Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Chooses EBO’s Patient Portal
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust is rolling out EBO’s Intelligent Patient Portal (IPP) as part of its digital transformation, offering a conversational AI interface that guides patients through appointment management and care tasks. The portal is built on behavioural‑science principles, supports multiple languages, voice interaction and reading‑age detection, and integrates with the NHS App and the trust’s electronic patient record. EBO cites a 25‑30% drop in missed appointments and over 94% patient satisfaction in other NHS deployments. The Trust expects the solution to boost patient‑centred care while easing staff workload.
More Than 40% of South Africans Were Scammed in 2025
South Africa experienced a staggering 77% scam victimization rate in the 12 months to early 2025, with 42% of adults losing money, averaging $130 per incident. GASA estimates scammers extracted roughly $2.3 billion from over 17.5 million South Africans, equating to about...
NHS Transformation Directorate Launches Best Practice and Content Guidance for Patient Messaging
The NHS Transformation Directorate has issued best‑practice and content guidance to help NHS staff decide when and how to message patients via NHS Notify, the NHS App, text, email or letters. The guidance combines clinical safety, governance and digital best...
New Digital Tool to Report River Pollution
The UK Environment Agency has unveiled BluePrint, a new smartphone‑based platform that lets anyone report real‑time observations of rivers, lakes and beaches across England. Building on the WaterWatch pilot, BluePrint uses geolocation instead of QR codes, allowing data collection from...
The Digital Backbone of MoD’s Technology Foundations
The UK Ministry of Defence has solidified its Digital Backbone and Technology Reference Model (TRM) over the past year, launching the digital.mod.uk portal to centralise standards and guidance. By aligning the TRM with the Defence Capability Hierarchy, the MoD is...
Scottish Government Runs Open Data Workshops
The Scottish Government is hosting two online workshops on 12‑13 March to co‑create a shared vision for open data in Scotland through 2036. Led by Martin Macfie, the initiative follows a 2024 independent report and builds on progress with the statistics.gov.scot...
DBT Increases Adoption of Data Hub
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has lifted adoption of its central CRM platform, Data Hub, through a focused digital‑adoption programme. By aligning the tool with user workflows and delivering on‑demand training, email guidance and a performance dashboard, the...
Remote Access Abuse Drives Majority of Breaches
Arctic Wolf’s 2026 Threat Report reveals a dramatic shift toward data‑only extortion, which surged from 2% to 22% of incidents in 2025. Remote‑access tool abuse initiated 65% of non‑BEC breaches, while AI‑enhanced phishing powered 85% of BEC attacks. Ransomware remains common,...
Asylum: Courts Service and Home Office Hope to Join up Disconnected Data Systems by Spring
Senior officials from the Home Office and Ministry of Justice told MPs that the new Atlas immigration case‑working platform is now live and that work to link it with justice‑system databases will be completed by spring. The current data silos...
IPAA ACT Virtual AI Summit: Building a Trusted Digital Future
The Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) is hosting a virtual AI Summit on 18 March 2026. The half‑day event will focus on building a trusted digital future for the public sector, featuring breakout sessions on workforce upskilling, AI governance, digital stewardship,...
Gov.UK: Update on the Serious Fraud Office’s E-Discovery Review
The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has completed its e‑discovery review of historic fraud convictions that relied on the legacy Autonomy system. Out of 66 identified cases, only three remain under final review, and the SFO reports no material that...
IRS CIO Says Agency Lost 40% of Tech Workers Last Year
The Internal Revenue Service’s Chief Information Officer disclosed that the agency shed roughly 40% of its IT workforce and almost 80% of its technology leadership last year, marking the deepest attrition in two decades. The cuts stemmed from voluntary separations,...
Top HHS Officials Tout TEFCA Data-Sharing Framework As Central To MAHA
Top officials at the Department of Health and Human Services highlighted the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA) as a cornerstone of the "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) initiative. TEFCA, mandated by the 2016 bipartisan law, seeks to create...
