The UK government has admitted it can only delete custody images from its massive database through a complex manual process, and that it would cost too much to weed out all the images of innocent people by hand. The custody image database now holds around 21 million shots of faces and identifying features like scars or tattoos …

Exclusive The UK Home Office will sign a deal with Accenture to replace its clunky 1990s-era immigration and asylum applications system – having previously written off £347m in its last attempted overhaul. The department confirmed procurements have been awarded to Accenture and PA Consulting as "caseworking delivery partners" to replace …

The Home Office has inked a deal with a coterie of consultancies and system integrators to create a digital app intended to register the three million EU citizens in the UK post-Brexit. The department confirmed to The Register that Accenture, BJSS, Capgemini, Deloitte Digital, PA Consulting and Worldreach had been signed up to …

The details of 600,000 foreign visitors have slipped through the cracks of the Home Office's database thanks to its "shambolic" exit checks system. A report (PDF) by the chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Bolt, examined the department's Initial Status Analysis (ISA) system database and how ISA-produced data had …

The UK Home Office’s Emergency Services Network that is intended to replace the country's national radio infrastructure with a 4G network is running overtime and budget, politicians were told today. Amber Rudd, Home Office chief was questioned alongside Permanent secretary Philip Rutnam, on the progress of department's largest …

Analysis The UK government launched its swish new tool to fight online extremist content to much fanfare this week – leading news bulletins and generating reams of coverage. But it also faced a whole host of criticism and concern. Underneath the claims made by Home Secretary Amber Rudd yesterday, there are many questions yet to be …

UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd has announced a tool that purports to detect and block jihadist content online, and tech companies may end up being legally required to use it. London-based firm ASI Data Science was handed £600,000 by government to develop the unnamed algorithm, which uses machine learning to analyse Daesh …

Brit Home Office bods have denied that retaining millions of custody images of people who were never charged falls foul of case law, while asserting that automatic deletion is not technically possible. In an intense evidence session with MPs this morning, Home Office minister Susan Williams and the department's director of …

NHS Digital must put an immediate stop to patient data-sharing deal with the UK Home Office for immigration enforcement, MPs have said. The deal, which was put on official footing last year, allows the Home Office to ask the National Health Service for non-clinical information – such as date of birth or last known address – …

The UK’s Court of Appeals has ruled that the government’s unfettered slurping of citizens’ data broke the law. In a judgment handed down this morning, judges backed a challenge brought by deputy Labour leader Tom Watson in a long-running battle against state surveillance rules. These laws allow for ISPs and telcos to retain …

An asylum seeker has won £15,500 from the UK’s Home Office after it blabbed confidential information about his persecution in his home country - to authorities in the state. In a poorly thought-through attempt to verify the authenticity of a set of documents about the asylum seeker, the Home Office sent them to authorities in …

Comment Questions have been raised over the UK Home Office's most senior civil servant's involvement in the banning of GSM gateways – following botched redactions to freedom-of-information responses by Ofcom. When Ofcom – Blighty's comms regulator – first banned GSM gateways in 2003 the man who is now the Permanent Secretary of the …

The UK government has been told to get its act together and explain why its biometrics strategy still hasn't seen the light of day. The Home Office has been promising a biometrics strategy since 2012, but it has been repeatedly delayed. The latest push-back was revealed earlier this month, when minister Baroness Susan …

A civil rights group has launched a legal challenge in the UK against a deal that asks the NHS to share patient data for immigration enforcement. The agreement allows the Home Office to ask the NHS to hand over non-clinical information on patients – like date of birth or last known address – for immigration offences, such as …

Security minister Ben Wallace has signed a direction banning commercial multi-user phone gateways in the UK over terrorism fears – barely a week after the only ever prosecution for operating one flopped following years of Kafkaesque wrangling. The direction to Ofcom (PDF, 1 page), made under section 5(3)(a) of the …

The Home Office has tossed a paltry £20m of taxpayers' cash at Accenture and Oracle implementation outfit Certus Solutions to deploy a cloudy ERP system that hopefully works overhauls the way back-office services are provided. The aim of two-year contract, tendered on the UK.gov’s G-Cloud supplier framework, is to update …

The UK Home Office has put out to tender a £4.6m ($5.9m) contract for facial recognition software – despite the fact its biometrics strategy and retention systems remain embroiled in controversy. According to the tender announcement, a company is sought to provide "a combination of biometric algorithm software and associated …

Transport for London has tentatively started testing 4G on the Tube for emergency services. TfL's CTO said he was not "absolutely confident" it would be complete by January, 2019, however. The £2.9bn Airwave contract, which dates from 2000, will be switched off by 2020 and replaced by the 4G Emergency Services Network (ESN) …