits of modern technology to reduce costs and better serve the American people,” Gene L. Dodaro, U.S. Comptroller General and head of the GAO, said.

“As federal IT needs intensify and technologies evolve and become more complex, federal agencies must address the longstanding IT acquisition and management challenges GAO has identified since this area was designated high risk in 2015,” Dodaro added.

Legacy tech woes span both sides of the Atlantic

The US government is not alone in these issues. In the UK, one report found that legacy had been holding back public sector efficiency to the tune of £45 billion in wasted taxpayer money.

"Technology that sits at the foundation of our country has been left to wither and decay under the hands of the previous government, too often grinding to a halt and stalling essential public services – racking up a huge bill for the taxpayer," technology secretary Peter Kyle said at the time.

The report found that over 25% of digital services in UK government departments were outdated, racking up maintenance costs over three to four times higher than if systems were kept up to date.

‘Archaic technology’ is holding UK public sector workers back and is costing the taxpayer £45 billion, new figures show.

A scathing government report due to be published tomorrow found that legacy technology is crippling productivity and damaging public satisfaction in services.

Notably, the report found the previous government's over-reliance on contractors has sent costs rocketing, and outages and cyber attacks are endangering NHS and public services.

"Technology that sits at the foundation of our country has been left to wither and decay under the hands of the previous government, too often grinding to a halt and stalling essential public services – racking up a huge bill for the taxpayer," said technology secretary Peter Kyle.

"The new findings are also expected to show government departments have been pushed towards bringing in contractors and consultants to complete basic technological tasks instead of full-time staff.

"This trend was driven by weak salaries and headcount restrictions that stopped departments. This is despite them costing three times more than civil servants and eating up £14.5 billion in taxpayer money a year."

The report specifically highlighted the public sector’s over-reliance on paper, with some departments managing more than 500 paper-based services.

More than one-in-four digital systems used by the central government were also found to be outdated - with this figure rising to seven-in-ten in some cases.

This, the report pointed out, can rack up huge maintenance costs, ultimately resulting in the taxpayer paying three-to-four times more than if the technology was kept up to date.

Meanwhile, a growing number of these outdated systems are 'red-rated' for their reliability and security risk. NHS England alone saw 123 critical service outages last year, often meaning appointments were missed because staff were forced back to using paper-based systems.

Later this week, a new offering from an expanded Government Digital Service will be announced. This will scan for vulnerabilities across the public sector that hackers could use to shut down essential services. Support will then be provided to help fix any issues.

The government is also launching new AI tools designed to speed up the process of connecting clean energy projects to the national grid.

Similarly, another AI solution, dubbed Scout, is aimed at helping officials deliver major multi-billion-pound projects on time and to budget by automatically analyzing thousands of documents to detect problems earlier and enable timely interventions that keep projects on track.

It replaces processes whereby up to 150 reports and documents are manually reviewed, leading to crucial details being glossed over and opportunities to prevent problems missed.

"There is a £45 billion jackpot for the public sector if we get technology adoption right - that’s twice the size of the black hole we faced when we took office, and it’s not an opportunity we can let pass us by," Kyle said.

Last week, the National Audit Office (NAO) released a report into the way the government has worked with technology suppliers, saying it had wasted taxpayers’ money and missed opportunities to modernize government.

Digital contracts, it said, were awarded without enough preparation, thanks to pressure to deliver.

Legacy tech isn’t restricted to the public sector

The issue of legacy technology isn’t unique to the public sector, with research showing outdated IT infrastructure still plagues private enterprises globally.

A report from NTT Data in June 2024 found legacy tech is holding back more than eight-in-ten organizations worldwide - and this is having a serious impact on digital transformation goals.

An overwhelming majority (94%) of C-suite executives told NTT Data that legacy infrastructure is hampering business agility.

Contributing factors behind this included rapid modernization, a fragmented supplier ecosystem, and the proliferation of technology consumption models.

The UK's National Audit Office (NAO) has released a critical report into the way the government has worked with technology suppliers, saying it has wasted taxpayers’ money and missed opportunities to modernize government.

Government departments have treated tech suppliers in the same way as any other, according to the NAO, with procurement guidance failing to address all the complexities of digital commercial issues.

It must learn from its past procurement approaches to large-scale digital transformation projects, which have experienced decades of poor progress and billions of pounds in cost increases.

The government’s central digital function, which leads on digital and data policy, isn't formally responsible for - and lacks the resources for - more extensive engagement in digital procurement.

Meanwhile, the report warned there aren't enough people with digital commercial skills in government - and departments aren't making full use of the digital expertise they do have when procuring for technology-enabled business change.

Similarly, commercial teams often fail to engage their internal digital experts at the right time.

Digital contracts are awarded without enough preparation, with teams often rushing to award contracts because of pressure to deliver, without always fully understanding what is actually needed from a contract.

Notably, approaches to contract design can have a negative impact on successful digital delivery, with the government sometimes opting for mechanisms which limit the flexibility for suppliers to use their expertise to help the government deliver the desired outcomes.

"A lack of digital and procurement capability within government has led to wasted expenditure and lack of progress on major digital transformation programmes," said Gareth Davies, head of the NAO.

"Government needs to rethink how it procures digitally, including how to deal with 'big tech' and global cloud providers that are bigger than governments themselves. The creation of the new digital centre of government provides an opportunity to make the systemic changes that are needed."

The NAO said that it's the central government that should decide who takes ownership for addressing the problems it's identified, producing a sourcing strategy to include improvements in how it deals with ‘big tech’ and strategic suppliers.

It should also create a digital skills plan to plug recruitment shortfalls and to improve the way decision makers responsible for digital commercial activities and ensure teams are equipped and trained.

For individual departments, the NAO wants to see them strengthening their ‘intelligent client function’. They need to identify and develop key requirements before tenders and bid processes commence, and improve how policymakers and technical specialists work together with procurement specialists.

They should also improve their capability to collect and use data to inform a pipeline of supply and demand, which would help the center of government build a more strategic approach to suppliers.

The UK government has officially unveiled its AI Opportunity Action Plan, promising a greater focus on the opportunities of the burgeoning technology rather than the risks.

Under the new industry focus, the Labour government plans to implement all 50 recommendations set out by Matt Clifford in his AI Opportunities Action Plan, commissioned by technology secretary Peter Kyle last year.

Announcing the strategy, prime minister Keir Starmer said the country’s AI industry “needs a government that is on their side” if it’s to unlock economic value from the technology.

“In a world of fierce competition, we cannot stand by,” he said. “We must move fast and take action to win the global race.”

"Our plan will make Britain the world leader. It will give the industry the foundation it needs and will turbocharge the Plan for Change. That means more jobs and investment in the UK, more money in people’s pockets, and transformed public services. That’s the change this government is delivering."

As part of the move, the government plans to create dedicated “AI growth zones” where planning permission for infrastructure projects will be fast-tracked and given improved access to energy grids. The first of these is set to be launched in Culham, Oxfordshire.

Similarly, the government has pledged to increase public compute capacity by twentyfold, with work starting on a new national supercomputer.

A new team will be set up to focus on the opportunities of AI and build the UK’s sovereign capabilities, while a new National Data Library will help harness public data and support AI development.

There will also be a new dedicated AI Energy Council chaired by the science and energy secretaries, which will work with energy companies with the aim of tapping into technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs).

SMRs have been growing in appeal at big tech companies, with a host of major industry players such as Oracle and Google Cloud seeking to develop their own in-house nuclear capabilities.

Industry experts believe these reactors could play a key role in alleviating strain placed on energy grids by data center infrastructure, providing clean energy on-site.

"AI is a powerful tool that will help grow our economy, make our public services more efficient and open up new opportunities to help improve living standards," said chancellor Rachel Reeves.

"This action plan is the government’s modern industrial strategy in action. Attracting AI businesses to the UK, binging in new investment, creating new jobs and turbocharging our Plan for Change."

AI Action Plan welcomed by industry - but some have reservations

The plan has been welcomed by industry stakeholders across the UK. David Hogan, VP for enterprise, EMEA at Nvidia described the move as a “clear-sighted and ambitious policy initiative to establish the UK as a global leader”.

“Delivering these commitments can boost economic prosperity, enhance public services, and foster the growth of a thriving startup ecosystem”.

A key focus will be placed on driving AI adoption in the public sector under the new plans.

The prime minister specifically highlighted the role AI can play in driving public sector efficiency. This includes saving time on administrative tasks that can be reassigned to improve public services or speeding up planning consultations.

Other potential use-cases include AI-based analysis of camera footage to identify and speed up pothole repairs and support for healthcare professionals to provide faster and more accurate medical diagnoses.

While these are positive use-cases, Gaia Marcus, director of the Ada Lovelace Institute, warned that the government will have to work hard to maintain public confidence.

"The public... have nuanced and often strong views on the use of their data, particularly in areas such as health," she said.

"In light of past backlash against medical data sharing, the government must continue to think carefully about the circumstances under which this kind of sharing will be acceptable to the public."

Sam Robinson, AI policy lead and senior researcher at the Social Market Foundation, praised the plans to speed up planning permission, but called on the government to address the 'absurdly high' cost of industrial electricity.

However, he welcomed the plans to harness AI more in the public sector.

"The UK is uniquely well placed to demonstrate how AI can improve the productivity and quality of public services, and technology secretary Peter Kyle is building a reputation for the UK as the country that is most ready and willing to seize the opportunity," he said.

Jacob Beswick, director of AI governance at Dataiku, said this may be easier said than done. Lingering concerns over the use of public data could hamper progress, he warned.

"Some significant challenges with a public sector AI policy remain, specifically related to how the UK public sector is organized, which makes it nearly impossible to find out who is using AI; what data exists, ownership, and access; and finally the power dynamics between central departments pushing an AI agenda and departmental autonomy," he said.

"The siloed nature of the public sector isn’t just a problem between departments, but also within departments: data silos within departments, for example between different hospitals and NHS Trusts, can seriously hamper attempts not just to create effective AI models, but to create a generally digital, data-driven service."

The UK government is running a private beta of a new chatbot designed to help people set up small businesses and find support.

The generative AI chatbot, based on OpenAI’s GPT-4o technology, will be tested out by up to 15,000 business users, after earlier trials went well.

GOV.UK Chat is linked from 30 government business support pages, including 'set up a business' and 'search for a trade mark'. Users can ask questions about tax and the support available to them.

Technology secretary Peter Kyle said the use of chatbots could markedly improve efficiency and enable the government to provide timely support for small businesses across the country.

"Outdated and bulky government processes waste people’s time too often, with the average adult in the UK spending the equivalent of a working week and a half dealing with public sector bureaucracy every year," Kyle said.

"We are going to change this by experimenting with emerging technology to find new ways to save people time and make their lives easier, as we are doing with GOV.UK Chat."

If this trial goes well, it could ultimately be rolled out across the full government website, made up of 700,000 pages. This attracts over 11 million users per week and is the best-known digital service in the UK, according to YouGov.

"With all new technology, it takes time to get it right so we’re taking it through extensive trials with thousands of real users before it is used more widely," said Kyle.

"This is an essential part of our ambition to use AI to improve public services in a safe and reliable way, making sure the UK government leads by example in driving innovation forward."

During the first trial, nearly seven-in-ten users said the chatbot was helpful, with only 15% disagreeing.

However, the trial did throw up some problems with accuracy, generating a number of 'hallucinations'. Some of these were “challenging, or abusive, or even seductive”, according to Paul Willmott, chair of the government’s Central Digital and Data Office

Since then, developers behind the chatbot said it's improved significantly. The team has been working with subject matter experts at HMRC to score the accuracy of the chatbot's answers, assess AI answers against example answers written by content designers, and monitor for inaccurate or inappropriate answers and investigate any they find.

There's now also a message included in the onboarding process explaining the risk of inaccurate answers to users, and a link underneath every answer so that users can check the source guidance.

"Unlike ChatGPT, GOV.UK Chat is designed to draw on GOV.UK as the source of its answers,” according to Sam Dub and Josh Davey of the development team. “This means we can ensure it’s always using the most up-to-date guidance, and users can trust the answer comes from government."

There have also been improvements aimed at preventing the chatbot from giving harmful responses such as illegal answers, the sharing of sensitive financial information, or the adoption of a political position.

The UK government is proposing new data laws it says could free up millions of hours of police and NHS time every year and boost the UK economy by £10 billion.

The Data Use and Access Bill is not dissimilar to its predecessor, the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (DPDI), which failed to pass during the 'wash-up' process before the general election earlier this year.

Like the DPDI, it's aimed at cutting down on bureaucracy and making better use of data across public sector bodies.

"With laws that help us to use data securely and effectively, this Bill will help us boost the UK’s economy, free up vital time for our front-line workers, and relieve people from unnecessary admin so that they can get on with their lives," said technology secretary Peter Kyle.

Changes proposed by the government, such as removing manual logging requirements whenever accessing personal data to work on a case, could help save 1.5 million hours of police time a year, the government said.

Meanwhile, patients’ data will be made easily transferable across the NHS so that frontline staff can make better-informed decisions for patients. This, the government revealed, could save 140,000 hours of NHS staff time every year, speeding up care and improving patients’ health outcomes.

"The NHS is broken, but imagine its enormous potential if each part of the system communicated properly with each other. That starts with sharing vital medical records between healthcare providers," said health and social care secretary Wes Streeting.

"This Bill and our Ten Year Health Plan will ensure important data flows safely and securely through the NHS, freeing up staff time and speeding up patient care."

To enable this data sharing across platforms, IT suppliers for the health and care sector will be required to make sure their systems meet common standards.

The bill also promises to simplify tasks such as renting a flat and starting work with online identity verification and electronic registration of births and deaths.

The legislation will cover digital verification services, allowing companies that provide tools for verifying identities to get certified against a standards framework from a new Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA) within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Following the proposals, the bill has been welcomed by the Data and Marketing Association (DMA), which noted it builds on principles that have had cross-party consensus for several years.

"We welcome the focus on economic growth and improved public services enabled by data sharing, which we believe will promote public and private sector collaboration and enable businesses to communicate with their customers more effectively," said CEO Chris Combemalee.

"Our members will welcome maintaining a high level of data protection and the current accountability framework. Getting the balance right is essential to building trust in both the public and private sectors, ensuring that people have confidence in the modern products and services that will improve their lives."

So that’s it – the new government (to nobody’s huge surprise) is a Labour one, the new prime minister is to be Keir Starmer and he has a five year parliament to turn his plans into reality.

So what does this mean for the tech industry?

Certainly, the UK’s tech strategy wasn’t mentioned all that much on the election trail and won’t have swayed many undecided voters even if it was. But smarter ways of using tech and new ways of encouraging innovation are going to be key to the new government’s core goals of getting the economy growing faster. Here’s what the new government is likely to do and the challenges it will face.

Making the UK a better place to build and grow tech companies

There’s long been a sense that the UK can do a better job of supporting tech startups. London has distinguished itself as a centre for fintech companies, but innovation is still concentrated too much in the south east of the UK.

Labour’s manifesto does make some gestures towards this: It’s formulating a new industrial strategy and promises to support the development of the AI sector – and remove planning barriers to new data centers. Similar moves for science and technology parks would be welcomed. It has also said it will work with universities to support spinouts and ensure startups have the access to finance. Making sure that happens across the country will be the key.

The UK spends around $20 billion a year on research and development (R&D). Making smarter use of that public investment could make a big difference. Labour’s manifesto says that it will scrap short funding cycles for key R&D institutions in favor of ten-year budgets, which should give businesses a bit more certainty when planning their own investments.

Innovation alone won’t help grow the economy, however. Innovations have to be turned into businesses that employ people and create profits – and pay tax. This is one of the biggest challenges for the UK; to scale businesses, which is hard enough, and then hold onto them.

Too many of these companies will relocate to New York or San Francisco to raise funds. Tech companies and others feel that they will be undervalued if they list in London. The UK needs to demonstrate that staying at home is a viable alternative for the most ambitious.

The last government did a good job of positioning the UK as a leader in AI safety. Labour’s manifesto talks more about ensuring the safe development and use of AI models by introducing binding regulation on the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI models. While that’s sensible, it will likely be hard to enforce in an international race for AI jobs and talent. Nevertheless, the next government needs to do an even better job of positioning the UK as one of the best places to build a tech business in the world.

Digital transformation is the only option for public services

Too many public services are creaking under the strain of legacy systems and diminishing budgets. Tech can’t fix everything, but it can boost productivity – if the government is willing to invest. A wholesale rethink and fundamental digital transformation across public services is needed.