Michigan Bills Would Regulate Automatic License Plate Readers
Michigan lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan two‑bill package to regulate automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) used by law‑enforcement and private firms. The proposals would restrict data collection, storage, and sharing, limit retention to 14 days, and require quarterly public reports...
GAO: Millions of People Can’t Understand Life-or-Death Weather Alerts
The GAO report warns that roughly 26 million Americans with limited English proficiency struggle to comprehend life‑or‑death weather alerts. Outdated alert infrastructure, insufficient staffing, and slow translation processes prevent timely multilingual warnings. GAO recommends modernizing the National Weather Service’s system with...
Beyond Buzzwords: Using OPM’s Human Capital Standards for Federal HR Modernization
The article explains how OPM’s Human Capital Management (HCM) standards—namely the Human Capital Business Reference Model (HCBRM), the Human Capital Federal Integrated Business Framework (HC‑FIBF), and the Human Capital Information Model (HCIM)—provide a detailed, tiered framework for federal HR IT...
Resident Engagement Initiatives Local Governments Are Using Today
Resident engagement is evolving as local governments blend digital and in‑person tactics to meet higher citizen expectations. Examples include Banff, Alberta’s use of Pinterest for visual storytelling, extending community visibility and civic pride, and Rockingham County, North Carolina’s free eight‑week...
OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity Near Approval to Host AI Directly for the U.S. Government (Exclusive)
OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity are on the cusp of receiving FedRAMP 20x authorization, allowing them to host AI services on their own clouds for U.S. government use. The approval will be limited to low‑impact, pilot deployments but marks a shift toward...
Yu-Lan Chan: An Operational Gun Who Keeps ACT Government Wheels Turning
Yu‑Lan Chan, a senior public servant in the Australian Capital Territory, is portrayed as an "operational gun" who ensures the government’s daily functions run smoothly. She attributes her ascent to curiosity and a willingness to join high‑performing teams rather than...
Remote Learning Still a Work in Progress at Buffalo Schools
Buffalo Schools are increasingly relying on remote‑learning days to meet New York’s 180‑day requirement amid severe winter weather and a compressed academic calendar. District officials cite safety, but teachers, parents, and students uniformly express frustration with the ad‑hoc approach. Device...
AI Agents and How to Govern Them: Tailscale, Sayvint Offer Solutions
AI agents are moving from occasional chat tools to always‑on assistants, prompting enterprises to confront identity‑governance gaps. Tailscale introduced Aperture, an open‑alpha governance layer that ties AI usage to user or workload identities, offering policy controls, audit‑ready session logs, and...
Milwaukee Sheriff Moves to Integrate Biometrica Despite MPD Facial Recognition Freeze
Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office has signed a letter of intent to partner with Biometrica, aiming to access its UMbRA facial‑recognition database. The draft contract would let the sheriff’s office search a de‑identified collection of mugshots, felony warrants and missing‑person images,...
Government Strategy Needs Reimagining: An Experiment From Argentina
Red de Innovación Local (RIL) launched an internal experiment to redesign municipal strategy by first applying its new AI‑driven process to its own team. Using PortalRIL, a platform built on ten years of local‑government data, staff answered a structured “Questions...
Age Verification Laws Face Mixed Prospects, Experts Say
State efforts to require age verification for online content face mixed legal outcomes. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas' law, while lawsuits have blocked similar measures in Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, and struck down Arkansas' statute. Public opinion shows...
FAA Launches Competition to Modernize Aging IT Portfolio
The Federal Aviation Administration announced a challenge‑based acquisition to modernize its sprawling, aging IT portfolio of roughly 200 applications and 3,000 databases. Vendors must demonstrate cloud‑native migration strategies, AI‑driven code analysis, and security automation across a four‑phase competition ending with...
Pakistan Super App for Gov’t Services, Document Verification Advances Toward Launch
Pakistan’s government is set to launch a mobile "Super App" that will consolidate public services, document verification, and digital payments into a single platform. The initiative builds on NADRA’s National Digital Identity system and the existing Pak ID app, leveraging...
