Articles about Home Office
Home Office clumsily LEAKS data of 1,598 immigrants, blames 'transparency'
The Home Office has embarrassingly coughed to accidentally leaking the personal details of 1,598 immigrants.
Applicants in the “family returns” process had some of their personal data exposed online for nearly a fortnight, immigration minister Mark Harper admitted in a written statement to Parliament on Thursday.
He blamed the …
GOV.UK's criminal record check IT job blow: Home Office snubs new design
More rumblings of conflict between the Cabinet Office's Government Digital Service - the team creating trendy GOV.UK - and other mandarins were heard echoing around Whitehall last night.
Late on Tuesday, the Cabinet Office slipped out a statement in which it buried the news that GDS has suffered two significant blows.
It said …
Watchdog drags Home Office to naughty step for dragging feet on FOIs
The Home Office may face sanctions if it fails again to reply to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests on time, the Information Commissioner warned today.
The department - run by Home Secretary Theresa May - will be monitored by the watchdog to see how fast it responds to FOIs received between 1 July and 30 September this year …
Home Office boffins slip out passport-scanning Android app
Android owners with NFC handsets can now read their passports with an official Home Office app - and civil servants want to know what other features could be added to it.
UK passports have had chips in them since 2006, containing a digital version of the photograph and other details, all cryptographically signed. Phones equipped …
Home Office launches £4m cyber security awareness scheme
The UK Home Office has launched a new £4m information security awareness campaign, designed to educate businesses and consumers about rising hacker threats. The first stage of the campaign is due to get underway in the autumn.
The scheme will sit alongside other more established information security initiatives, such as Get Safe …
CRINGE! Home Office wants to know whether your boss BEATS YOU
Tech suppliers wading through the government's latest bizarre 150-page online questionnaire are asking if the folks in the public sector are smoking something – other than taxpayers' money, anyway.
The Supplier Information Database (SID) for Government is designed to give buyers across public sector access to information on …
Home Office opens up anonymised crime data API
Crime-conscious citizens can now view the raw data behind official stats website police.uk after the Home Office made the data freely available to download.
The police.uk site, which got off to a shaky start at its 2011 launch, offers policing and crime information for local areas, as well as a Google Maps-based visualisation of …
ICO probes Home Office refusal to reveal Snooper's Charter details
The Home Office could face legal action over its failure to explain the "Request Filter" system buried in its Communications Data Bill.
That's the draft law that allows spooks and cops to massively ramp up surveillance of British citizens online.
Critics have already lambasted the cryptically named “Request Filter” agency, …
Microsoft tries to sell home Office users on subscription pricing
Microsoft has unveiled its first attempt to seduce consumers into paying subscription pricing for its Office 365 package.
For $99.99 a year, buyers get the Office 365 Home Premium, which gives them a license to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access applications on five computers in the home. …
Home Office spunks another £12.8m on face recog tech
The Home Office is offering £12.8m for new facial recognition technology according to a tender notice from Home Office Procurement published on 12 June.
The new multi-million pound face scanners would be used to determine an applicant's right to a British passport: and must be able to compare the biometric data extracted from …
Home Office doc 'not qualified' to assess McKinnon suicide risk
Computer hacker Gary McKinnon has refused to be assessed for suicide risk by a Home Office appointed doctor, because the doctor chosen had no experience of patients with Aspergers, his mother Janis Sharp told BBC local radio today.
McKinnon, who hacked into US government computers in 2002, has Asperger's syndrome. The 46 year- …
Home Office denies reports of e-Borders closure
The Home Office has said that reports of the e-Borders programme being closed are incorrect and that it is still up and running.
Earlier this week it was reported in sources including The Scotsman and This Is London that the programme had been dropped as part of the effort, led by the Cabinet Office, to find major savings on IT …
Most of Home Office's savings scored from haggling over ICT deals
The majority of procurement cost savings in the Home Office for the third quarter of 2011-12 came from ICT, according to its permanent secretary Dame Helen Ghosh.
