A watershed moment in the culture of data sharing, the pandemic has led to the use of linked data increasingly becoming standard practice. From linking census and NHS data to track the virus’s impact among minority ethnic groups, to the linking of timely local data sources to support local authorities’ responses, the value of […]

UK climate technology startups have raised $7.5bn in 2022 so far, almost double the entire $4m raised by the same firms throughout 2021, but more work is needed to scale down global emissions in the timescales needed, according to a Tech Nation report. Published ahead of COP27, which runs from 6-15 November, the Climate […]

Public sector organisations should take an iterative approach to data ethics that encompasses every stage of a project, from initial data collection all the way through to live implementation and beyond, so that the lessons learned can be truly incorporated into future work, says data ethicist Haroon Ahmed. Ahmed, commercial partner for data capability […]

The Department for Education (DfE) has been given a reprimand but escaped a £10m regulatory fine for a data breach that saw a database of personal information held on 28 million people misused by a third-party organisation over a “prolonged” period between September 2018 and January 2020. The Learning Records Service (LRS) database contains […]

The BBC has developed a web app that uses live personal data from the BBC, Spotify and Netflix to create a media profile for users. According to BBC Research, this media profile allows the user to view and edit their entire media viewing history in one place. Built on an open source tool called […]

At a time of ongoing skills and talent shortages across most areas of the economy, the idea of wooing prospective employees with a compelling candidate experience is garnering increased attention. Whereas it used to be considered a “nice-to-have” that was explored after other elements of the recruitment process had been dealt with, “intense competition […]

Most people have heard of data-driven decision making – the admirable desire to make better decisions through data. The conventional justification is that given the world’s complexity, organisations need data to make decisions. Such ideas exist across organisations from governments to companies to hospitals. In fact, they are wrong in principle and misleading in […]

While ransomware remains one of the top cyber security concerns for organisations today, the state of ransomware defence is failing. Historically, organisations have relied on a combination of people, process and technology to thwart cyber threats – from regular software patches and backups to threat modelling and password awareness – but these tactics alone […]

“For the next several years, leading technology providers must play a leading role in helping enterprises navigate the current storms of disruption,” says analyst firm IDC, promoting its forthcoming round of crystal ball predictions for 2023. No pressure then. Of course, we’ve known for some time now that technology can be a differentiator. As […]

“A sun of our own and it’s made in Britain!” crowed the headline. The UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) believed its 120-ton experimental reactor Zeta was almost certainly generating neutrons from fusion, the nuclear reaction that powers the sun. It claimed it could soon start generating electricity safely and cheaply from deuterium extracted from […]