Broadband Policy Fights Spark Lawsuits, Funding Debates
Policyband Headlines: ■ @NRBAssociation Defends Cable Must Carry for NextGen TV Signals; ■ @StephenAtHome, @CBS Suits in Dispute over Talarico Interview ■ @FSFthinktank: @EchoStar Needs to Pay Tower Companies ■ Broadband Experts at ACLP Dispute Calif. Broadband Study ■ @LAGovJeffLandry Eyes 911 Upgrades with BEAD...
EU Guarantees Iris2 Access for Governments, Limits Others
EU Commission @defis_eu: Iris2 capacity to be free for EU govts, whose comms will be confidential, not shared w/ others. In time of crisis, non-govt users will be preempted. @esa @EUDefenceAgency @EU4Space. @SESSpaceDefense @EutelsatGroup @Hispasat.https://t.co/QFF3UPPXsq https://t.co/56rvMAcqIo
Our Community Network Map Now Shows Tribal Networks Across the United States
The Institute for Local Self‑Reliance unveiled an upgraded Community Network Map that now includes Tribal broadband providers. The interactive tool identifies 82 active Tribal Internet Service Providers across the United States, displaying population size, business model, network links, and whether...
EMudhra Self-Certified as MOSIP System Integrator for Digital ID Projects at Scale
Indian digital‑ID specialist eMudhra has completed self‑certification as a Modular Open Source Identity Platform (MOSIP) system integrator, joining the MOSIP Marketplace. The certification confirms its software and hardware meet MOSIP’s rigorous technical, operational and security standards, enabling it to deliver...
In Digital-First Era, NJ Librarians Demand More Affordable E-Books
New Jersey librarians and lawmakers have introduced a bill to curb restrictive e‑book licensing agreements that force libraries to pay three to five times the consumer price and limit checkout cycles. The legislation would ban contracts that restrict lending frequency,...
Safer, Faster Public Transportation: AC Transit’s AI-Powered Upgrade with Hayden AI - Ep. 290
In this episode, AC Transit CTO Ahsan Baig and Hayden AI CEO Marty Beard discuss how AI‑powered, edge‑computing cameras mounted on buses detect vehicles illegally blocking bus lanes and stops, improving on‑time performance, safety, and accessibility. The system leverages NVIDIA...
OMB Rescinds the “Common Form” Secure Software Attestation Requirement
On Jan. 23, 2026 the Office of Management and Budget issued Memorandum M‑26‑05, rescinding the Biden‑era mandate that all federal agencies obtain a CISA “Common Form” software attestation. The new memo replaces the one‑size‑fits‑all requirement with a risk‑based, agency‑specific approach while...
Identy Joins Africa’s Push for Digital Identity in Humanitarian Healthcare
Identy is partnering with the volunteer NGO HumanCoop to roll out offline facial‑recognition tools for undocumented patients in northern Mauritania, creating portable digital medical IDs that work without internet. The initiative will initially cover the Bir Mogrein community of over 2,500...
Retired CISA Contracting Chief Juan Arratia Launches Arratia & Associates
Juan Arratia, former Chief of the Contracting Office at CISA, has announced the launch of Arratia & Associates LLC, a consulting firm that will advise on acquisition, procurement, and audit readiness. The new venture follows more than three decades of senior...
Skydio Poised for $4M Windfall From LAPD Drone Deal
The Los Angeles Police Commission approved a private donation that could deliver up to $4 million to drone maker Skydio, funding a three‑year “Drone as First Responder” program. The deal includes a $2.1 million grant for drones, docking stations and installation, plus...
Texas on the Sidelines as Digital Driver’s Licenses Expand Nationwide
Texas continues to lag behind a growing national movement toward digital driver’s licenses, as more than 20 states and Puerto Rico already allow state IDs in mobile wallets. Apple’s latest Digital ID rollout lets users store U.S. passports for TSA...
SBC White Paper Proposes New Mode for Devices in School Settings
The Safer Buildings Coalition (SBC) has released a white paper proposing a “School Mode” for smartphones that automatically restricts non‑essential functions when a device enters a school geofence during class hours. The model is opt‑in, gives schools control over policy,...