According to a report by the Home Affairs committee, Ghosh said that the £24.2m came in particular from the purchase of hardware, software and ongoing support. The …
Home Office appoints Brokenshire as security minister
James Brokenshire has taken over as the UK's security and counter-terrorism minister following the resignation of Baroness Neville-Jones on Monday.
Brokenshire, a former banker and Conservative MP since 2005, was previously parliamentary under secretary for crime reduction before receiving his promotion this week. The crime …
Home Office farms out tech deal worth £40m
The Home Office has tendered for a range of services worth £40m as part of the Employers' Checking Service (ECS), including a web-based interface, data storage, biometric chip reading technology and related support services.
The ECS is run by the UK Border Agency to enable employers to check the status of individuals to work.
A …
Home Office 'technologically clueless' on web super-snoop law
Computer experts, politicos, civil liberty campaigners and even a retired top cop universally agreed yesterday that the Home Office's real-time mass internet surveillance plan demonstrated just how "clueless" Theresa May's govt department is on implementing such a system.
Speaking at the Scrambling for Safety event at the London …
Home Office faces £500m demand in e-Borders sacking
Raytheon and the Home Office are in talks as the department tries to stop the company suing for unfair breach of contract over its sacking from the e-borders programme last year.
At the time, the e-borders agency said it had no confidence in the company. Immigration minister Damian Green said: "The government is determined to …
Social networks likely to snub Home Office in riot confab
The Home Secretary is expected to face fierce opposition from popular social network outfits today when she will ask them to consider restricting access to individuals in the aftermath of unrest in England earlier this month.
Theresa May is meeting with wonks from Blackberry, Facebook and Twitter, following evidence that, …
Home Secretary to decide on McKinnon extradition by October
The UK Home Secretary is due to decide by mid-October whether or not to order Gary McKinnon's extradition to the US, a hearing at the High Court heard on Tuesday.
The hearing followed a decision by McKinnon and his legal team to decline to undergo a Home Office medical test by a doctor, Professor Thomas Fahy, whom McKinnon's …
Home Office to review future of Sprint ii framework
The Home Office will review the controversial Sprint ii procurement framework once the newly created police ICT company is up and running next spring, giving hope to many suppliers that blue light business will be back in their future.
The government mandated police purchasing heads in England and Wales to buy low-end IT kit via …
Office for Android and iOS to ship by March 2013?
A product manager for Microsoft's Czech division may have let the cat out of the bag on Wednesday – almost – when he announced that versions of Microsoft Office for Android and iOS devices may ship as early as the first quarter of next year.
After spotting a report on the Czech site IHNED, The Verge was first to cite Microsoft …
Fujitsu leads Home Office supplier spending
The Home Office paid Fujitsu Services £136m in 2009-10, with CSC, Atos and Raytheon among other major suppliers.
Figures released by the Home Office to Kable under Freedom of Information have revealed the department's largest supplier of any kind in the 2009-10 financial year was an IT firm, but also that it splits its …
Final decision by Home Sec on McKinnon extradition due today
The Home Secretary is expected to announce whether or not the government will block Gary McKinnon's US extradition in Parliament today.
Theresa May is due to deliver a decision on whether the Scottish sysadmin's medical problems as an Asperger's Syndrome sufferer are sufficiently severe to block extradition. A possible appeal …
Home Sec to decide Gary McKinnon's fate by 16 October
A timetable has finally been set for the next phase of NASA hacker Gary McKinnon's long-running fight against extradition to the US.
The UK government's Home Secretary Theresa May will decide by 16 October on whether McKinnon's diagnosis as an Asperger's Syndrome sufferer is sufficient to block his extradition, according to his …
Foreign Office loses dozens of PCs and smartphones
After other government departments revealed the number of electrical goods they'd left scattered around the pubs and train seats of the country, the Foreign Office has just coughed up the statistics on how many of its gadgets went missing last year.