As the Labour manifesto said of the NHS: “A system reliant on pagers and fax machines is not fit for this decade let alone the next.”

While there might be a little exaggeration in there (faxes were due to be phased out in 2020, even if there are probably still a few around) the fundamental point is true. NHS tech is too old and is an obstacle to productivity.

An incredible 13 million hours in doctors’ and nurses’ time lost to IT issues every year (the equivalent of 300,000 full time staff) There’s little point hiring more doctors if all they can do is stare at a PC that refuses to work. Labour has promised new MRI and CT scanners, but what is needed is a much bigger investment program to save money longer term.

The public sector needs to get much better at sharing best practice too.

I’ve spoken to local government CIOs who have found smart ways to use generative AI to cut the costs by using it to answer basic questions which would have otherwise required a call center agent. Wins like this need to be shared faster.

The Labour manifesto talks about the creation of a ‘National Data Library’ to bring together existing research programs and help deliver data-driven public services. There should be a presumption that change is needed fast.

New technology assisted ways of working will be key, too. While some in the last government thought that civil servants sitting at their desks was the most important measure of efficiency, the new government should embrace remote working. Indeed, the Conservative manifesto promised to move 25,000 more civil servants outside of London; the new government should do that and more. That can help spread high paying jobs more widely across the country and open them up to people who don’t want to be in a big city office or any office at all.

(STEM) education, education, education

Governments are limited to five-year terms, but their ambition needs to be much longer term. This new government should be looking out a decade or more in terms of aspirations for our young people.

Better education is one of the best ways of improving life outcomes and longer term improving the outlook for the country. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education continues to struggle, despite much focus on it already. The UK has a tech skills shortage, which is making all the other problems worse – making it easier for students to continue with their STEM education as long as possible is essential.

None of these challenges can be solved on the first day of a new government. Some of these problems have persisted for years or even decades and even fast action on these issues isn’t going to make an immediate difference. Fixes to some of this will take many years to filter through. However, if the new government makes some good decisions fast then by the time of the next election – and I’m sure some strategists will be thinking about it already – they could already be making a difference.

Solving our tech challenges might not be a priority in the first 100 days of a new administration but getting tech policy right will do much to support the next 100 years of prosperity for the UK.

Suppliers on the UK government’s G-Cloud 13 framework have blasted the decision to extend the scheme for an additional year, claiming the move will render some contracts “commercially unviable”. 

A survey of suppliers by Advice Cloud on the services portal change found that many are unhappy with the decision, with nearly two-thirds (69%) revealing they have been negatively affected by the move. 

The services portal, which updates on a yearly basis, was granted an extension by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) in June that will see its continuation until November 2024. 

According to CCS statistics, around 90% of suppliers present on the G-Cloud 13 framework, of which there are more than 5,000, are SMEs. In addition, 72% of these are identified as ‘micro and small’ organizations. 

A key criticism of this decision is that, under the rules of the framework, suppliers won’t be able to update or amend services for an additional year. 

This means that, while G-Cloud 13 remains live, suppliers are unable to add new solutions to the portal or make changes to existing solutions already in place, such as price increases or the inclusion of new features. 

As a result, suppliers said they could face serious financial repercussions because they’re unable to update prices to reflect current economic conditions, such as inflation. 

“Most respondents are concerned that an extension, considering today’s level of inflation, is 'unrealistic' and will affect their ability to transact via the framework,” the report states. 

More than half (51%) of suppliers told Advice Cloud that they need to update pricing due to inflation, and 77% of those were SMEs. This restrictive aspect of the move means that “some contracts will become commercially unviable”, respondents said. 

Similarly, others noted that some services will need to be completely removed from the framework, with 49% revealing that they need to add new services to meet changing customer expectations. 

Given the high proportion of SME suppliers present on G-Cloud 13, the potential financial fallout could be costly. Many respondents referenced the “disproportionate impact” on smaller businesses and a “conflicting stance” from the government on supporting SMEs. 

G-Cloud market refreshes ‘too infrequent’ 

Suppliers voiced concerns that a two-year refresh frequency of the framework, which G-Cloud 13 has now become, is “too infrequent”, and the majority (41.5%) stated that they’d prefer a new iteration on an annual basis. 

However, among those who preferred a two-year refresh rate, Advice Cloud found that many requested the ability to “make some changes to services, pricing, and T&Cs” to reflect changing market conditions. 

Previous iterations of the framework have run on a yearly basis, with G-Cloud 13 launched in 2022 and set to refresh in November this year. 

No government in 2023 can afford to put its head in the sand when it comes to AI. Whether we like it or not, the genie is out of the bottle and artificial intelligence is only going to become more prominent in all our lives.

Amid concerns that UK AI regulation is being outpaced by the EU, the Labour Party has set out its stall for how it would approach AI if it’s successful in forming a government at the next election. While this is to be welcomed, it must carefully avoid ethical and legal pitfalls.

One such proposal is to use AI systems at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), to identify benefits fraud and error, help match unemployed people with suitable jobs, and process claims more efficiently.

It’s an admirable goal, but one riddled with potential problems. Any government looking to use AI to tackle fraud to a greater degree, particularly based on lessons derived from historical data, would do well to remember the Dutch childcare benefits scandal.

In short, the affair centered around a machine learning (ML) algorithm used by the Dutch government to identify fraudulent childcare benefits claimed. 

The system wrongly flagged applicants as risky and was later found by an investigatory committee to contain institutional biases, which were reflected in the algorithm’s output. The result was tens of thousands of innocent parents accused of benefits fraud.

Although there’s a clear political lesson here - the scandal led to the downfall of the Dutch government - there’s also a clear technological one too. AI is best applied to areas in need of improved productivity, but must always play second fiddle to human workers. 

The DWP’s current use of machine learning is actually a perfect example of this in action. It uses an algorithm trained on bundles of historical claims data to spit out potentially fraudulent Universal Credit claims.

Cases flagged by the algorithm are then reviewed by humans - a shining example of how tech can be used as an accelerant rather than an agent of total reform.

Shadow secretary of state for work and pensions Jonathan Ashworth has indicated that human workers would still make final decisions under Labour’s AI plans, which raises the question of how the party thinks its approach would improve upon DWP’s existing algorithm.

At the end of the day, if Labour is serious about using AI to improve the economy and recoup lost government spending, it could do a far better job applying it to HMRC than the DWP, as the former needs far greater scrutiny.

Benefits overpayments totaled £8.3 billion in FY2023, while underpayments totaled £3.3 billion. In comparison, a parliamentary report into tax compliance found that HMRC has failed to chase £42 billion in unpaid taxes and only around £1.1 billion of an estimated £4.5 billion lost during the pandemic to erroneous and fraudulent support claims.

Applied sensitively, AI would play a far more significant role in buttoning up the UK’s tax landscape than it could in working on the margins of unemployment.

A more effective HMRC, bolstered by thoughtful AI implementation, would bring an immense boost to the UK economy. This would come as a benefit to all operating in the UK, with businesses able to operate in a more thriving market and the government in a more secure place to provide corporate subsidies.

But while Labour rightfully highlights the threat of AI to jobs - supported by the recent cases of AI-driven mass layoffs and Big Tech hiring overhauls - the boosts to productivity and system efficiency for organizations that are struggling for staff are too tantalizing to pass up.

With HMRC having been identified as one such area in need of improvement, it would be foolish to not pursue this further.

As I get older, my available spare time for dealing with idiots is getting shorter. Perhaps that’s because I’m aware I have considerably less remaining time on this planet than I have enjoyed so far. 

Whatever the reason, I’ve noticed I’m becoming hyper-critical of the vacuous nonsense politicians spout on an almost daily basis. It doesn’t matter which hue they are, the low quality of the content is beyond worrying. Imagine my annoyance when I read this:

“Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT offer huge potential. In the future, they could help us live longer, healthier, wealthier lives. I want us to invest now to reap the benefits of this innovation; in healthcare, manufacturing, and public service delivery.”

Who spouted this drivel? None other than Michelle Donelan MP, secretary of state for Science Innovation and Technology (SIT).

Maybe LLMs will be a hugely beneficial revolution (although my experience suggests every technological upside comes with an equal and opposite downside). But LLMs only work because they have scraped the public internet at a global level. They have no intelligence, no wisdom, no curation of significance.

They’re excellent at taking global textual output that has been conveniently provided to them for free and can create some quite remarkably believable prose as a result.

Undoubtedly LLMs will be helpful to us, but the claim that “they could help us live longer, healthier, wealthier lives” is pure drivel.

Or perhaps I’m wrong? After all, another of my valuable life lessons is I can, on some exceptionally rare occasions, be incorrect. Surely someone in such an exalted and respected position as secretary of state for SIT couldn’t have splurged this out without thinking it through?

What credentials does Michelle Donelan have?

Let’s examine the secretary of state’s credentials, as gleaned from Wikipedia.

“Donelan was educated at The County High School, Leftwich, before graduating from the University of York with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history and politics. 

“Donelan's career outside politics was in marketing, including a time working on Marie Claire magazine and for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

“She subsequently stood for parliament at the 2010 general election in the safe Labour seat of Wentworth and Dearne in South Yorkshire.”

I’ll be the first to recognize the work Michelle Donelan has done in Parliament for victims of domestic violence, education for children, and the Family Justice Board. All important and valuable, and surely to be applauded. 

I would also accept a BA in history and politics is useful, especially for a politician, but I struggle to see how it helps anyone in charge of UK science, innovation, or technology.

Nevertheless, for a few weeks under prime minister Liz Truss, she was secretary of state for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS), and if you squint at that in a certain light her background perhaps comes to her aid.

But now she is secretary of state for SIT, and I have to ask: “Why?” She has no background in science, innovation, or technology. She has no education in the field. She hasn’t worked in this space at all. And yet she is the head person in the government tasked with this critically important area. 

UK politics lacks serious STEM influence

I started doing some digging into the numbers of people both within and entering the UK Civil Service with STEM qualifications and, according to a University of Cambridge study, it’s pitifully low. Around 10% of civil servants have STEM degrees, compared to 16% in the US and 30% in South Korea.

Maybe STEM graduates find they can have a more rewarding working life away from the government. We know for sure the UK doesn’t do enough to attract such brains into the civil service. 

Yet, at the same time, the UK is a huge engine of science and engineering and one the government never tires of shouting about. Surely, STEM should be properly represented both in the Civil Service and among our political leaders?

One answer boils down to education. I was fortunate enough when I went to university in 1982 that degrees were funded by government grants. I wince at the sort of debt taken on by our university entrants each year. 

Come the revolution, degrees in STEM subjects will be funded by the old-style grant method. We desperately need to skill up our workforce and, as the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. 

Will it happen in my lifetime? I hope so. And until then, I shall continue to point out that working at Marie Claire, whilst entirely honorable in itself, is no career path to be telling the UK tech sector about large language models.

The Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) has said it will require up to £726 million in funding to modernize legacy IT systems between 2021 and 2025 to improve digital services, according to a new report.

Following a review of the department’s IT infrastructure by the Public Accounts Committee, Defra said it believes it can unlock cost savings of between £20 million to £25 million each year by modernizing infrastructure. 

However, the committee noted that a “lack of overall vision” means that changes implemented now could lead to “wasted time and money” and may not be appropriate in the longer term.

The review concluded that Defra is using “outdated and difficult to use” legacy IT systems which are hampering its ability to provide efficient digital services. 

Defra and its offshoot organizations process around 14 million transactions each year that still involve paper forms and applications. These outdated processes are making work conducted by the department “inefficient and expensive”. 

At present, 80% of Defra’s IT applications remain either in extended support or are completely unsupported by suppliers. 

This means that the department could incur additional charges for updates while poorly optimized or unsupported systems have a negative impact on customers. 

“It doesn’t measure the cost to users of its unmodernized digital services, so it is not possible to assess the total burden they place on other organizations and the wider economy. For example, previously vets had to buy old laptops to be able to run the programs they needed to use,” the committee wrote. 

Defra said that it has embarked on a “fundamental review and potential restructure” of the organization. However, the committee warned that it does not yet have a “concurrent proactive strategy for transformation of its digital services”.

Similarly, the committee concluded that Defra has failed to overhaul its long-term reliance on paper forms or make applications for customers more widely available via mobile phones, for example. 

Comprehensive IT overhaul needed at Defra 

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, deputy chair of the committee, said Defra’s IT processes are highly inhibitive to customers that engage with the department.

Defra systems are used by a wide range of customers and are “critical to the country’s trade, disease prevention, flood protection, and air quality monitoring”, the committee said.

“Defra’s IT systems are so outmoded and disconnected - where they exist at all, instead of paper forms - that in some cases the professionals who keep our food, water, and air safe have been forced to buy obsolete equipment just to fill in the forms to fulfill their regulatory responsibilities,” he said. 

“We are facing down rapidly spreading animal diseases, maybe the next pandemic, with systems that may rely on moving paper forms around. This cannot continue."

Sir Geoffrey said the committee will “not accept a situation where Defra spends hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money on a disjointed upgrade program” and called for a comprehensive overhaul of its IT estate. 

“It’s time for a complete overhaul at Defra, with a concurrent, proactive digital strategy that matches every step.”

The UK government has officially condemned the Iranian state for a cyber attack against Albania to which the country has been linked.

On 15 July, the Albanian government suffered a major cyber attack, as threat actors destroyed data, shut down the public service portal ‘e-Albania’, and leaked details of the Albanian prime minister and ministry of foreign affairs.

Essential services, such as a public-facing portal for booking medical appointments, the system by which children are enrolled at school, and online utility bill websites, were also affected in the attack.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has concluded to a high degree of certainty that Iranian-linked threat actors are behind the attack. The US National Security Council (NSC) likewise blamed the Iranian government for conducting the operation in a White House statement.

Yesterday, Albania severed diplomatic ties with Iran over the incident, and gave embassy staff, security teams and diplomatic personnel in Tirana 24 hours to leave the country. It is the first case of cutting diplomatic ties in response to a cyber attack.

Attacks on critical national infrastructure (CNI) are a growing threat, with malware tailor-made to destroy industrial systems having been found in the wild. Security groups have been warning for years about the specific involvement of Iranian-backed threat actors in such attacks.

“Albania views impacted government networks as critical infrastructure,” said NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

"Malicious cyber activity by a State that intentionally damages critical infrastructure or otherwise impairs its use and operation to provide services to the public can have cascading domestic, regional, and global effects; pose an elevated risk of harm to the population; and may lead to escalation and conflict.“

Having assisted Ukraine against such cyber attacks for months following Russia’s invasion of the country in February, the NCSC have warned against UK-based security teams becoming burned out and letting their guard down as a result.

The Iranian government deny involvement in the attack, citing its long struggle with attacks such as the Stuxnet worm to indicate that it is the victim of threats to CNI. As a NATO member, Albania has been joined in support by many western powers.

“Iran’s reckless actions showed a blatant disregard for the Albanian people, severely restricting their ability to access essential public services,” stated foreign secretary James Cleverly, who entered his cabinet role on Tuesday.

“The UK is supporting our valuable partner and NATO ally. We join Albania and other allies in exposing Iran’s unacceptable actions.”

This automatically-generated transcript is taken from the IT Pro Podcast episode ‘What’s so hard about public sector IT?’. To listen to the full episode, click here. We apologise for any errors.

Adam Shepherd

Hi, I'm Adam Shepherd.

Keumars Afifi-Sabet

And I'm Keumars Afifi-Sabet,

Adam

And you're listening to the IT Pro Podcast where this week we're investigating the unfortunate reputation of public sector IT. It's widely believed that public sector organisations trail behind commercial companies when it comes to the effective deployment of technology, stuck with creaky systems and inefficient processes that can sometimes look positively ancient when compared to those used in the private sector.

Keumars

It's an understandable reputation given the laundry list of mishandled and scrapped IT projects over the years left behind by organisations like the NHS and various government departments. But is public sector IT inherently more difficult to manage than other areas, and how can public sector IT managers circumvent some of these challenges?

Adam

We're joined today by HPE's Senior Vice President and UK MD Marc Waters to discuss the state of technology in the UK public sector, and how it might be brought up to speed. Marc, welcome to the show.

Marc Waters

Well, good morning. Thank you. Good to see you both. And great to be here.

Adam

So Marc, IT in the public sector has a reputation for being stuck behind the curve, let's say. Do you think this is a broadly fair assessment?