Cross-Government Report Shows Quadrupling of Detected Fraud and Error in Two Years
The Public Sector Fraud Authority reported a record £1.7 bn in detected fraud and error for 2023‑24, more than four times the £438 m reported in 2021‑22. The surge is driven largely by error, especially £327 m linked to closed energy‑affordability schemes, while...
UK Sets Out Vision for Open, Interoperable Connected Vehicle Services
The UK Department for Transport introduced a Connected Vehicle Services (CVS) Framework to establish an open, interoperable ecosystem for vehicle‑infrastructure data. The non‑prescriptive model defines a national baseline of services, guiding local authority investments, standards and policy without mandating specific...
Global Leaders, Executives Exposed in Data Leak
At the Abu Dhabi Finance Week summit, an unsecured cloud server exposed the passports and national ID cards of more than 700 attendees, including former British Prime Minister David Cameron, hedge‑fund billionaire Alan Howard, and former White House communications director...
Buy versus Build an LLM: A Decision Framework for Governments
Large language models are emerging as core digital infrastructure for governments, offering capabilities from routine citizen services to high‑stakes policy analysis. Policymakers must decide whether to purchase commercial offerings, build domestic models, or adopt hybrid solutions, each with trade‑offs in...
EU Needs to Abandon AI ‘Doomerism,’ White House Official Says
U.S. White House senior AI adviser Sriram Krishnan warned the EU to abandon its "doomerism" and focus on innovation rather than heavy regulation. He criticized the 2024 EU AI Act as stifling for entrepreneurs, citing Austrian coder Peter Steinberger’s move...
Africa’s Data Centre Capacity on Back Foot, Despite Investment Push
Africa’s data‑centre capacity remains under 1% of global supply despite a surge in investment, with active capacity at 360 MW and another 238 MW under construction. The Africa Data Centres Association report projects a total pipeline of 656 MW, but even full delivery...
Chlorine Dioxide, Raw Camel Milk: The FDA No Longer Warns Against These and Other Ineffective Autism Treatments
The FDA removed a consumer webpage that warned against chlorine dioxide, raw camel milk, chelation and hyperbaric oxygen as ineffective autism treatments, citing a routine cleanup of outdated content. The page, unchanged since 2019, remains only via the Internet Archive,...
SARS Turns Screws on Crypto Tax-Dodgers
South Africa’s tax authority, SARS, has released its domestic Crypto Asset Reporting Framework (CARF), outlining how crypto‑related transactions will be reported and shared with tax authorities. The framework mandates crypto‑asset service providers to gather detailed user and transaction data and...
ECB and ONCE Foundation Launch Collaboration to Ensure Digital Euro Is Accessible for Everyone
The European Central Bank has signed a collaboration agreement with Spain’s ONCE Foundation to make the digital euro app universally accessible, especially for people with disabilities, older adults, and those with limited digital skills. The foundation will provide technical advice,...
Czech Ministry Apologizes to Journalist for Blanket Collection of Mobile Phone Data
The Czech Supreme Court ruled that the country's blanket retention of mobile phone metadata violates EU law, labeling the practice a long‑term and serious rights infringement. Following the decision, the Ministry of Industry and Trade issued a formal apology to...
Europe’s Digital Sovereignty Starts with Open Source
EDRi, together with Access Now and Vrijschrift.org, submitted a response to the EU’s Open‑Source Digital Ecosystems Strategy, arguing that free and open source software (FOSS) is a strategic foundation for Europe’s digital sovereignty. The brief highlights how Europe’s current reliance...
Ensuring Human Rights-Based, Global Perspectives in the DSA Enforcement: The DSA Human Rights Alliance’s Guidelines
The DSA Human Rights Alliance released an eight‑principle guide urging the European Commission and national regulators to embed a human‑rights‑centered approach as the Digital Services Act moves into enforcement. The recommendations stress cross‑border effects, inclusion of diverse civil‑society groups, and...