The EU is set to declare war on encryption

The EU is set to declare war on encryption with plans to allow law enforcement officials “targeted lawful access” to protected communications, according to a European Commission interna | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

£400m OneWeb deal: business secretary ‘interfered’ in parliamentary inquiry

The chair of an inquiry into the government’s £400m OneWeb deal has accused the business secretary Alok Sharma of interfering in his committee’s work. Darren Jones, the Labour MP who ch | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

European Commission pushes back plans for AI legislation to 2021

The European Commission president Urusula von der Leyen has revealed that new legislation governing the use of AI will not now be introduced until next year. In a state of the union address in Brus | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Microsoft’s $10m Jedi cloud contract “sets dangerous precedent”, says AWS

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched an extraordinary attack on the US government after defence officials announced they would not row back on their decision to award Microsoft a controversial $1 | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

SoftBank is in advanced talks with US chip company Nvidia to sell Arm – with a price in the region of £32bn reportedly being thrown around. But Nvidia’s purchase of the Cambridge-based chip d | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Extinction Rebellion ‘flattered’ by government claim that it poses cyber threat

Just before the bank holiday weekend, Parliament’s Digital Services Cyber Security team warned civil servants about an apparent cyber threat posed by environmental activist group Extinction Rebelli | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

North Korea is stepping up attacks on the banking industry, says CISA

North Korean hackers have revived an audacious scam to steal billions of dollars from banks in more than three dozen countries, US cyber analysts have revealed. New details of the global ATM cash-o | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

A BT private equity buy-out would sound the death knell for full fibre broadband

A perfect storm of factors has pushed BT into a vulnerable position – and the vultures of private equity are circling. This month, the company’s shares sunk to their lowest in more than a dec | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Arm co-founder: Nvidia sale is because SoftBank over-invested in firm

Co-founder and ex-president of Arm Holdings Tudor Brown says that SoftBank’s projected sale of the chip company to Nvidia is the result of a bungled business strategy that saw the fund throw | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

How the A-level results algorithm was fatally flawed

A-level students across the country have been left with a bitter taste in their mouths after receiving a grade lower than the one predicted for them by their teachers. Results released on Thursday | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

TikTok threatens to take Trump admin to court over executive order

TikTok has threatened to take the Trump administration to court after it was targeted by an executive order that will prevent it from doing business with US firms. In a strongly worded statement is | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

UK govt to shelve “racist” visa algorithm following landmark legal challenge

The Home Office is set to shelve an allegedly racist visa algorithm following a landmark legal challenge by campaigners. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) and tech justice orga | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Microsoft’s TikTok buyout would cover every Five Eyes nation other than the UK

Microsoft’s bid to buy a significant part of TikTok’s international operations includes the app’s presence in every Five Eyes nation other than the UK, it has emerged. The US tech | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

The definitive list of where every country stands on Huawei

Countries in Europe and around the world are split on their attitudes to including Chinese firm Huawei in their 5G mobile networks, according to an exclusive new global analysis by NS Tech. We traw | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

No, MI5 should not have more control over social media

The long-awaited Russia report – hyped to contain explosive evidence of Russian meddling in the UK’s affairs – finally dropped on Tuesday to somewhat disappointing effect. Instead of incendia | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Covid-19 Test and Trace programme is unlawful, government admits

The government has been forced to concede that England’s “world-beating” Test and Trace programme has been operating unlawfully since it launched in May, as the result of a legal | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

WhatsApp’s case against NSO Group is going ahead – what next?

NSO Group’s attempt to get WhatsApp’s lawsuit thrown out has failed, and the case – which alleges the spyware company hacked 1,400 of the messaging service’s users – can proceed t | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

AI chipmaker Graphcore releases “most complex processor ever made”

The British chipmaker Graphcore has won praise from analysts after releasing the second generation of its intelligence processing unit (IPU) chip, the GC200, which it claims is the most “comp | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Russia's APT29 targeting US, UK and Canadian coronavirus vaccine research

British security officials have joined forces with their American and Canadian counterparts to connect a series of cyber attacks on coronavirus vaccinologists to the Russian government. According t | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Palantir secures four-month extension for NHS data store work

Peter Thiel’s controversial data analytics firm Palantir has secured a four-month extension for its work on NHS England’s Covid-19 data store. Palantir’s initial contract to suppl | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Amnesty decries Israeli court approval of NSO Group’s export licence

Amnesty International’s bid to block spyware company NSO Group’s international export licence has been shut down in a Tel Aviv court, apparently due to a lack of evidence. The case argu | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Why Trump decision to take responsibility for cyberattack on IRA could backfire

President Trump has laid claim to a 2018 cyber attack on Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) – framing it as evidence that he’s responded to Russia’s provocations in an interv | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Banning Huawei could present a security challenge of its own

In January, Boris Johnson finally unveiled the government’s long-awaited policy position on Huawei. The decision essentially mirrored the approach Theresa May had intended to propose last year befo | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Peers urge hefty fines for social media disinformation

Members of the House of Lords are urging the passing of legislation that will implement new rules for social media companies, and threaten fat fines in the case of inaction on disinformation. A Hou | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

The UK is set to launch a new digital strategy, again

The digital secretary Oliver Dowden has unveiled plans to launch a new digital strategy positioning the tech sector at the heart of the UK’s economic recovery following the coronavirus crisis | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