Marc

Well, I would say there's a lot of positivity within UK public sector on technology. There are lots of great technologists. And there are lots of things to be to be cheered and to be recognised. I do think we have made good progress on Citizen Services, digital services for our citizens, we've done that with a reasonable degree of speed. And we've seen a real open mindedness to change to embrace new technologies. So so there's lots to be celebrated. But no, you're you're correct. I mean, I think, if you look at the National Audit Office, they recently reported on 25 years of technology strategy and failure with digital change, citing a consistent pattern of underperformance. So there's definitely something in there. By mitigation, I would say that, quite often the programmes we talk about have a degree of visibility, that the private sector is not subjected to, and a degree of scale and complexity, and also compliance oversight that adds just just additional hurdles towards success.

Adam

I think that's a really good point to bring up. If you're looking at, for example, rolling out Office 365 across a business, if that project goes wrong, then you know, it's not the end of the world. If you're a government department looking at rolling out, you know, digital passports, for example, if that goes wrong, that has much more severe consequences. So the checks and balances need to be, you know, equivalently, substantial.

Marc

Yes, checks and balances are very important as a as a taxpayer, as an advocate of UK PLC, we expect and we want those checks and balances, but it's often the unintended consequences that result that make life very difficult for many very talented technologists within UK public sector. Again, coming back to the NAO report, they talk a lot about being driven to decide short term technical solutions without full consideration of the long term impact. And they also talk about the gap in skills when you get into full deployment or implementation, and those two things often leading to a disparity between the aspiration, which was good, right, well thought out - and the actual outcome, which which can often come short, leading to some of the perceptions, fair or unfair, that you you referenced at the top of this podcast.

Keumars

My question is a little bit around the idea of perception; for all the bad that we hear about, I mean, when it goes wrong, it's, it's catastrophically goes wrong. How much of this is about what we see? I mean, I'm sure there's lots of good going on that possibly outweighs the bad. And how much of it is about, I guess systemic cultural issues that do result in some of these failures that we do see?

Marc

Ah, these things are always a combination of factors and an organization's culture, be that public or private sector, will have an impact in how they deploy significant projects. Probably two areas I'd I'd pull out that stand out for me as a technologist, and again, as someone who wants to see the UK thrive, is probably a lack of appreciation or realism around the impact of existing technical debt when future projects are being considered, particularly in the context of a public cloud first policy in government leading to difficult application choices around retain or re-host or or actually are we just going to try and rearchitect and rebuild everything somewhere else? And what's the implication of making those choices based on a narrow policy objective, maybe, rather than a more longer term or outcome-based set of criteria? I mean, again, in terms of success or failure, and, you know, I'm not sure we are totally the, the right jury to pass judgement on it. I think we've all got got preset perspectives. But in if you look at the recent report from IDC, I think 70% of government applications are sat outside of the public cloud, after eight years of a public cloud first policy that's garnered significant huge investment and increasing government operational costs. So you would kind of question the success of that as a strategy. In that context, you would question the implications of that to taxpayers? And you I would push to say, when is it time to really rethink those policy objectives to take account for technical debt and just approach things not from a solution first direction, but from an outcome based direction?

Adam

And that push towards outcome driven IT is something that we've spoken about a fair amount in the past. So we've spoken a lot about the strategy side of things. But can you tell us a little bit about the appetite for IT innovation that you're seeing within public sector?

Marc

I think there is a great appetite for innovation, I meet some incredibly talented technologists, there is a degree of ambition. And I mean, I know you watched our 'Unconsciously Hybrid' documentary; you can see there from, from people heavily involved in the public sector, there is also a great deal of frustration on constraints that people feel are placed upon them. The the challenge in order to be able to deliver on the the innovation aspiration. So I don't think it's a lack of aspiration. I think it's more down to execution. And again, you know, policy frameworks, with all good intentions take time to catch up or are often dated by the time they're implemented. And in an area such as technology, which moves at an incredible pace, they can quickly become well intentioned, constraining factors, as opposed to catalysts to to innovation. And coming back to Unconsciously Hybrid, this is quite often what we see now, with 70% of apps sent outside of the public cloud. But with a big public cloud push and an increase in investment, significant investment, you see across government, two operating models, one highly centralised public cloud, one decentralised and under invested in, and no policy to look at how those things can be joined together and start to rethink how technology platforms should should be built. I think just the other, the other point I'd raise on on strategy that's that's worth coming back to is how the UK Government is thinking about data. And I mean about data as an economic asset for our country. And for our business environment within the UK, we see a lot of talk around the UK being, you know, our economic agenda to be a science and technology powerhouse. One of the biggest, probably the biggest asset the government has in enabling that is data, some sort of coherence of of department or local authority, technology strategy linked back to a broader data strategy for the country is for me sorely missing. And there are good examples of how this is being done in the EU, in a number of other countries, in the US that you know, I would and I do push government to pay more heed to.

Keumars

When I look at public sector IT I mean, you mentioned data and the differences in data strategies between certain EU countries and in our country, I mean, we hear a lot about data silos, systems that aren't really joined together. Are you optimistic at all about various policies or talking points that might be on the agenda now about reducing some of these barriers?

Marc

Well Keumars, I'm a naturally optimistic person. So let me say yes. I think in all seriousness, I think we do have the ear of government, there's a lot more discussion of this topic. And then if you look at UK businesses, UK technology companies are being increasingly vocal; Simon Hansford from UKCloud is a good example of that. I think the FT and the Telegraph have picked up on that, you know, I know ministers are aware of and hear that dialogue. I think the term digital or data sovereignty means something much more now, within government. And I do believe people are looking across the water at what the EU is doing with its sovereign data policy and with its Gaia X initiative. So yes, I also think we see an emergence of some really interesting technologies. And when I talk with technologists within the public sector, on areas such as federated cloud and swarm learning, and what this means in the way that government can think about data, then we're seeing a good and positive response here. And this is the concept, swarm learning, about where you don't need to try and centralise all of your data in somebody else's cloud. But you can build secure, federated clouds, where you bring algorithms or ML training models to the data, you don't move or copy the data, but you gain the benefit of that in your AI strategy. So I see cause for positivity there. I'd give one other example, actually, that I'm pretty passionate about, which is what has been done in Edinburgh. For me, that is a great example of a coherent data strategy supported by government policy. So Edinburgh, led by the University was awarded a city deal from the UK Government to become the data capital of Europe, that's led to the creation of the Edinburgh International Data facility, which is ultimately a high performance compute artificial intelligence platform, fully containerized that gives access to practitioners, both public and private sector and devs, to machine learning, training modules, access to data, or insight from that data to train algorithms and it, it boosts the outcomes that can be delivered both public and private sector across Edinburgh. And we've seen as an offshoot for that, and it's a topic we've not got to yet, is a huge growth in data skills in Edinburgh as a result. Edinburgh University is now a leader on data education, and you start to get these kind of communities, don't you, these areas of, of skill. That's an example of it working well. So we should have that balance.

Adam

So a lot of these projects that you've mentioned, and these kind of potential ways that the public sector and the government can start integrating new technologies into its strategy; they've got a huge amount of promise. But one of the the problems, if you like, with previous kind of IT transformation projects within public sector is that they've tended to be a little bit over ambitious, let's say, in in some cases, and they've kind of ended up coming in later than they were intended to, often going over budget. You know, there are examples such as the digital services at the border technology, the NHS Track and Trace project originally was plagued by delays and kind of flip flops in terms of strategy. And admittedly, there were some quite severe extenuating circumstances around that last one. But public sector transformation projects in general can tend to reach for the stars without necessarily considering the realities of delivering those kinds of projects. Why do you think that these kinds of budget and time issues tend to be more common in public sector IT?

Marc

Yeah, well, I mean, again, I would say there is a high degree of scrutiny on public sector projects, let's let's remember that. And let's also acknowledge, over that same time period, some incredible successes with government digital services, particularly around vaccine data, for example, and getting value from it, right. So we need we need that balance. I think there's two, there's three things maybe at play. Firstly, the scale, typically, of a public sector project makes it incredibly complex. And quite often from from my perspective, people may have other views, it's it can be over centralised and over simplified; I.E. just put it cloud first, as a as a policy direction rather than than what you're trying to do. So I think that then places a set of constraints around how funding decisions are made, what type of services accounted for, in what way by government, what type of compliance and oversight is required, and it can make it very, very difficult to move quickly. And for technologists to innovate in real time with those those policy constraints. I think number two is this point on not appreciating the technology debt that exists or the existing and the fact that you need to count that in the future or move from things in the future, the strategy of let's just replatform everything or rearchitect everything is, it's an incredibly rich strategy and often doomed to failure. So there is a hybrid mentality that I believe is missing that is another factor. And the third point on skills is an important one, these are very complex projects, external skills are expensive to bring in talent, in areas such as data, IT modernization, data platforms are scarce and expensive, and hard to attract within a public sector financial framework, so all of those things come together to to contribute to some of the challenges that you you talk about there.

Adam

So what you're saying it sounds like is that government and public sector organisations already have a huge amount of IT resource, IT infrastructure, IT skills, existing in their organisations, and that they should make more use of what they've got to do some of these, you know, newer, newer things, you know, leverage them for newer use cases, versus just jumping on the kind of the newest and shiniest technology, whether that's, you know, cloud platforms or containers, or you know, what have you.

Marc

Well, I think what I'm saying is at the start, you can't wish away your legacy debt. From a technical perspective, you have to be realistic and understand it. I do think there is intrinsic value. There's also a question of reuse and sustainability of everything from e-waste to platforms that exist and great work from Defra, would would call that out with some of their their e-waste work. And we are, we're a proud partner of Defra in that, we actually have at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, the largest technology recycling reuse centre across the whole of the European region based out of Glasgow, which we do good work with government and public sector to take in technology to push that forward for reuse, not recycle, and to return value from those assets in a sustainable way. So I think that that that's important. But it's this point that if you decide that all applications are going to be rebuilt in a public cloud, because everything has to be public cloud, then that completely changes the dynamic of your approach from the start. And I think our view would be, Okay, why don't you actually start by understanding your application footprint and architectures, what are core, what actually, you might want to retain, or re-host in a different way by modernising your on-premise or your private cloud environment? How do you get connection between your public and private cloud and best manage that, and then of course, there's this other factor, which is coming back to data, that over 50% of it is now being created outside of a data centre, at the edge, and increasingly needs to be processed at the edge. And so therefore, bringing this dimension into the strategy as well as your existing data centre, your desire to get value from public cloud and thinking about an edge strategy starts to create the need for edge to cloud platforms. And government policy right now is not not set up to understand those nuance.

Keumars

My perspective on when we think about public sector IT and the breadth, if you think about how massive the public sector truly is, you've got central government, local authorities, public sector agencies. In the years we've been discussing and covering public sector stories, I feel it's actually more nuanced than we can appreciate. I do notice differences between the way a government department might approach a project from the way a council might. So I guess my question is, can you identify any differences in the approach, the operations, even the technical capabilities and the culture between all these different strands of the public sector?

Marc

Yeah, you're you're on the right point Keumars, and it's hugely different. Talking about local government IT versus a hugely significant central government orientated technology project. And the the depth of technical knowledge and understanding can vary significantly, across across local boroughs across different different departments. We do see which I'm very positive about an increasing degree of collaboration between public sector bodies on a regional basis. And I think that is fantastic. I think academia has a role to play in that; again, the Edinburgh example is a really intuitive one of that. And I think these things are starting to happen organically, it would be great to see public policy support that a bit more and also think about regional ecosystems of UK technology companies. And this is an important point on cloud and cloud technology. When we think about the emergence of federated clouds, I.E. What the EU is doing with Gaia X versus the UK government approach of ultra centralisation into public clouds. I mean, I think the latest stats - where was it from, Global Data - is that what over 50% of government cloud spending is with AWS alone, let's not even talk Azure and Google. I mean, which is an incredible, incredible statistic, particularly when you think about what that translates to in terms of UK data and where it's going and how much it would cost to repatriate that that data. But when you start to think about this sort of growing, this nascent ecosystem of UK service providers, I referenced UKCloud, another great example is Centerprise, who have just launched their CI cloud, looking at providing cloud hosting services more regionally orientated, in and around local government and public sector bodies, supported by skills with local people engaged in their own communities. It's a very good model and federated cloud technologies and concepts such as swarm learning, in my opinion, make it a more effective model in the long term, especially when we consider where data is being created. And how hard that data gets to move. And you think about data gravity, a good example from from Germany, where there's there's been a nice report on this on clinical data, like clinical data is very hard to move. Because it's really secure. People are very nervous about letting go of it from a security perspective. And it's really big, you know, an MRI scan is, is huge, and you start to extrapolate that out. But if you want to get artificial intelligence to learn from that information, you need to get it to the data, the models are only as good as the training you give them. And what they did in Germany, where they have a multi state model, using swarm learning, was set up a whole set of regional federated clouds, where the clinical data remained near where it was created, you didn't have to move it, you don't have to put it in someone else's data centre where you have to repatriate it back. And they move the algorithm to the data to train it. So all of a sudden, you end up with a much more mature AI model. And there's a scientific study been been published on that. And I think this is the push this is the next push, which not only brings that innovation into public sector, it levels up for regional bodies, in terms of their power versus a big, centralised government and it supports this ecosystem of UK service providers, UK skills to support it and you start to get hubs of excellence like like Edinburgh.

Adam

So speaking of Edinburgh, and hubs of excellence, we've mentioned already quite a few public-private partnership programmes, if you'll forgive the alliteration, and is this a potential solution to some of the constraints that we've spoken about in terms of the time and budget burdens that public sector organisations quite often have to work under? Is kind of working with private sector organisations that can maybe move a little bit faster, that don't necessarily have to kind of do their their cost accounting and their procurement in the same way - can these kinds of partnerships help speed up the delivery of the solutions do you think?

Marc

I'm not sure I'm a fan of that term public private partnership; it's got many connotations going back many years, hasn't it, in terms of public policy, but I would say, where I see things most effective, you typically get a three way partnership between government, central, local, or both, ideally, academia who have a really valuable role that can be played. And then business. And I think technology companies are often a force for good. And you see ecosystems emerging where technology companies team and partner together to enable the right solutions for government. And I think getting to that type of model, which requires a different approach, maybe to procurement and contracting is is more valuable, and the government should consult more widely on different ways to engage industry and academia in in these type of collaborative agreements for the greater benefit of the UK economy, I think is would be broadly welcomed. And I think there's lots of good ideas out there, Adam.

Keumars

You mentioned Mark earlier that you were a fairly optimistic person. I I'm just wondering, I mean, when I look at the state of the public sector kind of tech strategy, and the various things are going on, I do see a lot of good, but um, I mean, there seems to be a fair few number of barriers to getting to where we need to be. Obviously COVID hasn't helped. But in some ways, I've seen plenty of examples of digital transformation projects that have actually accelerated in the public sector because of COVID. I suppose from your perspective, what are the major barriers to getting into this sort of healthy ideal that you've described?

Marc

Yeah, it's a good question, isn't it? I wouldn't put blame on delay around the pandemic. I think your comment, actually, in many ways, it's accelerated digitization and decision making, at times, so I wouldn't look at that as a blocker. I would say, government policy has to be the starting point. You know, our policy objective, primary policy objective, is a location of a solution, which is incredible when you say that out loud. So I would say we need to start to re-baseline policy objectives and think about digital and data strategy more completely as a UK economic benefit of which government tech policy is an offshoot and not the other way around. So policy objectives for me should be firstly, how do we cultivate a thriving technology environment across the UK, with emerging UK service providers and technology companies supporting government which has a a kick on for skills and skills development, that should be at the heart of public sector technology policy. Number two is how do we extract value from our sovereign data and expose that value to businesses, SMEs, across the UK economy, to scientists, to academia more effectively, through things such as cloud federation and secure data spaces, technologies like like swarm learning. Number three, then, is around citizen experience. I'm not sure how highly we rate this in our technology policy right now, but delivering digital services for citizens through secure automated platforms that can scale, edge to cloud, I would say as a Hewlett Packard Enterprise technologist, are important. And then finally value for money and sustainability; what really is the long term cost of putting all your data in someone else's data centre and needing to effectively fund that for however many years that data exists, starting to build that into our policy objectives, and then setting a clearer direction with those remits and giving a bit more empowerment to public sector technologists on decision making within that framework, and formal encouragement on working collaboratively with groups of technology partners, not just one technology partner, groups, consortia coming together, and academia as well, that would be very, very helpful from government. I talk to government. I'm an advisor on the UK Investment Council for government and and therefore do have these type of conversations. I talk within the CBI where I sit on the President's Committee about these topics, and I know it's being raised and I am optimistic, Keumars. So I think government is listening. And I'm just probably, my optimism is maybe balanced with impatience around speed of action.