Since August 2010 Foreign Office bods lost 28 computers and 37 mobiles phones …
Home Office passport fraud sweep flops
The Home Office security upgrade scheme to catch passport fraudsters through face-to-face interviews has bagged just eight potential 'Jackals'.
The project, requiring first-time passport applicants to attend interviews with officials from the Identity and Passport Service (IPS), launched in 2007 and has resulted in no …
Home Office unveils new UK passport
The Home Office has said that new UK passports with 'strengthened security features' will be issued from October.
To make the passports more secure, the chip which stores the holder's details has been moved to the inside of the passport cover so it will no longer be visible, the Home Office said.
The new 10-year passport will …
Home Office crime maps go to street-level detail
The Home Office has announced the rollout of a new online crime-map service for England and Wales that ministers describe as "more comprehensive than any other scheme" in the world. The new mapping service offers crimes arranged by street, rather than merely by ward or subdistrict as before.
Screengrab of the Home Office crime …
Home Office signs £430m contract extensions
The Home Office is spending £330m with Fujitsu and £100m with Atos Origin to extend existing deals with the two companies.
The agreements, signed on 8 October 2009, will extend the Home Office's £550m Sirius contract with Fujitsu and the UK Borders Agency's £250m contract with Atos Origin.
Some 24,000 users across the Home …
Home Sec: Web snoop law will snare PAEDOS, TERRORISTS
The Home Secretary has defended her department's decision to resurrect net-snooping plans that were abandoned by the previous Labour government in 2009.
Theresa May, writing in The Sun, finally put forward her opinion two days after the tabloid's sister paper – The Sunday Times – ran a story containing a small amount of …
Home Office publishes draft reform plan
Information sharing, the publication of crime data and support for the e-Borders programme are all in the Home Office Structural Reform Plan.
A draft (pdf) of the plan has been published on the department's website. It places an emphasis on tackling crime and anti-social behaviour, increasing the accountability of the police, …
Work from home, find a new hobby, buy a fountain - UK.gov
Anywhere Working, the government-backed initiative to get us chipping in towards the cost of offices, now has a working website hub portal and advice on picking the perfect fountain.
The scheme was launched in November by then-transport minister (and Lib Dem) Norman Baker, who's now been replaced by the Conservative Justine …
Home Office takes non-action against phone pinchers
The Home Office is demanding that mobile phone recyclers continue what they're already doing, in the name of cracking down on mobile phone theft.
The office is busy creating a new Code of Practice which will require the industry to check handsets sent for recycling against the register of stolen phones, preventing thieves …
Home Office battles to make CCTV useful
The Home Office will today impose new police standards to encourage better use of surveillance footage, after its own research revealed that most of the millions of CCTV cameras watching the UK have no impact on crime.
Ministers will also appoint a "CCTV regulator", according to The Daily Telegraph. The job will fall to Andy …
Post Office wins contract to take snaps of foreigners
The Post Office has won a contract to take photographs and fingerprints of foreign nationals seeking biometric residence permits (BRPs).
Immigration minister Damian Green announced the plan as part of a package of measures, also including an online checking service for employers, aimed at reducing the number of illegal workers …
UK Home Sec: 'I authorised biometric bypass pilot'
Home Secretary Theresa May fought for her political life in Parliament on Monday after it was revealed that immigration border guards were told to ignore biometric chips on the passports of non-eurozone citizens.
The head of the UK border force, Brodie Clark, "authorised the wider relaxation of border controls without …
Stuff the delays! PM chuffed to have BT's superfast broadband in his constituency
Prime Minister David Cameron already enjoys super speedy internet connections at his constituency home in Dean, Oxfordshire, but locals in the village of Alvescot – saddled with a very slow broadband service – have waited a long time for an upgrade.
On Friday, BT invited the PM to make doe eyes at one of the telecom giant's …
UK border database on target and budget, says Home Office
Half of all journeys in and out of the UK are now being centrally recorded and analysed by the £1.2bn e-Borders scheme, the government estmates.
