Bill Goodwin

Phone and tablet users will be required to verify their ages with credit card or official ID under government plans to prevent under-18s viewing nude images.

UK proposals for mandatory age verification will not mitigate children’s exposure to harmful content and ‘addictive’ app design, and risks excluding vulnerable groups from online services, says Foundation for Information Policy Research

The UK and Europe are ramping up opposition to encryption and stepping up surveillance of private communications. Here is what to expect this year

Three human rights activists whose phones were targeted by spyware traced to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have begun legal action against both countries and Israel’s NSO Group Technologies The Israeli company behind Pegasus spyware, NSO…

The role of CIOs in local government is changing as the sector faces a period of unprecedented austerity and cut-backs, CIOs at the Computer Weekly 500 club heard last week. CIOs are no longer simply the owner of the technology strategy, they are…

An independent authority is to be responsible for managing the increasing volume of personal data collected by the government, the House of Lords heard yesterday. In a debate on personal privacy, The Earl of Northesk told peers that there was an…

The London School of Economics has called for an independent review of the government's ID cards scheme, after it identified "discrepancies" in the government's latest £5.31bn cost estimates for the programme. The LSE said that the credibility of the…

The government has been ordered to disclose confidential reports into the viability of its £5.8bn ID card programme. In a precedent-setting case, the Information Tribunal has dismissed an appeal by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), ordering it…

Government plans to share data across departments could be hampered by the poor quality of government data, a cross-bench peer warned at the Infosec conference. Lord Erroll said he was concerned that errors in government databases would lead to…

Security suppliers are lobbying the European Commission to introduce US-style laws that would force companies to publicly report IT security breaches if they lead to the loss of sensitive personal information. The Cyber Security Industry Alliance,…

The Housing Corporation presents itself as open and transparent. The trust's chief executive has personally written to the information commissioner, Richard Thomas, highlighting its "proactive approach in trying to be as open and transparent as…

Publication of independent reviews into the government's ID cards project would set a precedent that would lead to open confrontation between government departments, a freedom of information tribunal heard last week. Peter Gershon, the former civil…

Government lawyers this week began a legal battle to prevent the publication of confidential reports into the feasibility of the £5.4bn ID cards programme. The Office of Government Commerce, a Treasury agency, is pitting itself against the…

The government's proposed ID card scheme is likely to be as risky as the NHS National Programme for IT, and could cost twice the estimated £5.4bn price tag, an independent review has concluded. The review, the first to analyse the project based on…

Accor Hotels is rolling out a multi-million-pound encryption system as part of a programme to safeguard customers' personal information, including credit card details, from the risk of identity theft. The hotel chain is thought to be one of the first…

The decision by the government to radically simplify the technology behind biometric ID cards will not reduce the cost of the £5.4bn programme, a senior official has disclosed. The government has postponed plans to build a dedicated computer system…