Adam

So speaking of empowering public sector IT decision makers, how can IT directors within the public sector enact these kinds of programmes, how can they help deliver deliver these kinds of changes that we've been talking about and delivering these kinds of projects? What advice would you have for them in terms of practical measures that they can use to really get these projects over the line in a fast and efficient manner?

Marc

Oh, well, that's a big question, Adam. There's no silver bullet on this. And there's plenty of programme and project management best practice that I won't set out, I would guide them to do the right diligence up front in terms of outcome and be ready to challenge policy constraints. Not necessarily just accept but to push back and ask why. It's amazing what happens when we see that that taking place within the public sector, and I would say it's imperative for any project: number one, understand your technical debt, what you have today and those applications and take an assessment on what is best for them - before you decide your solution. I would put that as a as a key criteria, orientate any IT modernisation, any IT solutions, from a data first modernisation perspective, think about the data from the long term sustainability, where is the data going to reside? And how are you going to manage data, ensure that that is right at the top. So you start with data first modernisation, and then and then think about your project in probably three key domains. Number one is secure connectivity to underpin it, which is, frankly, fundamental, particularly when you start to federate clouds. Number two is cloud overall, what do you mean by cloud? It's not really a destination. It is automation, it's tooling, it's an experience, it's consumption and capacity. So what is the platform that best delivers that in a world which will be hybrid, conscious or unconscious. And then then finally, data. So connectivity, cloud and data and start to build a strategy with all those aspects in mind, at the top of the core, then who are the right partnerships? How do you build an ecosystem of technology partners, other government departments, in terms of collaboration and academia, that would be my kind of probably top of the box advice.

Adam

Well, unfortunately, I'm afraid that's all we've got time for this week. But thanks once again to HPE's Marc Waters for joining us.

Marc

Well, thank you very much, Adam. Thank you, Keumars. Great to be here.

Keumars

Thank you, Marc. You can find out more about all the issues we've discussed today in the show notes and even more detail on our website, itpro.co.uk

Adam

You can also follow us on social media or sign up to our newsletter for more great content.

Keumars

We'll be back next week with more insight from the world of IT but until then, goodbye

Adam

Bye.

Public sector organisations have a reputation for being somewhat behind the times when it comes to IT transformation, frequently hampered by tight budgets and Byzantine bureaucratic procurement procedures. However, while this reputation isn’t entirely unwarranted, the reasons behind it aren’t as straightforward as they might appear.

In this week’s episode, we’re looking at why public sector technology tends to lag behind the cutting edge, as well as what steps might be taken to give public sector technologists more room to innovate, and we’re joined by HPE’s senior vice president and UK MD, Marc Waters.

Highlights

“I would say there is a high degree of scrutiny on public sector projects, let's remember that. And let's also acknowledge, over that same time period, some incredible successes with government digital services, particularly around vaccine data, for example, and getting value from it. So we need that balance.”

“The other point I'd raise on on strategy that's worth coming back to, is how the UK Government is thinking about data. And I mean about data as an economic asset for our country, and for our business environment within the UK. We see a lot of talk around [the UK’s] economic agenda to be a science and technology powerhouse. Probably the biggest asset the government has in enabling that is data, some sort of coherence of department or local authority technology strategy, linked back to a broader data strategy for the country is, for me, sorely missing. And there are good examples of how this is being done in the EU, in a number of other countries, in the US that I would - and I do - push government to pay more heed to.”

“Edinburgh, led by the University, was awarded a city deal from the UK Government to become the data capital of Europe. That's led to the creation of the Edinburgh International Data facility, which is ultimately a high performance compute artificial intelligence platform, fully containerized, that gives access to practitioners, both public and private sector and devs, to machine learning, training modules, access to data, or insight from that data to train algorithms and it boosts the outcomes that can be delivered both public and private sector across Edinburgh. And we've seen as an offshoot for that, a huge growth in data skills in Edinburgh as a result. Edinburgh University is now a leader on data education, and you start to get these kind of communities, these areas of skill. That's an example of it working well.”

Read the full transcript here.

Footnotes

• Health department blasted for 'track record of failed NHS digital projects'
• Government encourages 'cloud-first' strategy against backdrop of G-cloud iii launch
• Google Cloud signs deal with the UK government
• UKCloud signs MoU with the Crown Commercial Service
• HPE signs landmark cloud deal with UK government
• IT Pro Panel: Building a data-driven business
• Cloud can help you understand data – but only if you plan first
• HPE to help build Europe’s first regional data innovation centre
• What is Gaia-X? A guide to the EU’s unified cloud ecosystem
• HPE launches key framework for EU's Gaia-X project
• Border force reliant on 26-year-old tech due to digital upgrade delay
• How businesses were left to scramble over data collection for coronavirus contact tracing
• NHS Test and Trace suffers second software glitch in a week
• The IT Pro Podcast: Coping with technical debt
• EU targets e-waste with ambitious ‘circular economy’ plan
• Royal Mint to recover gold from smartphones and laptops in world first
• Will Britain’s “right to repair” law fix anything?
• What is a circular economy?
• What is edge computing?

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Fresh research from the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) has revealed less than a third of business leaders in the UK's top companies are actively managing cyber security risks in the supply chain.

Just 28% of respondents replied strongly in favour when asked if they actively manage vulnerabilities in the supply chain, despite 97% of businesses being impacted by supply chain attacks in the past year.

That's according to new research from the DCMS in which C-suite executives at 107 of Britain's top companies were asked about their business' cyber resilience.

The DCMS is now considering imposing tough new rules for businesses to follow to secure the country's digital supply chains, such as those set out in the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) Cyber Assessment Framework.

The public sector may also face restrictions that could include more stringent procurement rules to ensure products and services are only bought from vendors with good cyber security histories, and plans for improved advice and guidance campaigns to help businesses manage security risks, the DCMS said.

There is strong support from the industry for developing new or updated legislation to improve security at the supply chain level with 82% of respondents agreeing legislation could be an effective or a somewhat effective solution.

Following a call for views, which closed in July 2021, the UK government will now develop more detailed policy proposals in response to the new findings. A review of current legislation is underway and a new national cyber strategy will be launched before the end of the year.

"As more and more organisations do business online and use a range of IT services to power their services, we must make sure their networks and technology are secure," said Julia Lopez, minister for media, data and digital infrastructure.

"Today we are taking the next steps in our mission to help firms strengthen their cyber security and encouraging firms across the UK to follow the advice and guidance from the National Cyber Security Centre to secure their businesses’ digital footprint and protect their sensitive data," she added.

Elsewhere in the research, interviews of C-suite executives showed most board members (51%) at the very top of UK business are only consulted on cyber security matters once every quarter.

One in five boards (19%) are consulted on cyber security even less frequently with the topic raised as little as once every six months. A similar proportion (20%) discuss the latest threats on a monthly basis, one in 20 (5%) discuss cyber security on a weekly basis while just 1% discuss the matter daily.

Just a minority of boards at the UK's top firms (24%) report feeling 'very informed' to make key business decisions related to cyber security, and a sizeable proportion (34%) expressed that more awareness training and education is needed at the board level to make better decisions about cyber resilience.

Other data from the research revealed a more positive outlook as most business leaders (91%) agree that cyber threats are considered 'high risk' or 'very high risk' at the board level - a figure which is up from 84% in 2020.

A similar majority of leaders (92%) also agree that the board integrates cyber risk considerations into wider business areas, however, the data shows greater awareness and more frequent consultation about the cyber security landscape may be needed to improve the overall cyber resilience in UK businesses.

HPE has signed a $2 billion computing deal with the US National Security Agency (NSA) to provide high-performance computing (HPC) services.

The agreement, which spans 10 years, will involve HPE providing the secretive intelligence agency with on-premises cloud computing services via its Greenlake offering. Greenlake, launched in December 2020, offers high-performance computing as a service through on-premises or co-location offerings.

The NSA system will go live in 2022 using a combination of HPE Apollo and ProLiant servers. It won't run on the Agency's premises, though. Instead, HPE will build and manage the entire system for the NSA at a data center provided by QTS Realty Trust.

Information on the NSA workloads that will run on Greenlake is sparse, but HPE said it would handle "complex data needs," including deep learning, which uses artificial neural networks to find patterns in large amounts of data.

The Agency has long been a heavy data user in its mission to gather foreign intelligence and other programs that controversially directed its domestic surveillance efforts.

Before whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the extent of its mass surveillance program, it began building a controversial Utah data center capable of processing exabytes of data, drawing the ire of local politicians. It finished that facility in 2014.

At launch, HPE said Greenlake would accelerate the deployment of HPC projects by up to 75% and cut capital expenditure by up to 40%.

The NSA has been busy commissioning new computing contracts in the past month. In early August, the NSA awarded a $10 billion cloud contract to AWS, which Microsoft immediately appealed.

HP shares jumped 1.5% upon the deal's announcement.

The White House this week launched an initiative to recruit early-career technology experts into the federal government.

The US Digital Corps is a two-year fellowship program that will nurture technology skills to tackle some of the country's most pressing problems.

The initiative will use technology skills to address issues, ranging from the pandemic to racial equality, climate change, health care, cyber security, and economic recovery. The General Services Administration will house the team in its Technology Transformation Services unit.

The US Digital Corps will initially recruit 30 fellows across five agencies. In addition to the GSA, they will work at Veterans Affairs, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The idea for the initiative initially came from the Day One Project, a nonprofit that promotes policy reform with input from the science and technology community. The proposal said the initiative could help to rebuild trust in the government and create a technology talent funnel at the federal level.

Day One highlighted a shortage of technology talent at the federal level, along with an ageing workforce. The government needs to stimulate a new generation of technology workers, it said.

The initiative is a collaboration between the General Services Administration (GSA), the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of Personnel Management, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. It will complement existing programs, including Presidential Innovation Fellows, the US Digital Service, and the GSA's technology consultancy, 18F.

Fellows will come from undergraduate and graduate degree programs, apprenticeships, and boot camps. The program doesn't require full-time work experience. They will embark on a dedicated learning curriculum with individual performance plans.

"The Digital Corps fellowship offers technologists just starting out in their career the opportunity to work on some of the most pressing challenges that we face and develop innovative solutions that make government work better for the American people," said the GSA's administrator, Robin Carnahan.

President Biden's administration has been grappling with technology issues, including cyber security in its first eight months, prompting presidential concerns over escalating cyber conflicts and a recent meeting with tech CEOs.

A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report has found that while the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has made substantial efforts to share cyber security threat intel with the wider health care sector, it could do more to develop its collaboration and coordination within the department and the sector.

The recently published report said the GAO was tasked to review HHS’s organizational approach to address cyber security. It looked at documentation describing HHS’s cyber security roles and responsibilities, assessed those responsibilities for fragmentation, duplication and overlap, and evaluated the department’s collaborative efforts against GAO’s leading practices for collaboration.

The report found that the recent coronavirus pandemic has “highlighted the need for HHS to pay continuous attention to cyber threats, which pose a serious challenge to national security, economic well-being, and public health and safety. “

“Since the start of the nation’s response to COVID-19 in March 2020, HHS and the HPH sector organizations have been targets for malicious cyber activity,” the report stated.

The report said HHS had clearly described roles and responsibilities for implementing its cyber security program, including the FISMA-required eight elements of the program. The department had also developed or contributed to developing policies, procedures, and plans that described the department’s roles and responsibilities for providing cyber security support to the healthcare and public health care (HPH) sector.

However, the report said that procedures and plans did not describe coordination among two entities critical to the department’s cyber security information sharing with the HPH sector — the Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) and the Healthcare Threat Operations Center (HTOC).

“Without coordinating the responsibilities for sharing cyber security information to the HPH sector, HHS is missing an opportunity to strengthen those efforts for their intended audience,” the report warned.

The GAO said there were areas where HHS could improve, such as actionable threat sharing and better support for industry partnerships.

“Until HC3 and HTOC formalize coordination of their cyber security information sharing responsibilities, sector partners will likely be without important threat information,” said the report’s authors.

The GAO said that the secretary of HHS should direct its chief information officer to coordinate cyber security information sharing between the Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center and Healthcare Threat Operations Center.

It should also direct its CIO to monitor, evaluate, and report on the progress and performance of the HHS Chief Information Security Officer Council, Continuous Monitoring and Risk Scoring Working Group, and Cloud Security Working Group.

The report said the HHS stated it is currently addressing the six recommendations it agreed with, but it did not agree with the GAO findings on cyber security coordination. HHS said there was “close coordination between HC3 and HTOC that takes into consideration the stakeholders and agreements between relevant partners and stakeholders.”

The Department of Defense (DoD) may have to rethink the $10 billion JEDI cloud computing contract it awarded to Microsoft following a court decision in its legal battle with Amazon.

In an interview at the Aspen Institute on April 30, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said the DoD would have to consider the project in the context of ongoing litigation.

"We're going to have to assess where we are with regard to the ongoing litigation around JEDI and determine what the best path forward is for the department," she said.

The statement echoed a briefing sent to lawmakers in January. In the briefing, the Pentagon warned that Amazon's legal action against the government and Microsoft jeopardized the project.

The Pentagon’s problem relates to count number four of Amazon's litigation, which alleges improper influence at the highest levels of Government. The cloud giant says this unfairly affected the outcome of the bidding process. It alleges that former President Trump influenced the DoD to avoid giving the contract to Amazon.

The briefing document outlined two scenarios. In the first scenario, the Court of Federal Claims (COFC) would rule to dismiss count four of the AWS complaint. This wouldn't end the litigation, as AWS has three other counts to consider, but it would likely limit that litigation to around five months. The Pentagon would suspend JEDI until that litigation process was complete.

The second scenario became a reality on April 29 when the COFC published a decision denying the DoD's request to dismiss count four in the courts. The DoD's briefing document warned that this would threaten the JEDI contract’s future. It would need extensive litigation involving depositions from current and former White House and DoD officials, it warned.

"These motions will be complex and elongate the timeline significantly," said the report. "The prospect of such a lengthy litigation process might bring the future of the JEDI Cloud procurement into question."

The report said that either scenario leaves the Pentagon with a gap in its capabilities which it calls an "urgent, unmet requirement." This would extend across all three classification levels and from the home front to the tactical edge, at scale.

The DoD's Office of Inspector General has launched an administrative review of the JEDI contract. However, last month, Senator Chuck Grassley of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary wrote to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin warning he had serious concerns about the scope of the review.

"DoD OIG did not examine key issues that occurred before the request for proposal (RFP) process, including allegations of pressure from senior leadership to conduct the entire contract without a competitive bidding process," he said, also flagging the "unusual and significant" involvement of senior DoD leaders in contract decisions.

The UK's government has u-turned on so many things in 2020 that it's hard to know which decisions -if any - it will actually stick to. It almost resembles a Lazy Susan, slowly changing firm rebuffs into pitiful acceptances within a month or so. And, like lockdowns, furloughs and feeding poor children, Huawei seems to sense its own reprieve coming around.

Clearly emboldened by the electoral defeat of Donald Trump, the embattled Chinese firm wants the UK's government to reverse its decision to remove all of its equipment from the country's 5G networks by 2023.

"The decision was a political one motivated by US perceptions of Huawei and not those of the UK," Huawei's vice-president Victor Zhang told The Guardian. "This is not really motivated by security, but about a trade war between the US and China."

These so-called 'Trumped-up' accusations may have had some influence on our indecisive Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. The swell of Tory rebels who called for the Chinese firm to be ditched may also have impacted the decision. However, Huawei's call assumes that the UK's decision was based solely on those concerns.

The Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) found that the Chinese firm failed to comply with "its own secure coding guidelines" during an incident which likely led to a vulnerability "of national significance". That's from a centre owned by Huawei but which is directed by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). It didn't find state-sponsored surveillance, it found "sustained evidence of poor coding practices" - essentially, incompetence.

It's not exactly evidence of Ren Zhengfei in cahoots with the People's Republic of China. They haven't been caught embedding backdoors into the UK's 5G networks. They've simply been found wanting from a security perspective. So, by all means, the government can revisit the decision, but this isn't about Donald Trump and his mad ideas: it's about reassurance that Huawei is up to the job.

There are also pretty strong arguments for not reversing the decision. While it might cost the government in the short term, removing the biggest provider does open up the space for smaller businesses and greater competition, and it also gives a chance to more local startups. Until the ban, Huawei was potentially on course to be for 5G what Google is to search.