EU’s answer to AWS hailed as “the most important tech project in a generation”

The German economy minister Peter Altmaier has described plans for a new pan-European cloud computing infrastructure as the EU’s most “important digital aspiration in a generation” | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

New docs cast doubt on claim NHS contact tracing app will be ready on time

Newly-released documents have cast doubt on claims that the NHS’s Covid-19 track and trace app will be ready to launch nationally by the end of the month. Earlier this week the business minis | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Government finally publishes NHS contracts with Palantir, Faculty and big tech

The UK government finally gave into demands to release controversial NHS data-sharing deals – which up to this point had been kept secret – after tech justice organisation Foxglove and openDemocrac | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Govt analysts are mining social media and credit data to assess Covid-19 impact

The London AI company Faculty has secured a new contract to analyse a range of data in order to provide a real-time picture of how the coronavirus crisis is affecting communities across the UK. As | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Zoom plans to charge users to access encrypted service

Zoom is planning to offer paying users an encrypted version of its video conferencing platform as it seeks to reassure customers that its services can be used to securely host sensitive discussions | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

NHS test and trace privacy doc throws doubt on app’s “anonymity” claims

The NHS privacy notice for the Covid-19 test and trace programme says that data it gathers – including names, addresses, dates of birth and symptoms of individuals and those they have been in conta | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Live discussion: the coronavirus crisis and the govt’s tech response

Join NS Tech and some of the UK’s leading government tech experts on 3 June for a live discussion on how technology can be deployed responsibly to aid the response to the crisis. Register her | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

UK government struck Zoom deal just weeks before NCSC warned of security risks

The UK government struck a deal with the video conferencing company Zoom just weeks before security officials warned that its platform should not be used for sensitive communications. The contract, | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Govt mulls tech giants’ “commercial interests” before releasing NHS data deals

The British government is facing mounting pressure to disclose the terms of data sharing agreements between NHS England and Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Peter Thiel’s Palantir and the London AI | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Privacy risks of UK's Covid app are both less and more serious than you think

The concerns surrounding the UK’s “wobbly”, technologically quirky and legally dubious coronavirus contact-tracing app are manifold. But one that comes up repeatedly is that of privacy, and the cre | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

The NHSX tracing app source code was released but privacy fears remain

In a move designed to create the impression of radical transparency, NHSX finally released the source code for the UK’s Covid-19 tracing app last week. However, among experts, the reception w | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Uncertainty over who could access NHSX contact tracing app data as pilot starts

The NHSX coronavirus contact tracing app is being rolled out on the Isle of Wight this week, but major question marks still hang over the app. Matthew Gould, CEO of NHSX, told parliament today that | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Revealed: Palantir's NHS data harvesting expected to outlive coronavirus

An ambitious project to forecast demand on NHS services at both a local and national level is likely to outlive the coronavirus pandemic, according to two sources close to the project. The initiati | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 3 years ago

Revealed: Palantir commits 45 engineers to NHS Covid-19 data project, earns £1

Palantir has committed 45 engineers to a government data project designed to help the NHS manage a potential surge in demand during the coronavirus outbreak, NS Tech can reveal. The pledge is likel | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

WhatsApp ties NSO Group’s hacking operations to America in new court evidence

WhatsApp’s most recent court filing in its lawsuit against cyber surveillance company NSO Group claims to connect IP addresses used by the firm to servers in the US, as part of an attempt to quash | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

UK unveils £500m Future Fund to save startups from financial collapse

The UK government is set to take a stake in hundreds of high-growth British startups after launching a plan to save the sector from the brink of financial collapse. Following weeks of negotiations | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

European coronavirus contact tracing app sparks uproar in the privacy community

The European Commission has called for a pan-European approach to contact tracing apps that track the spread of coronavirus across borders. But what form such technology could take has stoked inten | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

WhatsApp’s spyware lawsuit against NSO Group could change espionage laws forever

Almost six months after it was served with a lawsuit by WhatsApp, the controversial Israeli spyware company NSO Group took its first substantive action in relation to the court case last week – it | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

5G conspiracy theorists became arsonists

Like mobile phones, 3G and 4G before it, 5G has become a nexus of paranoid, brain-frying health scare delusions. Since at least 2018, fanciful claims have circulated about the mobile technology cau | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

Israel to use “anti-terrorist” surveillance tech to track coronavirus spread

Israel is kicking its coronavirus response up a gear with prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that the government plans to deploy anti-terrorism tracking technology in order to curtail | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

EU to states: Want to trace Covid using location data? You have to legislate

The European Union’s committee of data protection regulators has clarified that national governments will need to lay down new laws if they wish to use smartphone data to track the spread of | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

Risking everything: where the EU’s white paper on AI falls short

In late February, the European Commission released its long-awaited white paper on artificial intelligence (AI). The paper is seen as the world’s first pan-national attempt to regulate AI and forms | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago

UK releases heavily redacted minutes of govt meetings with Chinese tech giants

Around two dozen of the UK’s most senior civil servants flew to China last year to meet with executives of some of the country’s largest technology firms, NS Tech can reveal. The meetin | Continue reading


@tech.newstatesman.com | 4 years ago