Another two Watchkeeper drones crashed in the last year, taking the number of Watchkeepers destroyed in crashes up to four. The two semi-autonomous aircraft, which mainly operate from West Wales Airport at Aberporth, reportedly crashed at some point during the last year, resulting in the 52-strong Watchkeeper fleet being …

An Army Watchkeeper drone flown by the Royal Artillery crashed on landing after its crew selected the self-flying craft’s “master override” function, according to the official report into the accident. Thales Watchkeeper drone WK006 flopped into the runway at Boscombe Down airfield in November 2015 when its two-man crew, …

Thales has put up $440m to acquire Vormetric, which develops data protection technology for physical, virtual and cloud infrastructures. The transaction, announced late Monday, is subject to customary closing conditions but is expected be finalised during the first quarter of 2016. The deal will allow Thales to acquire …

Spooks working at one of Europe's largest defence contractors have warned that the delayed Ubisoft game Watch Dogs could create a whole new generation of hackers. Cyber-security experts at Thales, a French multinational defence firm, are nervous that kids will be "turned on" to hacking by the new game. However, they may have …

Defence giant Thales has withdrawn its demand for the removal of banking security documents from whistle-blowing website Cryptome. The global corporation filed a DMCA* takedown notice last week citing copyright infringement: two of its manuals for cryptographic equipment have been available from Cryptome since 2003. Ross …

The Australian Light Armoured Vehicle (ASLAV) is an eight-wheeled, 13,450-kilogram monster, which bristles with a grenade launcher, a pair of machine guns and a 25 millimetre M242 “Bushmaster” chain gun. The ASLAV can carry six troops in addition to its three crew. Two of the latter ride inside the vehicle's turret, where the …

The government has released details of how it is paying suppliers £2.253m to compensate them for the cancellation of contracts connected to the scrapped plans for identity card. IDcards In a letter to Labour MP Meg Hillier, immigration minister Damian Green said that the government had paid £2.002m to Thales, £183,000 to 3M …

The IPS plans to order Thales and 3M SPSL to shred the hard disks and back-up tapes holding the personal information on the National Identity Register (NIR), according to a document released through Parliament's library. The document, CWIC-NIR destruction and equipment decommissioning, says that IPS will order shredding, …

The two biggest contractors on the doomed ID cards scheme will escape any serious financial impact, as the government will not cancel their deals. With today's announcement that ID cards will be scrapped within 100 days, it's emerged CSC and IBM will simply have the scale of their tasks reduced. CSC is operating the 10-year …

Nicolas Sarkozy and 20,000 of his French government lieutenants will be equipped with specially-commissioned encrypted smartphones, following fears over the security of BlackBerries. Back in 2007, SGDN, the French equivalent of MI5, banned ministers and civil servants from using RIM's devices, citing "a problem of data …

Thales UK, the French-owned defence giant that hired recently-retired GCHQ chief Sir David Pepper as an advisor, is bidding for a massive government cryptography system that GCHQ has been closely involved in designing - including under Pepper. The firm is leading one of just two industry consortia vying to implement the …

Just over a year after retiring as Britain's most senior electronic spy, Sir David Pepper has taken a job advising the defence and security giant Thales UK. He will sit on the firm's "advisory board" having retired as director of GCHQ in July 2008. Thales UK's CEO Alex Dorrian said Pepper will help the firm grow its national …

The Department of Homeland Security has announced preliminary tests of a radio designed to use all the frequencies where first responders hang out, which might prove easier than getting them all to use one network. In an attempt to unify the radio systems used by American emergency teams, the Department of Homeland Security …

Any key management platform will be able to communicate across all of a company's encryption systems - if IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Thales, and EMC have their way. The companies today said they're heading a group of vendors proposing a standardized encryption management specification through the Organization for the Advancement of …

The British Army's new Watchkeeper robotic surveillance aircraft has made its first autonomous test flight, carrying out a full mission without remote piloting. The tests took place in Israel, at a facility operated by Israeli drone manufacturer Elbit. Watchkeeper is being made jointly by Thales UK, the British arm of the …

French defence provider Thales SA has won the first contract for the UK national ID card project. The Identity and Passport Service is paying Thales £18m over four years to design, build and test a National Identity Register to support the cards. The total cost of the project is disputed, but will run to several billion pounds …

Updated The government released the shortlist of five possible suppliers for its delayed ID card project this morning. The five remaining bidders are IBM, Fujitsu, CSC, Thales and EDS. Originally eight companies - the above along with Accenture, BAE Systems and Steria - were listed. But Accenture, BAE Systems and Steria have all …