The damage caused by having a giant provider squashing competition should be especially obvious to Huawei. The company's smartphone sales have gone south, partly thanks to the fact that it can't use Google Play services, and there aren't that many viable alternatives to the Android mobile operating system.

I've previously argued for the US trade sanctions to be lifted, because it ruined the otherwise-excellent P40 and Mate 40 smartphones without addressing the problem of national cyber security. However, I can't say the same for the UK's ban. Unlike Trump's trade sanctions, I don't think Boris' Huawei blockade should be reversed, because it might actually end up being one of the few decisions that he actually got right.

The government isn't taking digital identification seriously, according to a techUK panel, which suggested its recent call for evidence lacked "substance".

The panel, debating the lobby group's recent white paper, was made up of former Labour politician Chuka Umunna, Liberal Democrat Tim Clement-Jones and the CEO of deep tech startup Mvine, Frank Joshi.

In August techUK published a white paper detailing the links between digital identification and the economy. Parts of its call to action included a request that the government put digital identity at the heart of its upcoming Digital Strategy, revise legislation that could impede it and potentially create a specific regulator made up of public and private sector bodies.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) responded this week with a 'call for evidence' and the creation of a Digital Identity Strategy Board which techUK suggested was "vague". Joshi went even further, calling it "woeful" and suggested that it was "lacking in any actionable outcome".

"There is no substance to it," he said. "If it was something prepared ten years ago, fantastic, we could all applaud, but ten years on, it is not good enough. We are at the dawn of the next evolution of the internet. Getting identity infrastructure right is so critical.

"What was its response to the question on the DCMS' point of view that the digital sector is worth £400 million a day and it is worth up to 7.7% of the UK economy? Does that response to the consultation with the commercial world answer those questions? The answer is, woefully, it does not."

All three panellist were in agreement that the response was not enough. Clement-Jones, the Lib Dem's digital spokesperson for the House of Lords, said that he "shares the frustration of many" on reading the government's response.

"What we need is a concrete plan - there is nothing even approaching a concrete plan here," he said. "Are we going to have a green paper and then a white paper and then a draft bill and then legislation?"

Umunna was more moderated with his points, suggesting that it was a question of priority for the government. But he also said it wasn't a "proper response", referring to it as a "web post".

"No plan of action, no timeframe, and absolutely no engaging with the issue of the economy. Which is ultimately the root for ministers to be able to react on this," he said. "If you don't have proper political direction, you'll have officials step in with their own agendas and seek to try and act when they don't have the mandate to do so."

The FBI has reportedly served Apple with a warrant demanding its help to gain access to the iPhone SE and iCloud account that belonged to Sutherland Springs shooter Devin Kelley.

Texas Ranger Kevin Wright obtained search warrants for the data held by Apple on 9 November, according to local news source My San Antonio, as well as for any files stored on another phone - an LG 328BG - found near Kelley's body.

The warrant applies to data such as call logs, messages, address books, photos, videos and other data going back to January 2016, as well as the passwords for social media applications.

The news comes approximately one week after it was revealed the FBI resisted calling Apple when the iPhone SE first came into its hands.

Despite struggling to unlock the phone something agent Christopher Combs complained about during a press conference the agency didn't call the Cupertino firm, instead sending the device to its own crime lab. This reportedly made it harder to unlock the phone as, had the FBI contacted Apple straight away, agents would have been informed the device could still potentially have been unlocked using Kelley's fingerprint.

In a statement, Apple said its team had "immediately reached out to the FBI after learning from their press conference on Tuesday that investigators were trying to access a mobile phone".

"We offered assistance and said we would expedite our response to any legal process they send us," the company added.

IT Pro has approached Apple for comment regarding the latest reports that it has now been served with warrants for the data.

The case comes after the FBI's attempts to gain access to an iPhone belonging to one of the attackers in the San Bernardino shooting in 2015. In that case, once again the law enforcement agency delayed contacting Apple, instead opting to try and gain access to the phone and related iCloud account itself. This resulted in the data becoming inaccessible and a long-running court case. The data was ultimately made available by a third party.

09/11/2017: FBI refused to ask Apple to unlock Texas shooter's iPhone

For nearly two days after the deadly shooting at a Texas church, the FBI struggled to unlock the attacker's iPhone and refused to ask Apple for help, it has transpired. Instead, the FBI sent the phone to a crime lab.

During a recent press conference, FBI agent Christopher Combs complained about not having access to the shooter's phone due to not being able to unlock it. The press conference suggested that important information such as motivations and co-conspirators could be unobtainable without access to the phone. Despite the FBI's struggle, though, it didn't ask Apple for help.

"Our team immediately reached out to the FBI after learning from their press conference on Tuesday that investigators were trying to access a mobile phone. We offered assistance and said we would expedite our response to any legal process they send us," Apple said in a statement.

The FBI's hesitation to contact Apple will complicate the process. If agents had contacted Apple within 48 hours, assuming the shooter unlocked his phone using his fingerprint, the FBI could have still used his finger to unlock the device. However, due to the iPhone's security features, it's now too late to use this method and the FBI will now need to go through the courts to access to phone's contents, according to Business Insider.

This is not the first time the FBI has criticized Apple's devices. In fact, the FBI took Apple to court over access to an iPhone related to the shooting in San Bernardino in 2016 in which 14 people were killed. The court case was dropped as the FBI was able to access the content on its own.

The UK has never been known as a land of fast internet. We consistently underperform in global tests for speed, reliability and coverage, and we're one of the worst when it comes to the rollout of full-fibre. It's perhaps unsurprising, then, that the country's woeful connectivity ratings became a cause for concern after the vote to leave the European Union, as the UK now finds itself competing with not only the likes of US and China, but also with some of its closest neighbours and former colleagues.

While a member of the European Union, the UK contributed to the creation of a continent-wide initiative that will see the standardisation of broadband, an EU digital strategy ensuring consumers and businesses are able to take advantage of state-of-the-art technology. Now we're no longer a part of that scheme, the government has been forced to present its own digital strategy alternative, the proposals for which emerged in March this year.

The digital pledge

The problem is that government's Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) proposals are lofty at best, and are confounded by voluntary pledges by BT and Openreach. Here's a breakdown of what exactly has been proposed so far:

• 100% coverage of "basic" broadband by the end of 2017 - speeds of at least 2Mbps
• 95% coverage of "superfast" broadband by the end of 2017 - speeds of at least 24Mbps
• A 'Universal Service Obligation', granting everyone a right to 10Mbps broadband on "reasonable request"
• A 200 million pledge to stimulate investment in fibre broadband by 2021
• A voluntary pledge by BT and Openreach to provide 99% coverage of 10Mbps broadband by 2020 (as part of the USO)

Aside from the fact that 2Mbps is laughably slow compared to the global stage, the government's early measures have already faced criticisms from an industry that feels they're not enough to meet the UK's digital needs. To make matters worse, the government rejected an amendment from the House of Lords earlier this year that would have seen the USO bumped up from 10Mbps 30Mbps.

We're now approximately six weeks away from the self-imposed broadband deadline, and while the government lauds the progress made towards 100% coverage, customers are still complaining of receiving raw deals from ISPs. A report published only last month found that over half of the country still suffers from frequent broadband blackouts and price hikes, while as few as one in ten households are receiving advertised speeds.

"Industry observers were quick to cast doubts over the UK Government's claim that 95% of the country would receive superfast broadband services by the end of this year," says ViaSat's EMEA VP Marc Agnew, speaking to IT Pro. "Rightly so the UK digital strategy's targets for broadband rollout were clearly overly optimistic.

"You only need to read Ofcom's latest standards on internet performance claims to see the difference between areas that are covered and those that actually have a usable broadband service. The gulf is massive."

The fibre problem

Yet for all the difficulties facing the government over broadband rollout, when it comes to full fibre the UK is one of the world's worst. Fibre broadband, of course, exists in the UK and is supplied by the likes of BT, Virgin Media and Sky, but the overwhelming majority of these connections rely on routing cables to a roadside cabinet, creating a bottleneck for traffic before the service even reaches your home or building.

In fact, the UK is so bad at connecting fibre cables directly to a building that it's regularly left off global ranking reports which have a baseline 1% coverage requirement.

To its credit, the government realises the dire situation the UK is in. Earlier this year, as part of its 200 million fibre commitment, the government launched a fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) trial, in which six projects from regions across the UK were given 10 million to begin testing connections capable of sending up to 1,000Mbps straight to the front door. As admirable as this policy may be, though, the government's handling of the rollout has been criticised.

Ronan Kelly, CTO of ADTRAN and president of the Fibre to the Home Council Europe, argues that the government's efforts are misguided and seriously underutilise the existing expertise in the UK.

"The big question with regard to this initiative is what exactly are they testing," says Kelly, speaking to IT Pro. "There are already a number of fibre-to-the-prem operators in the UK that are addressing both the needs of residential and business customers, and have been for a number of years. If they were approached by the government, [they] could share a lot of detailed insight into the very real challenges faced with building out these fibre infrastructures."

"I don't know whether it's a diluted approach or they're trying to appease some faction out there, and hence they're calling it a trial," adds Kelly. "I'm not sure what the logic is."

The competition gulf

Before any serious investment can take place, the government needs to address the elephant in the room the UK's stagnant fibre market. The country is almost entirely reliant on Openreach for its infrastructure, yet the government has been notably quiet when it comes to competition policy, despite consistent calls for change.

In July 2016 the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committee urged the government to ensure there were clearer and more robust regulations around competition to encourage investments. Almost a year later, the same call was made by Ofcom, which wanted to see a "level playing field" within the fibre industry by allowing competitors to lay their own cables using Openreach's tunnels and telegraph poles.

"Fundamentally, the government has to acknowledge that while today there is a substantial infrastructure available there through Openreach, and while some of that infrastructure is being opened up for third parties, the reality is that they still need to put protections in place for those operators that embark on building out their own fibre infrastructures," says Kelly. "You have to ensure that you don't get tactical overbuilding as a retaliatory action from the operators that have scale."

For example, if a competitive operator moves into a new area with its own brand of fibre services, there's nothing to stop an incumbent provider from creating its own equivalent service and forcing the new player out of the market.

The vote to leave the EU places even greater pressures on the government, according to Kelly, as the UK will soon find itself competing against the European Union's own digital strategy efforts.

"I would be seeking to make sure that the UK had the best digital infrastructure in the world, because the UK is now arguably on its own competing against the world," says Kelly. "Is it doing enough to achieve that? I don't think it is."

"The world is increasingly going digital, the cash flows are moving to where all the key digital services are, and you're either part of that or you're not. In my opinion, the ones that will be part of that, will have as a baseline a best in class digital infrastructure."

Main image credit: Bigstock

Prime minister Theresa May announced a string of measures today aimed at bolstering the tech sector ahead of Brexit.

It will be investing 21 million into its startup quango, Tech City UK, as well as doubling the number of visas the UK offers to skilled foreign workers, amid fears that Brexit will cut off the country's access to a digitally-skilled workforce from abroad.

"Technology is at the heart of our modern Industrial Strategy, and we will continue to invest in the best new innovations and ideas, in the brightest and best talent, and in revolutionary digital infrastructure," said May.

"And as we prepare to leave the European Union, I am clear that Britain will remain open for business. That means government doing all it can to secure a strong future for our thriving tech sector and ensure people in all corners of our nation share in the benefits of its success."

Startup investment

Tech City UK, a primarily London-focused organisation with a remit to develop digital skills and support growing businesses, will rebrand as Tech Nation as a single body covering the entirety of the UK.

Instead of focusing on the development of tech in isolated areas, Tech Nation will be a national organisation designed to encourage startup growth outside of the capital. The 21 million is expected to be invested over the next four years.

As part of the investment, the body will aim to provide 40,000 people with the chance to develop the digital skills needed to start their own businesses, while support will also be offered to 4,000 existing tech businesses through targeted growth programmes.

Tech Nation will also be tasked with encouraging businesses to engage with emerging technology trends, including artificial intelligence and fintech, by enabling them to connect with potential investors and development schemes.

"This new funding is an important part of our plans to make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a digital business, with the benefits spread right across the country," said Matt Hancock, minister for digital.

"This regional network will accelerate the growth of the digital tech sector, cement the pipeline of talent and spark the next generation of innovative firms to seize the future opportunities of digitisation - bringing jobs, skills and higher productivity to our regions."

Tech Nation will be formed of 11 regions in the UK, the first of which have been identified as Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff and London, with more due to be announced in the Budget speech on 22 November.

Doubling Tier 1 visas

In a bid to encourage more talent from overseas, the government is also doubling the number of Tier 1 visas being offered from 1,000 to 2,000, although this number includes all 'exceptional talent' and is not exclusively tied to the tech industry.

"Doubling the number of tech visas is a welcome and practical step towards supporting the UK's fastest growing sector," said Antony Walker, deputy CEO of industry lobby group TechUK. "As our economy continues to digitise, more and more businesses depend upon tech talent to support their growth. This isn't just a London phenomenon. There is going to be huge demand for tech skills in businesses right across the country."

However, Walker added that the government not only needs to expand the number of visas available for highly skilled talent, but needs to make the process of securing talent easier for businesses.

"For the announcement to be truly valuable, the government must couple it with further flexibility on Tier 2 high skilled talent. It must also address concerns about the speed and costs associated with Tier 1 and 2 visas to ensure they can be used by companies large and small," he said.

"International tech talent makes a huge contribution to the UK economy. For every ten highly skilled jobs that are created an additional four lower skilled jobs are created. The tech sector is increasingly the backbone of the economy, and making sure it can thrive post-Brexit is in everyone's interest."

Broadband investment

As part of the digital push, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport also announced a 2 million incentive to increase the number of businesses taking up gigabit fibre connections, as part of its 23 billion National Productivity Investment Fund.

Internet suppliers in Aberdeenshire, Bristol, Bath, North East Somerset, Coventry, and West Yorkshire Combined Authority, which includes Leeds and York, will be able to sign up to the scheme and offer local business customers vouchers worth between 500 and 3,000, which can be used to cover installation costs.

More details will be revealed in the Budget speech expected on 22 November.

The Royal Society has laid bare the problems facing tech skills development in the UK, with a shortage of teachers and low uptake of key subjects exposed in a new report.

While 70% of pupils attend schools offering GCSE computer science, a total 54% of secondary schools don't list the subject at all, the After the reboot report found.

"Our evidence shows that computing education across the UK is patchy and fragile," the report read. "Its future development and sustainability depend on swift and coordinated action by governments, industry, and non-profit organisations.

"Neglecting the opportunities to act would risk damaging both the education of future generations and our economic prosperity as a nation."

The new English, Welsh and Northern Irish GCSE in computer science saw entries rise from 60,146 in 2016 to 65,205 in 2017. Scotland's entry numbers for the equivalent National Qualification in computing science are more stable, at around 7,400 entries.

But the outmoded GCSE in ICT, which the computer science GCSE will soon replace, still accounted for 55% of all computing qualification entries for 16-year-olds.

As a result, "there is a risk that there will be a drastic drop in the number of pupils studying computing as ICT is phased out," the report claimed.

An analysis of Ofqual GCSE exam figures by the British Computing Society this summer also found that a drastic drop off in ICT entries wasn't being offset by an opposite jump in computer science entries.

The Royal Society's report found that only 11% of Key Stage 4 pupils choose to take GCSE computer science, compared with 14% of Key Stage 4 pupils choosing ICT.

A Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said: "Computer science GCSE entries continue to rise more quickly than any other subject. We recently saw an increase in entries to STEM subjects for the EBacc and the number of girls taking STEM subjects at A-levels has increased by over 17% since 2010."

The report also raised concerns over teacher training, saying: "A majority of teachers are teaching an unfamiliar school subject without adequate support. Moreover, they may be the only teacher in their school with this task."

It found that the UK government only hit 68% of its computing teacher recruitment targets from 2012 to 2017.

The DfE's spokesperson said: "We want to ensure our future workforce has the skills we need to drive the future productivity and economy of this country and that is why the government made computing a compulsory part of the national curriculum.

"Since 2012, the department has pledged 5 million to the Network of Teaching Excellence in Computer Science programme, which has built a national network of nearly 400 computer science specialists schools can commission to provide bespoke training for their teachers."

The White House has undertaken an official internal investigation following revelations that top aides, including the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner, used personal email accounts to conduct official business.

White House officials, led by the White House counsel's office have begun looking at batches of emails stored on the White House server going to and from top advisors' private accounts, four officials familiar with the matter told Politico.

One of the sources, according to Politico, stated that the White House would be analysing the messages to determine if the undisclosed emails related to the investigations into the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russia, as well as any confidential government secrets.