The Home Office yesterday said the system is currently gathering data on between 45 and 50 per cent of people crossing the border.
e-Borders aims to count every person in and out of …
Japanese porn at heart of Home-Office terrorism snooping
Japanese pornographers became embedded deep within a Home Office site advising on the interception of possible terrorist communications.
The Home Offices has apparently now removed a link from its Office for Security and Counter Terrorism site, after workers occupying the postal and telecommunications industries got more than …
Home Sec splits Border Agency after passport checks fiasco
Blighty's Border Force is to be divorced from the UKBA following a series of embarrassing passport check gaffes last summer, the Home Secretary Theresa May told MPs yesterday.
"[F]rom 1 March, the UK Border Force will be split from UKBA and will become a separate operational command, with its own ethos of law enforcement, led by …
Home Office spawns new unit to expand internet surveillance
The Home Office has created a new unit to oversee a massive increase in surveillance of the internet, The Register has learned, quashing suggestions the plans are on hold until after the election.
The new Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD) has been created as a structure to implement the £2bn Interception …
Never mind bungled Universal Credit rollout, Maude wants UK to be 'most digital' gov by 2015
Just one day after Francis Maude labelled the bungled deployment of Universal Credit - the all-in-one replacement for the benefits system - as "lamentable", the Cabinet Office Minister has been trumpeting that the UK could be "the most digital government" in the G8 by next year.
Maude made the claim on Thursday when his office …
Home Office kicks ID cards into touch
The Home Office confirmed yesterday it is delaying awarding the key contract for the national ID card project - actually making the cards for UK citizens.
Fujitsu, IBM and Thales were all in the running to make the cards. But this contract will not now be awarded until autumn 2010 - after the general election, which at the …
Home Office appoints ID czar
The Home Office has appointed an ID Commissioner to oversee and monitor the roll-out of national ID cards.
Sir Joseph Pilling has previous form as permanent secretary to the Northern Ireland Office between 1997 and 2005, reviewing senior jobs at the Church of England and the Civil Aviation Authority. He has been at the Home …
Home Office planning to brick version 1 ID cards in 2012?
The current generation of UK ID card is, apparently, the wrong kind of ID card, and is likely to be upgraded to incorporate new features by 2012.
These are likely to include chip and pin for online transactions and ID verification, both of which have been spoken of in the past by ID minister Meg Hillier. The upgrade, however, …
Home Office mobe theft fight doubles in importance
The Home Office has published guidelines asking recyclers to check if phones are stolen, claiming that the business is worth £5m a year despite it being only worth £2.5m eight weeks ago.
When the then-Labour government started on the guidelines telling companies to continue doing what most of them were doing already, we were …
UK.gov's web filtering mission creep: Now it plans to block 'extremist' websites
Whitehall is carefully floating plans that might result in ISPs being forced to start blocking "extremist" websites.
The first hint reached us in October, when the Premier – basking in what he believed to be a victory against the ubiquity of smutty websites, with big name ISPs set to bring in network-level filters – told …
Home Office picks new prof for Nutt job
The Home Office has found someone to take the job of chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, left vacant after the sacking of David Nutt.
Les Iversen, a former Oxford professor of pharmacology, takes the chair.
He has been chairing the meetings since Nutt left in October. The ACMD, required under the Misuse of …
UK Home Secretary approves TVShack's O'Dwyer extradition
Blighty's Home Secretary Theresa May has approved the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer to the US on charges of copyright infringement stemming from his TVShack website.
According to his mother Julia, O'Dwyer's extradition was signed off by May on Tuesday as the Prime Minister David Cameron flew into the US for talks with President …
Home Office coughs to larger data loss
The Home Office has admitted to losing a quarter of a million more records than it originally thought.
The figure is revealed in its Resource Accounts for 2008-2009. PA Consulting lost a memory stick last September, which was originally reported to contain details on 127,000 people. In fact the stick, which remains lost, …