To add further embarrassment, Kushner's lawyer Abbe Lowell accidentally forwarded an email from the chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee to notorious email prankster Sinon_Reborn (recently revealed by Wired to be UK web designer James Linton), marking the second time that Lowell has been duped by Linton.

The email, sent from chairman Richard Burr and vice-chairman Mark R. Warner, sharply reminded Kushner that the Committee had requested him to retain and provide all relevant communications pertaining to the Russia investigation.

"The Committee was concerned to learn of this additional email account from the news media, rather than from you, in your closed staff interview," the email read. "Please confirm that the document production that you made to the Committee... included the additional 'personal email account' described to the news media."

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters yesterday: "The White House has been clear and instructs all staff to fully comply with presidential records acts. All staff has been briefed on the need to preserve those records, and we'll continue to do so."

26/09/2017: Committee wants more evidence of White House private emails

Five high level White House aides have been accused of using private email accounts to conduct official government business, in addition to President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Key advisors including Stephen Miller and Gary D. Cohn have routed official communications through personal accounts, along with ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist and ex-Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon and even Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, according to anonymous officials speaking to The New York Times.

US officials are now demanding more information from White House counsel Donald McGahn, via a letter from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. McGahn has until 9 October to identify "any non-career official" who used a personal account for official White House business.

The news comes just days after Kushner's lawyer Abbe Lowell admitted that the President's son-in-law and close personal advisor used a privately-controlled email account to handle official communications.

This behaviour is not illegal, provided that the emails are forwarded to an official account for auditing and oversight purposes, which Lowell claims Kushner did. He also said that less than 100 emails were handled.

However, the revelations have drawn accusations of hypocrisy from many pundits. Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server was one of Trump's main points of attack during the presidential election campaign, with Trump stating that it was evidence of corruption on the part of his opponent. Clinton and her allies pointed to then-FBI director Jasmes Comey's decision to re-open the investigation into Clinton's emails on the eve of the election as one of the main reasons she lost.

One of Trump's most popular campaign slogans was "lock her up", and the president repeatedly pledged to do everything in his power to get his political rival thrown in jail for the same thing that his son-in-law and close political advisor has now admitted to, before walking back from those promises once elected.

IT Pro has contacted the president for comment. We will update when we receive a response.

Picture: Bigstock

Former Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, who helped set up the GDS, now states that the government as a platform program, as it was intended, has ended.

When it began in 2011, the GDS introduced a number of controls for spending on government IT. It was meant to help reduce government spending and create one place for technical knowledge to which departments across the government could go. According to Maude, this system happened to save the taxpayers 19bn in 2014-15 due to its policies such as requiring approval from the GDS for departments wishing to spend upwards of 100m.

Now, however, Maude believes that civil service has returned to its old ways. Controls on spending are now being relaxed with the authority of such decisions being held by separate departments rather than one centralised unit.

He noted that the attempts to build central systems across government departments and to facilitate coordination encountered hurdels, notably from the Treasury.

"So GDS, which became a model for other governments to follow including in the US and Australia is becoming sidelined and underpowered. The powerful and revolutionary idea of government as a platform' is dead," Maude said in a speech at Speaker's House in Westminster.

Although each department may be unique in its actions, most of the requirements for IT, HR, finance and the like are common throughout the entirety of the government, making the need for autonomy unnecessary. For example, at the beginning of its run, the government-as-a-platform program discovered 24 different common digital areas that could be developed. With just 5 of those underway, the program still has a lot of work going unfinished.

While Maude feels the GDS is being pushed under a rug, Jeremy Heywood, the current cabinet secretary and head of civil service, refutes Maude's statements, saying that the civil service initiative that Maude helped start is still being implemented with urgency.

"Since he left the Cabinet Office in 2015, the civil service reform programme that he helped to create has been implemented with vigour, sharply improving our commercial, financial and digital capacity," said Heywood.

Despite this, Mike Bracken, who was GDS's first director, also claimed there was a push to go back to more department based authority which ultimately influenced his decision to quit in 2015.

The UK government has recovered 645 million in funding from its superfast broadband rollout initiative, re-investment of which will see 900,000 extra homes and businesses have access to broadband of 24Mbps.

Clauses in contracts between the government and BT under the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) rollout of superfast broadband require that BT refund money when people take up superfast broadband connections. Following higher than expected uptake, 465 million has now been set aside by BT to extend overall coverage of the scheme.

A total of 645 million, which is supplemented by 180 million saved through project efficiencies, will be available for local authorities to use to re-invest in areas not already covered by existing rollout plans, including some of the hardest to reach areas of the UK.

"We have now brought superfast broadband to almost 94% of UK homes and businesses, and we are reaching thousands more every week," said Matt Hancock, minister for digital. "We are on track to reach 95% by the end of the year, but we know there's still more to do.

"The money that is now being returned to the programme for reinvestment will help us reach that final 5%, and is all part of our commitment to make sure that 100% of the UK can get affordable, fast and reliable broadband by 2020."

More than 4.5 million homes and business sites now have access to superfast broadband, of which two million have already signed up to packages provided by an ISP, according to government figures.

However, the government will be looking to local authorities to help address the sporadic uptake of new packages throughout the country. Average uptake of superfast broadband in the Midlands, South West, and East of England, has reached over 600,000 premises, however areas such as the North East have seen uptake of 152,000.

Data from thinkbroadband.com reveals that 93% of UK premises are able to access superfast broadband speeds, but Ofcom figures show that only 31% of homes and businesses have chosen to upgrade their package.

"The news that the combined efficiency savings and gain share due to high levels of take-up of superfast broadband from the numerous BDUK projects across the UK has grown again is most welcome," said Andrew Ferguson, co-founder of thinkbroadband.com.

"The previous race to 90% superfast broadband coverage that was met in April 2016 was almost solely a BT Group push, but the 95% target which needs coverage to grow by just 1.3% before the end of the year is looking possible."

He added that although the government still has a difficult task at hand, it can now rely on projects delivered by not only BT, but also Virgin Media, Hyperoptic, and Gigaclear and a handful of other smaller providers who have now won government contracts.

The investment is the latest push by the government to improve broadband infrastructure. Last week, 200 million was set aside as part of the UK's Digital Strategy to roll out full-fibre to the premises, inlcuding a 10 million trial, allowing businesses to access speeds of up to 1,000Mpbs.

Image: Bigstock

Three government departments will share their data on citizens to develop a digital immigration system after Brexit, improving the prospects of both those coming into the country and existing UK residents.

Home Office, HM Revenue & Customs and the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) will share the information they hold and introduce a system to make it easier for employers and public service departments to check immigrants' identities, according to an anonymous source who revealed the documents to the Guardian.

The document, called Border, Immigration and Citizenship System After the UK Leaves the European Union, will apparently be "as digital, flexible and frictionless for individuals and employers as possible."

It includes a portal where employers and any other party that needs to find out information about those entering the country can check an individual's immigration status and "take action where necessary." The portal will link together all the information about each person, including their tax records, benefit status and other records in a fully digitised way.

The report also goes into detail about other plans when the UK exits the EU, including employment restrictions on those who come to the UK from other countries in the EU, saying it will give preference in the job market to resident workers. EU nationals would be restricted from seeking work and reduce the opportunities for workers looking to settle in the UK for long periods of time.

"We are clear that, wherever possible, UK employers should look to meet their labour needs from resident labour. It is now more important than ever that we have the right skills domestically to build a strong and competitive economy," the paper said.

The government also plans to scrap the rights for extended family members being able to reside in the UK. "We propose to define family members as direct family members only, plus durable partners," the report said. For a spouse to be allowed entry, the UK resident must be earning a minimum of 18,000 a year.

"Put plainly, this means that, to be considered valuable to the country as a whole, immigration should benefit not just the migrants themselves but also make existing residents better off," the report finished.

The proposals are an attempt to address net migration, which the government aims to cut from 250,000 annually, down to "sustainable levels" in the tens of thousands.

The EU has said it will increase investment in technology and put in place stricter guidelines for its member states to help combat the threat of attacks by hackers and other cyber criminals.

The European Commission is due to announce the proposals formally later this month, but in the meantime, a copy outlining its plans was sent to Reuters, which has released some of the details.

The website explained the EU also plans to impose stricter consumer safeguards and will work with governments around Europe to prevent nations launching attacks on EU countries. The organisation said it will use law enforcement and national resources to stop EU countries being attacked.

Other suggestions include developing a Europe-wide encryption platform using next generation quantum technologies. This would enhance digital identification systems, while also potentially protecting intellectual property infringement and promoting safer e-commerce.

It wants to set up a European Cybersecurity Research and Competence Centre to oversee the proposals and ensure they are actioned. It will work with other groups such as the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security to ensure co-ordination of efforts.

"The framework constitutes a first step in developing signaling and reactive capacities at EU and member-state level with the aim of influencing the behavior of potential aggressors," the report said.

The funds to finance the proposals will be raised by temporarily increasing EU spending to ensure it's able to invest as much as possible in technology to find those planning attacks before they are able to cause damage.

"In order to increase our chances of catching perpetrators, we need to improve our capacity to attribute cyber attacks to those responsible," the report explained.

Apple has sent a letter to the US Federal Communications Commission(FCC) defending net neutrality and advocating for an open internet.

Apple's US VP for public policy, Cynthia Hogan, submitted the letter and outlined why Apple thinks the FCC should "retain strong, enforceable open internet protections" through a number of key policy principles.

Hogan argues that it should be down to consumer choice and said: "Broadband providers should not block, throttle, or otherwise discriminate against lawful websites and services."

She claimed this has been a principle of the FCC's approach for over a decade.

Hogan is also against paid fast lanes as they could favour the transmission of one provider's content or services over another, and noted they would end up "fundamentally altering the internet as we know it today".

"The result would be an internet with distorted competition where online providers are driven to reach deals with broadband providers or risk being stuck in the slow lane and losing customers due to lower quality service," she expalined, detailing how theinternet would change should net neutrality be abandoned.

Hogan said that, worst of all, broadband providers would pick "internet winners and losers" based on the providers priorities instead of quality of service.

Highlighting the benefits of net neutrality, Hogan also underlined that an open internet fosters innovation and investment: "...internet openness, investment, and innovation are mutually reinforcing - to the benefit of consumers, productivity, and overall economic growth."

Hogan finished her letter with: "...the internet is too important to consumers and too essential to innovation to be left unprotected and uncertain."

Yesterday it emerged that a US House Committee canceled a net neutrality hearing after companies that were invited to take part did not say they would attend. It was due to take place on 7 September but companies, such as Facebook or Verizon, did not give the committee any indication that they would go to the event.

Thousands of websites and tech firms came together on 12 July for a net neutrality protest where they simulated what it would be like for a user to access their websites. This meant pretending to charge more to access their services on the internet.

31/08/2017: US House Committee cancels net neutrality hearing

A US House Committee has canceled a net neutrality hearing after companies that were invited did not say they would attend.

The hearing was due to take place on 7 September in Washington and was organised by the US House Energy and Commerce Committee, according to Reuters.

The CEOs of companies such as Alphabet, Facebook, AT&T and Verizon were invited but did not confirm they would attend the event.

Zach Hunter, a spokesperson for committee chairman Greg Walden, said: "As negotiations progress on a permanent solution for net neutrality that ensures a free and open internet, the committee will postpone the original hearing in order to allow talks between stakeholders to continue."

Reuters claims that Republican lawmakers wanted CEOs from tech companies and internet providers to testify in public to try and raise support for the proposal. Other companies invited to the hearing include Netflix, Charter and Comcast.

The FCC, under Donald Trump, is trying to scrap net neutrality guidelines put in place in 2015. This could allow internet service providers to decide what customers can access on the internet depending on how much they pay. Republicans will consider a bill next month which may allow the FCC to put its proposal into effect.

Thousands of websites and tech firms came together on 12 July for a net neutrality protest. They simulated what it would be like for users to try and access their content if the FCC succeed, which meant pretending that users had to pay a charge to access their website.

Tech giants such as Amazon, Netflix and Mozilla have argued in the past that overturning net neutrality would result in customers having to pay more to access services on the internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation claimed the proposal would give ISPs a "frightening" amount of control over a user's internet experience too.

07/06/2017:GitHub, Amazon and Mozilla plan to protest net neutrality changes

Some of the biggest technology companies in the world are set to protest against changes to net neutrality legislation proposed by US President Donald Trump's government.

Corporations including GitHub, Amazon, Mozilla, Vimeo, Kickstarter, Reddit and the Open Technology Institute are opposing Trump's plan to get rid of net neutrality guidelines put in place in 2015, which could mean internet service providers would be able to decide what customers see on the internet and what they don't, based upon how much their customers pay.

The tech giants claimed the move would result in a hike of the fees customers have to pay to access services and blocking websites they don't want you to see. They also claimed the move is against free speech, and urged advocates of web freedom to participate in an online protect on 12 July.

Led by Fight for the Future, Freepress Action Fund and Demand Progress, the online protest aims to persuadethe government and the companies pushing for the lifting of net neutrality guidelines to change their stances.

As part of the protest, all the companies involved will change their websites to show support for net neutrality, which could include serving different pages to show what they say may happen if Trump and the overhauled Federal Communications Commission get their way.

"The internet has given more people a voice than ever before, and we're not going to let the FCC take that power away from us," Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future told the Guardian. "Massive online mobilization got us the strong net neutrality protections that we have now, and we intend to fight tooth and nail to defend them."

26/05/2017:500,000 anti-net neutrality comments deemed fake

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received a complaint yesterday from a group of individuals who claim their names were used to create fake comments in support of scrapping net neutrality rules.

The FCC website has received over 2.7 million comments on its website so far in what was an attempt to understand public sentiment around net neutrality and the regulation of internet service providers. The rules, which were introduced under President Barack Obama following a massive campaign, are now being scrapped under the Trump administration.

However, it appears that many of the comments on the FCC's website could be fake spam created by supporters of the government's anti-net neutrality approach.

In a letter addressed to FCC chairman Ajit Pai yesterday, 14 individuals claim that their names and personal information were used to make comments, and have called upon the body to investigate the issue, which violates a US law about making false statements.

"We are disturbed by reports that indicate you have no plans to remove these fraudulent comments from the public docket," the letter stated. "Whoever is behind this stole our names and addresses, publicly exposed our private information without our permission, and used our identities to file a political statement we did not sign onto."

"While it may be convenient for you to ignore this, given that it was done in an attempt to support your position, it cannot be the case that the FCC moves forward on such a major public debate without properly investigating this known attack."

It is thought that as many as 450,000 comments have been created fraudulently using the personal information of other individuals.

Joel Mullaney, a software engineer from Massachusetts, told the Guardian that he discovered a Reddit thread discussing the fraudulent use of names and postal addresses attacking net neutrality.

His own name was associated with this comment: "The unprecedented regulatory power the Obama administration imposed on the internet is smothering innovation, damaging the American economy and obstructing job creation".

"It was pretty ridiculous," said Mullaney, speaking to the Guardian. "That's pretty much the exact opposite of what I think.

IT Pro has contacted the FCC for comment.

The group has called upon the FCC to notify the appropriate authorities and disclose any information it may have on who was responsible for posting the comments.

19/05/2017: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted to begin the process of dismantling the net neutrality laws that govern fair and free internet access.

The FCC's members voted two-to-one in favour of a review of the rules, which will aim to heavily loosen or abolish many of the protections established under Obama. One of the primary goals is removing the classification of ISPs as 'Title II' carriers, which means they cannot be as heavily regulated.

The first stage of the process is the filing of a 'Notice of Proposed Rulemaking' (NPRM), outlining the changes the FCC are seeking to make. The Commission will be accepting comments and feedback from the general public and stakeholders for three months, before composing a final order and then voting on its implementation.

Trump-appointed FCC chairman Ajit Pai is a vocal and vociferous opponent of the current rules, arguing that they strangle innovation and deter companies from making infrastructure investments.

"For almost twenty years, the internet flourished under a light-touch regulatory approach. During this time, the internet underwent rapid, and unprecedented, growth," the NPRM stated. "The Commission's 2015 decision to subject ISPs to Title II utility-style regulations risks that innovation, serving ultimately to threaten the open internet it purported to preserve."

Although Pai and fellow Republican FCC member Michael O'Rielly voted in favour of the proposals, the Commission's third member, Democrat Mignon Clyburn, was fiercely opposed. He delivered a scathing rebuke of the plans, calling it "a hollow theory of trickle-down internet economics" that "contains ideological interpretive whiplash".

"If you unequivocally trust that your broadband provider will always put the public interest, over their self-interest or the interest of their stockholders, then the 'Destroying Internet Freedom' NPRM is for you."

Net neutrality rules, which govern whether or not broadband providers are allowed to charge more for certain traffic types than others, have frequently been hailed as essential for maintaining an open internet by digital rights activists.Many worry that if the rules are rescinded, cable providers will take advantage to promote their own apps and services, squeezing smaller rivals out of the market by charging them more to get their content to consumers.

For example, US ISPs Comcast and Time Warner both own stakes in video streaming service Hulu. Without the protection of net neutrality rules, they would be free to charge Netflix more to deliver its service to users, or to deliver it at a slower speed compared to Hulu, in an effort to force more people onto their own service.

This may appear like an issue that only affects the US, but it may have troubling implications for the rest of the world, encouraging heavier deregulation by other countries. It also raises worrying questions for anyone with a digital business serving US customers, as the new rules could adversely affect the provision of their services.

While Pai and other net neutrality opponents argue that the regulations harm infrastructure investment, a report this month from opposing advocacy group Free Press stated that by ISPs own admission, the Title II classification has had no measurable impact on their investments since it was introduced in 2015.

"Financial and marketplace evidence demonstrates that the FCC's 2015 Open Internet Order is an absolute success, accomplishing its stated goal of preserving and promoting the onlineecosystem's 'virtuous cycle of investment'," the report said."ISP investments accelerated following the vote. Investments in the edge, including those by online video providers and edge computing firms, are up as well. More new US 'over-the-top' video services launched in the two years following the vote than in the seven years prior."

Small businesses are the clear winners when it comes to benefitting from government IT spending, a new report has revealed.

According to the Government Digital Service (GDS), the public sector has spent 1.2b with SMEs on cloud and digital services in the last five years, accounting for 1.39 in every 3 spent.

This amount spent on services provided by small and medium business is having huge benefits for the public, the report revealed, with 725 million of taxpayer cash saved by procuring the technologies that enable citizens to benefit every day.

For example, Derby City Council switched from a large multinational company to a Stafford based SME that could offer the same services for a much lower cost. It is now passing these savings onto other departments to help them operate more efficiently.

"We are continually focused on breaking down the barriers to entry for SMEs to do business with government, for example, by simplifying the application process," Warren Smith, director of the Digital Marketplace said.

"We are also breaking down the traditionally large contracts into smaller ones, which favour a more diverse range of suppliers and help Government to buy services more efficiently."

The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has played a major part in helping public services switch from large enterprises to smaller businesses for their IT needs. For example, it set up the Digital Marketplace with the GDS to make it easier for governmental organisations to procure services.

"We're making it as easy as possible for small business to supply to government," Niall Quinn, Director, Technology Strategic Category for CCS added. "They in turn will help us to deliver efficient public services that meet the needs of citizens."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has appointed the capital's first ever chief digital officer (CDO), with a view to improving the city's technical infrastructure and digital ecosystem.

The position has been filled by Theo Blackwell, a public sector veteran with 20 years' experience as Camden Council's cabinet member for finance, technology and growth. He is also part of the Advisory Board of Digital Leaders, and worked as games industry trade group Ukie's head of policy and public affairs.

Blackwell's role will center around the digital transformation of London's government and public sector services, working with the Mayor's Smart London Board to make the capital one of the world's leading 'smart cities' through the use of data-driven solutions and IoT technology.

"The new Chief Digital Officer post is an amazing opportunity to make our capital even more open to innovation, support jobs and investment and make our public services more effective," Blackwell said.

"The pace of change over the next decade requires public services to develop a stronger relationship with the tech sector. Our purpose is to fully harness London's world-class potential to make our public services faster and more reliable at doing things we expect online, but also adaptable enough to overcome the capital's most complex challenges."

One of the principal challenges for Blackwell in his new role will be coping with the fallout of Brexit and its impact on the London tech economy. Although London's startup scene has already pulled in 1 billion since the country voted to leave the EU, there are indications that external investment, IT jobs and skilled tech workers may start to dry up once Britain pulls out.

Mayor Khan remained bullish about London's tech economy however, saying: "I am determined to make London the world's leading 'smart city' with digital technology and data at the heart of making our capital a better place to live, work and visit. We already lead in digital technology, data science and innovation and I want us to make full use of this in transforming our public services for Londoners and the millions of visitors to our great city."

03/05/2017: Sadiq Khan to appoint London's first ever CDO

The Mayor of London is looking for the capital's first ever chief digital officer (CDO) to transform the city's public services.

The CDO will be responsible for building on existing digital initiatives and drafting a Smart London Strategy, aimed at increasing innovation using "smart technologies".

Sadiq Khan said: "I want to take the digital transformation of our public services to the next level, so we can improve the ways in which we plan and deliver public services for Londoners.

"I am delighted to begin my search for a Chief Digital Officer, so we can make London an even smarter smart city and use our incredible technological abilities to the best effect."

The move fulfills an election manifesto pledge for Khan, who promised his CDO would be responsible for tech sector growth, cyber security measures, and digital inclusion.

London hosts 40,000 digital technology businesses, according to Oxford Economics, which forecasts another 12,500 by 2025. Despite the Brexit vote hitting some tech startups, the capital's tech sector received 1 billion in venture capital investment since the Leave vote, according to PitchBook data.

When appointed, the CDO will work with the Mayor's Smart London Board and City Hall to draft and deliver the Smart London Strategy, as well as alongside the Mayor's Office, London councils and tech firms to drive adoption of common data standards and smart city technology.

They will also be responsible for anticipating the impact of new technologies and helping the Greater London Assembly respond with timely policies.

One challenge London will face in the coming years is the advent of AI. The Science and Technology Committee called on the government to reskill UK workers to ensure thousands are not left unemployed if they lose their jobs to automation.

Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London Advocates, told IT Pro in a statement: "We welcome today's news that City Hall is hiring its first CDO, originally proposed in Tech London Advocates' digital manifesto at the start of last year. This shows that Mayor Khan is upgrading public services for a digital age, and that London is on the way to becoming a smart city.

"The CDO role should be well-defined and the holder must be capable of supporting Mayor Khan's challenging pledges while building an open data platform from scratch. Achieving the insights necessary to freeze transport fares or increase housing supply for Londoners will require advanced data analytics, and the CDO will need to sit at the heart of London's government to ensure the office is effective. "

Picture: Bigstock

The Home Office is planning to push ahead with facial-recognition software for law enforcement after it put up an ad looking for suppliers to enter into a five-year contract. The advert which appears on the EU's Tenders Electronic Daily is seeking a company to step into the breach for an initial five-year period, with room for a two-year extension, in a contract worth 4.6 million.

The winning supplier will be required to provide "a combination of biometric algorithm software and associated components that provide the specialised capability to match a biometric facial image to a known identity held as an encoded facial image". The main focus of the task will be integrating the Home Office's Biometric Match Platform Service into a centralised Matching Engine Software.

For the money, the UK government will also be expecting a bunch of extras, including design, accuracy testing, systems integration, data migration and ongoing support, which probably makes the package seem a whole lot less appealing.

Privacy concenrs

The road to this point has been a long, winding and controversial one chiefly because a useful biometric system requires records of people's faces, and the courts have found that to be a contentious point. Back in 2012, the high court objected to the Home Office hoarding millions of people's likenesses on records. The court suggested that the Home Office should come up with improvements to the system in a period "measured in months, not years".

Someone at the Home Office must have skim-read that particular instruction because revised guidance only emerged this year. The concession reached was that individuals who believe their likeness to be held in the database of 19 million have the right to ask for it to be removed. They have the right to ask, but it can be turned down by officers if they believe it needs to be kept "for a policing purpose".

Now that that unfortunate business is (sort of) out of the way, the government is pushing ahead with the contract, initially for policing, but with the potential to push into other public services although the text is pretty vague about what these might be. "The initial MES (Face) deployment is focused on law enforcement," the description reads. "However, the intended Contract provides for deployment to a wider set of Central Government (including police) organisations over the contract Duration. Such additional deployments will be added through Change Control, operating within the parameters of this notice and the supporting procurement documents."

Such wording won't allay the fears of many, including Alastair MacGregor QC, then commissioner for the retention and use of biometric material, who wrote in his 2015 report: "I am concerned that the considerable benefits that could be derived from the searching of custody images on the PND may be counterbalanced by a lack of public confidence in the way in which the process is operated, by challenges to its lawfulness and by fears of function creep'."

A National Investment Fund for startups would "struggle" to bridge any gap in lost funding from its EU equivalent, according to a lobby group for the UK's tech industry.

The UK government floated the idea of creating a national fund based on the results of a Treasury consultation, published yesterday, that revealed a 4 billion gap in funding between UK businesses and their counterparts in the US.

It believes a 'National Investment Fund' could close this gap, making startups more competitive against the US once the UK leaves the EU, especially if startups lose access to the EU's own funding initiative, the European Investment Fund (EIF).

"Britain is an innovation powerhouse and it's vital that we make sure our cutting-edge firms have the funding they need to meet their potential and conquer new markets," said chancellor Philip Hammond. "Meeting this challenge will boost our productivity and enable us to create more well paid jobs across the UK."

But while TechUK CEO Julian David welcomed the idea of the fund, he urged the government to make sure the UK stays inside the EIF. According to figures provided to IT Pro, the EIF supported 11,000 UK SMBs with around 8bn in funding last year alone.

"The EIF continues to be a key investor into UK tech, and any new post-Brexit system considered as part of this consultation must seek to maintain the UK's link to this European-wide funder," said David. "A new national fund would struggle to compete with such an established source of support sitting just across the Channel."

He added: "Determining how the UK can improve its own funding mechanisms to help businesses of the future grow must sit alongside continuing to be part of established European systems post-Brexit. We should not be looking to reinvent the wheel."

UK businesses, particularly startups, have expressed concerns that the government will be unable to provide the same levels of funding that have been enjoyed as part of the EU. A report published in March found that one in 10 London startups had already lost funding as a result of the Brexit vote, with almost a third finding it difficult to grow their business. However, another study found that VC investment into London startups actually increased post-Brexit, from 245 million immediately after the EU referendum, up to 345 million in the first quarter of 2017.

The exact nature of the fund has yet to be decided, but it could be launched as a partnership between public and private sectors, or it could be fully attached to the government's balance sheet and sold off once it's established.

The government identified that fewer than one in 10 UK firms that receive seed funding go on to get fourth round backing, compared to nearly 25% of firms in the US. It also said it wants to boost the number of 'unicorns' emerging from the UK, firms with valuations above 1 billion - currently the majority of these startup firms are based in the US or China.

A 20 million government scheme to train teenagers who want to develop cyber skills is set to start this autumn.

The Cyber Schools Programme has a 20 million pot of funding to train 5,700 teenagers in cyber security by 2021, with a pilot programme launching in a few months' time.

Students and teachers can register their interest on a newly launched website, hmgcyberschools.com, with the initiative designed to be delivered through extracurricular clubs in partnership with SANS, BT, FutureLearn and Cyber Security Challenge UK.

The four-year programme will mix experts and instructors who run classroom lessons with online teaching, real-world challenges, online games, and practical work experience.

Young people aged between 14 and 18 can apply and work through the course at different paces. They will have to apply via a pre-entry assessment, and the scheme will aim to provide them with clear pathways into the cyber security industry via direct contact with industry experts.

Cyber security firms and industry volunteers can also register their interest to take part in the scheme.

Digital minister Matt Hancock said: "Our Cyber Schools Programme aims to inspire the talent of tomorrow and give thousands of the brightest young minds the chance to learn cutting-edge cyber security skills alongside their secondary school studies.

"I encourage all those with the aptitude, enthusiasm and passion for a cyber security career to register for what will be a challenging and rewarding scheme."

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) originally announced the scheme in February, making funds available under the government's 1.9 billion National Cyber Security Strategy.

DCMS also announced it has received another 500,000 to continue a pilot helping adults retrain for the cyber security sector by taking a GCHQ-accredited master's degree, and an additional 500,000 funding for universities to help students accepted onto certain courses

The government is trying to step up development of cyber skills internally, embedding them in every department, with the EU predicting that the cyber skills gap will reach 800,000 vacant roles by 2020.

The UK's digital strategy also aims to train 2.5 million people, charities and SMBs so they have basic digital skills by 2020.

NHS hospitals will receive 21 million to upgrade their cyber security measures following the WannaCry attacks that wreaked havoc on NHS IT systems earlier this summer.

The Department for Health (DfH) announced the funding yesterday as the government accepted all the recommendations set out by the National Data Guardian review and the Care Quality Commission review into data security standards, carried out before the ransomware debacle.

Health minister Lord O'Shaughnessy said in a statement: "The NHS has a long history of safeguarding confidential data, but with the growing threat of cyber attacks including the WannaCry ransomware attack in May, this government has acted to protect information across the NHS.

"Only by leading cultural change and backing organisations to drive up security standards across the health and social care system can we build the resilience the NHS needs in the face of a global threat."

The 21 million will be spent on increasing cyber security measures of major trauma hospitals, with the government calling this "an immediate priority", as well as boosting NHS Digital's national monitoring and response capabilities.

It also prioritised finding a way to finally migrate NHS systems from Windows XP, the Microsoft operating system that expired three years ago.

XP was at first identified as a prime attack vector for the WannaCry ransomware attacks in May due its lack of security updates, until Kaspersky Lab discovered that the in-support Windows 7 accounted for 97% of operating system among affected machines.

WannaCry locked NHS files, demanding a ransom be paid to unlock them again, causing chaos for 48 hospitals relying on this data for upcoming operations and appointments, many of which had to be cancelled.

The DfH also said NHS trusts will have to bring their policies in line with the National Data Guardian's recommendations - outlined in a report last year - that are designed to bolster healthcare data protection standards.

These include carrying out security training for staff, reviewing processes annually, and drawing up contingency plans for data security threats.

NHS Digital will support hospitals by carrying out on-site assessments and sharing best practice among UK trusts, as well as raising general awareness through broadcast ads and providing a hotline for dealing with cyber incidents.

The funding and stricter cyber security measures were part of a response to the CQC and National Data Guardian's reviews, which had warned of the likelihood of an impending cyber threat.

In the fallout after the WannaCry attacks, the Chartered Institute of IT blamed the security breaches on a lack of investment and accountability for IT security measures within the NHS.

Picture: Bigstock

The UK government has made good on a promise to back the rollout of 5G, by releasing millions in funding to universities to help develop the technology in trials set to start next year.

A development fund of 16 million is to be shared between leading 5G research teams at King's College London and the Universities of Surrey and Bristol, where work will begin to deliver an end-to-end 5G test network by early 2018.

Work on the test network marks the beginning of a four-year government commitment, under what is being called the '5G Testbeds and Trials programme'. Once operational, 5G networks are expected to boost the economy by as much as 173 billion, according to government figures.

The cash injection comes from a 1 billion package announced during last year's Autumn Statement, set aside to boost the UK's digital infrastructure.

CCS Insight analyst and CEO, Shaun Collins, said at the time: "Any investment in the UK digital backbone is welcome and the commitment to 5G is admirable. However, realistically 5G services are unlikely to be available before 2020 in the UK. This investment only offers a small step in that direction."

Minister for Digital, Matt Hancock, said that the government wants the UK to be "at the head of the field" when it comes to 5G technology.

"This funding will support the pioneering research needed to ensure we can harness the potential of this technology to spark innovation, create new jobs and boost the economy," he added. "We know 5G has the potential to bring more reliable, ultrafast mobile connectivity, with quicker reaction times and larger data capabilities, and I'm thrilled to announce King's College London and the universities of Surrey and Bristol have agreed to collaborate on this project."

The universities will each work on their own smaller-scale networks, which will then be merged together to form the larger test network. Each individual project will be required to include mobile signal receivers and transmitters - elements that will form an essential part of future commercial 5G rollouts.

The 2018 trial, provided it is delivered on time, will likely take the form of a simple signal delivery test between a mobile device and a data centre, which will reveal the capabilities of the network in a real-world setting.

Industry, local authorities and other academic institutions will be able to join the programme and apply for similar funding after the first testing phase is launched in 2018.

The cash pot suggests the government is looking to commit early to the development of 5G, particularly as it has faced criticism over its lack of investment into current 4G networks. Many rural areas have yet to receive super fast network speeds, and a recent report revealed that UK 4G coverage ranks lower than Albania and Peru.

Main image: Bigstock

The UK's government technology market could be worth as much as 20 billion by 2025, according to a new report that predicts a return to large IT contracts and a short-term boost from Brexit.

The State of the UK Govtech Market report, published this week by investment firm Public, said that government reforms, especially since 2010 after which the Government Digital Service was created, have "seen the UK lead the world in government digitisation".

"No other country currently combines size of market with such a ready public acceptance of the digital world," said authors of the report, Daniel Korski and Alexander de Carvalho.

Growth in the government technology market would be "fuelled by a renewal of large IT contracts, a shift towards procurement from SMBs, investment into emerging technologies applied to public needs, and by the rise of companies whose products enhance not only the lives of the individual but also have impacts which more generally permeate society."

The authors added that devolution was now bringing opportunities to cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Bristol, which are showing the way for technology-enhanced approaches to public services.

They were also relatively upbeat about Brexit, saying it presents opportunities and risks. "Even the UK's departure from the EU may herald opportunities, as it will require, to a short deadline, the complete reformation of certain services including rural payments and border control," said the authors.

However, an analyst told IT Pro recently that the government may step away from politically risky IT projects, like the controversial rural payments project, now it is a minority.

"If Brexit leads to a larger rethink of governmental systems, from rural payments to customs arrangements and identification, then it must inevitably drive a significant adoption of new technologies and new suppliers," the report continued.

"If leaving the EU leads to a rethink of procurement policies and regulations, with a preference given to UK firms, then there will undoubtedly be a short-term boost to a sector which is still very UK-based."

But it warned that if this leads to reciprocal barriers for UK startups seeking to enter European markets, then the government "would have to redouble its support for GovTech startups to succeed in non-European markets".

The US has lifted a ban on laptops in cabins on flights from Abu Dhabi to the US as it claims that Etihad Airways has put in place tighter security requirements.

According to Reuters, Etihad welcomed the decision and pointed to a facility in Abu Dhabi International Airport where passengers clear US immigration before they land in the US for "superior security advantages" which satisfied US requirements.

The facility was inspected on Saturday night by US officials before it was given the green light on Sunday. Acting CEO of Abu Dhabi Airports Abdul Majeed al-Khoori told Reuters that disruption to passengers will be "very minimal" as the processing time for those travelling to the US will be unchanged.

Etihad is the only airline to provide direct flights to the US from Abu Dhabi, after Emirates announced in April that it was cutting flights on five US routes because of reduced demand after both the travel and laptop bans were put in place.

In March, the US banned any devices "larger than a smartphone" on flights originating from Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The UK followed suit and introduced its own ban which affected six countries in the Middle East. It is thought both decisions were prompted by the discovery of a bomb threat involving a fake iPad packed with explosives.

30/05/2017: US may expand laptop ban

Following the US ban of carry-on laptops from flights originating in the Middle East, it appears the Trump administration is seeking to expand this to all international flights to and from the country.

US head of homeland security John Kelly told Fox News on Sunday that the country faces a "sophisticated threat" from terrorists that are targeting flights bound for the US.

Kelly also insisted that the US would "raise the bar" on airline security, and when quizzed on whether the ban would be extended internationally, said: "We might, and likely will."

"There's a real threat - numerous threats against aviation," Kelly added. "That's really the thing that they are obsessed with, the terrorists, the idea of knocking down an airplane in flight, particularly if it's a US carrier, particularly if it's full of mostly US folks."

The current rules, which were first introduced in March, ban any devices "larger than a smartphone" on flights originating from Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The UK also introduced its own device ban in the same month, affecting six countries in the Middle East. It is thought both decisions were prompted by the discovery of a bomb threat involving a fake iPad packed with explosives.

Kelly's comments follow reports that the US was considering banning large handheld devices and laptops on inbound flights from Europe, including the UK, according to Guardian sources. It appears the scope could now be much larger.

"We are still following the intelligence," said Kelly, "and are in the process of defining this, but we're going to raise the bar generally speaking for aviation much higher than it is now."

Kelly added that Transport Security Administration (TSA) officials would be performing more robust screening methods for carry-on luggage, requiring people to remove more items from their bags for separate scanners.

26/04/2017: The Trump administration is reportedly considering preventing passengers from taking laptops with them into the plane cabin in flights from the UK to the US.

US officials are looking into introducing a devices ban to flights from Europe, according to the Guardian, after imposing a similar ban on some Middle East countries. This means that electronic devices larger than a smartphone will not be able to be stowed in carry-on luggage, but must be checked into the hold.

A spokesperson for the UK government's Department for Transport told IT Pro: "Aviation security is under constant review but we don't comment on speculation."

The UK government joined the US last month in banning large electronic devices from flights originating in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia. The ban affects devices measuring more than 16cm by 9.3cm by 1.5cm, such as tablets and laptops, and these will need to be checked into the hold of an aircraft.

Another US ban blocks electronic devices from on flights originating from Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Doha and Istanbul.

The reason for the ban was blamed on an undisclosed bomb plot involving explosives hidden in an iPad, although the specific details of the incident remain undisclosed.

The threat appears to be credible as an explosive device was thought to be hidden in a laptop which blew a hole in the side of a passenger plane in Somalia last year. Nevertheless, such a ban could impact business travellers, and earlier this month the European Aviation Safety Agency warned that storing devices in hold luggage could risk battery fires.

IT Pro has approached the Foreign Office for comment.

06/04/2017: Storing electronics in hold may compromise aeroplane safety

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has issed a warning over the risk of battery fires in the cargo hold of passenger planes, following the banning of certain electronics from hand luggage by US and UK authorities.

The regulator, which looks after auroplane safety in 32 European countries, said such devices carried a fire risk because they contained lithium-ion batteries and should really be carried inside a passenger cabin where problems could be quickly identified and rectified.

The EASA warning came less than two weeks after large electronic devices were banned from certain flights from several Middle Eastern and African countries.

"When the carriage of PEDs (personal electronic devices) in the cabin is prohibited, this will lead to a significant increase in the number of PEDs carried in the cargo compartment, in checked baggage," said the agency in a statement.

"This should be taken into account as part of the operator's safety risk assessment process, and the appropriate precautions should be applied to mitigate the associated risks, such as fire in the cargo hold."

The regulator recommended that if passengers put devices in checked baggage, they should be completely tunred off. It also said that to effectively protect them from accidental activation alarms, pre-set configurations should be disabled that might activate the device.

It also said that devices placed in checked baggage have to be protected from damage by applying suitable packaging or casing or by being placed in a rigid bag protected by adequate cushioning (e.g. clothing).

It added that if devices are put in the cargo hold, they should be dispersed, while "avoiding consolidation in a single container or location and, when practicable, away from any other dangerous goods".

"Passengers and crews safety (sic) is our highest priority. Spontaneous ignition or thermal runaway of Lithium batteries present safety risks which need to be taken into account. We must take all precautions to make sure that mitigating one risk does not lead to another risk" said Patrick Ky, EASA's executive director.

A group representing European pilots, the ECA, said it was "seriously concerned" about the ban and added it could create additional risks.

"The new ban on PEDs in the passenger cabin therefore has the potential to create safety risks that could prove to be more harmful than allowing passengers to carry them as hand baggage. With current [aeroplane] cargo hold fire suppression systems, it might prove to be impossible to extinguish a lithium battery fire in the cargo hold, especially when the batteries are stored together. Therefore, any event of this nature during flight would more than likely be catastrophic," the group said in a statement.

28/03/2017: 'iPad bomb threat' prompted the UK and US to issue flight ban

The UK and US bans on electronic devices on passenger flights originating from areas in the Middle East and North Africa has been blamed on a previously undisclosed bomb plot involving explosives hidden in an iPad.

The ban came into force partially due to the discovery of a plot to bring down a plane using a fake iPad filled with explosives, according to the Guardian, who only described the source of the news as a "security source". The specific details of the incident, including the country involved, when it happened, and the group responsible, remain hidden.

The UK government's ban applies to inbound flights from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Turkey. So far six UK airlines and eight foreign carriers are affected, including British Airways, Easy Jet, Jet2, Monarch, Thomas Cook and Thomson.

A similar ban was also enforced in the US, targeting eight airports in 10 countries. The Guardian's source said that the bans were the result of a combination of factors, and not a single incident.

The threat is certainly credible, given an incident last year when an explosive device, suspected to have been hidden in a laptop, was used to blow a hole in the side of a passenger plane in Somalia.

Other European countries, including France and the Netherlands, are reportedly also considering bans on electronic devices.

22/03/2017: UK government issues flight ban on electronic devices from six countries

The UK government has issued an electronics ban on all devices measuring more than the average smartphone on flights from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.

It affects any item measuring more than 16cm by 9.3cm by 1.5cm, which includes tablets, phablets and laptops. Items larger than a smartphone will now have to be checked into the hold of an aircraft.

It will affect flights operated by British Airways, easyJet, Jet2.com, Monarch, Thomas Cook and Thomson, while overseas airlines impacted are Turkish Airlines, Pegasus Airways, Atlas-Global Airlines, Middle East Airlines, EgyptAir, Royal Jordanian, Tunis Air and Saudia.

"The UK has some of the most robust aviation security measures in the world and at all times the safety and security of the public is our primary concern," Chris Grayling, secretary of state for transport, said in a statement. "We will not hesitate to put in place measures we believe are necessary, effective and proportionate."

The US has already issued a similar ban on electronics, although the government over the pond has banned them on flights originating in Cairo, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Doha and Istanbul.

"We understand the frustration that these measures may cause and we are working with the aviation industry to minimise any impact," Grayling added. "Our top priority will always be to maintain the safety of British nationals."

Although the government hasn't revealed whether the new legislation has been issued following specific security threats from those countries, prime minister Theresa May following "a number of meetings on aviation security", Sky News said.

Facebook is stepping up the fight against online extremism by launching a UK programme, which will help local companies tackle hate speech and "promote the civil courage displayed by organisations and grassroots activists".

Facebook's Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI) will train non-governmental organisations to help them identify extremist content, and provide a dedicated support desk for those wishing to contact Facebook directly.

The OCCI, which has partnered with a number of anti-extremist groups such as the Jo Cox Foundation, Community Security Trust, Tell MAMA, and Imams Online, will provide financial backing to NGOs working to counter hate speech.

"No one should have to live in fear of terrorism - and we all have a part to play in stopping violent extremism from spreading," said Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. "Partnerships with others - including tech companies, civil society, researchers and governments - are also a crucial piece of the puzzle. Some of our most important partnerships are focused on counterspeech, which means encouraging people to speak out against violence and extremism."

Technology companies were criticised in the wake of the recent London Bridge terror attack, when Theresa May claimed social media sites provided terrorists with "safe places" online. Sites like Twitter, Google, and Facebook were said to be relying too heavily on users reporting hate speech, rather than working actively to fight it themselves.

Facebook's knee-jerk reaction was to defend its practices, however, it has since introduced a number of measures to help counter extremist content. Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Instagram were both updated last week, with user data now being more widely shared to keep terrorist content off the platforms.

However, the government's approach to tackling extremist content has put it increasingly at odds with the technology community. Calls for a ban on end-to-end encryption and the regulation of web providers through "international agreements" have been criticised as "intellectually lazy". Facebook's latest efforts appear to represent an alternative approach, which seeks to provide meaningful support to those trying to eradicate hatred online.

"We have called on industry to take more action on the issue and welcome this new initiative from Facebook to provide support to other organisations in tackling terrorist and extremist material," read a statement from the Home Office.

"Technology companies still need to go further and faster in moving towards preventing this type of toxic output being disseminated in the first place. We look forward to seeing how the industry led forum, which will combat terrorist use of the internet, will build on this collective response to the threat."

The UK is the latest country to see the launch of an OCCI project, with a programme already running in Germany since last year, and another in France since March.

02/05/2017: Social networks 'should be fined millions' for failing to tackle extremism

A new report by the Home Affairs Committee suggests social media companies are focusing on making money rather than ensuring their users' safety is paramount.

For taking such an approach, the Home Affairs Committee suggests they should be fined millions.

The House of Commons' Home Affairs Committee's "Hate crime: abuse, hate and extremism online" report, which was published yesterday, is the result of an inquiry into how social media companies are dealing with hate crimes following the murder of MP Jo Cox in the lead up to the EU referendum.

The inquiry specifically looked into Google-owned YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to see how they are used to spread messages of hate and extremism. Although it highlighted the platforms are used to drum up support for positive movements against hatred, racism and misogyny, there are also negative messages communicated from the platform.

It found that although social media companies are very good identifying and removing content related to copyright, they are slow to react to messages of hate, taking a more laissez faire attitude, specifically referring to Google's response to copyright content that appears on its video channels. Although they're removed swiftly, the company was much slower to take down content flagged as extremist when some advertisers pulled their advertising because it was being displayed alongside such content.

"We note that Google can act quickly to remove videos from YouTube when they are found to infringe copyright rules, but that the same prompt action is not taken when the material involves hateful or illegal content," the report said.

"There may be some lasting financial implications for Google's advertising division from this episode; however the most salient fact is that one of the world's largest companies has profited from hatred and has allowed itself to be a platform from which extremists have generated revenue."

The inquiry added that although social media companies have assessed the impact such hateful content is having on individuals and praised the effort that has been made, such as publishing new community guidelines and building new tools to help people report content, it is not enough and they must be held accountable.

"Social media companies currently face almost no penalties for failing to remove illegal content," the MPs said in the conclusion to their report.

"We recommend that the government consult on a system of escalating sanctions, to include meaningful fines for social media companies which fail to remove illegal content within a strict timeframe."

The UK today paved the way to continue the flow of data between British businesses and the EU after Brexit, by introducing a Data Protection Bill in the Queen's Speech.

The bill sets out the government's intention to comply with EU data protection measures once the UK is no longer part of the union, by providing adequate, equivalent legislation.

Prime minister Theresa May's minority government intends "to put the UK in the best position to maintain our ability to share data with other EU member states and internationally after we leave the EU", the bill affirmed.

Cross-border data flows were worth 3.8% of global GDP in 2014, according to McKinsey, with the UK contributing to 11.5% of all data transactions the following year. A TechUK report titled The UK Digital Sectors After Brexit found that 75% of the UK's cross-border data flows in 2015-16 involved EU countries.

The bill also outlines the government's plan to implement the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) when it comes into force in May next year, though the tougher data protection law will apply to all EU member states automatically, requiring no secondary legislation.

It includes an aim to introduce one of the Tories' manifesto pledges into UK law - the right for people to demand social media firms delete their data once they turn 18 years old.

Mark O'Halloran, a partner in Coffin Mew Solicitors' tech team, said: "The 'right to be forgotten' is a welcome protection for children once they turn 18, but that's just something the government chose to highlight. The real purpose of the Data Protection Bill will be to incorporate GDPR into UK law.

"It's shame that the government isn't seeking to address the most pressing safeguarding concern for children using social media: verifying their actual age."

TechUK CEO Julian David added: "We support the government's commitment to maintain the UK's world class protection of people's personal data. This will include implementing GDPR, the biggest transformation of data protection rules in a generation. The government must have a robust plan to support businesses through this process."

Digital Charter

The Queen also announced a digital charter, another manifesto pledge with the twin goals of improving internet safety and making it easier for people to set up digital firms in the UK.

"We strongly support a free and open internet," a government paper read. "But, as in the offline world, freedoms online must be balanced with protections to ensure citizens are protected from the potential harms of the digital world. We will not shy away from tackling harmful behaviours and harmful content online - be that extremist, abusive or harmful to children. And we will make sure that technology companies do more to protect their users and improve safety online."

The Conservatives have already hinted at introducing fines for social networks that don't tackle hate speech adequately, but the government has also called for backdoors into firms' encryption software, despite industry fears this could leave people and businesses vulnerable to hackers, as well.

David said: "[The industry] will work closely with the government on its plans for a Digital Charter and counter extremism measures. However, there is a fine line between strengthening protection and over reaching rules that constrain the creativity of businesses and citizens."

"We would hope that a Digital Charter's regulatory framework will include independent or judicial oversight of material that is taken down by Internet companies," added privacy campaign organisation the Open Rights Group's executive director, Jim Killock.

Sonia Blizzard, managing director of internet service provider Beaming, welcomed the digital charter's aim to make the web a safer place, but added: "Making the UK the best place to start and run a digital business requires much more than a commitment to boosting security though.

"As customer expectations and data usage grow, factors such as speed and service resilience become ever more important, so it is vital that the Conservatives keep their manifesto pledge to accelerate rollout of the full-fibre technology that will improve service across the country and establish the clear path to national fibre coverage they've promised over the next decade."