Start date pushed back a year, annual cost up a third, and UK's now handing out eight million passports a year The Home Office has increased the annual value and overall duration of its new passport production contract, increasing it to a total of £576 million as it starts …

Missed flights and more means something has got to give at the border Greece is taking a flexible approach to introducing the European Union's biometric Entry/Exit System (EES), after some British passport holders missed flights home following the system's implementation on 10 April.... [...]

Nothing says 'We want honest opinions' like a 36,000-letter mailshot with no awkward questions allowed Members of the UK government’s People’s Panel on Digital ID will spend two weekends in Birmingham and three evenings on Zoom discussing how Britain should build a national digital identity system …

We could tell you no for free The UK government will spend about £630,000 running a discussion panel on its digital identity card plans, which minister James Frith said will "consider different perspectives and debate trade-offs" alongside a formal consultation.... [...]

Audit trails aplenty, but no price tag – and no clue how long your data sticks around Opinion Last week's UK government consultation on its plans for digital identity had quite a few things missing. It did not include a price estimate - something it said was due to decisions yet …

No 1 Space Operations Squadron will get a persistent stare capability The Ministry of Defence (MoD) plans to spend £17.5 million on a remotely-operated satellite monitoring facility in Cyprus, partly to protect the UK's secure communications system Skynet.... [...]

Officials suspend Basel-Stadt trial and launch probe A Swiss canton has suspended its pilot of electronic voting after failing to count 2,048 votes cast in national referendums held on March 8.... [...]

Whoever gets it will steer UK department's IT, AI strategy, and megabucks vendor deals The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is offering between £270,000 to £300,000 for a senior digital leader who will oversee more than £4.6 billion in spending and more than 3,000 specialist …

Minister dodges cost questions while promising smartphone-free access and 'robust' verification The UK government has revealed some thinking about digital identity in response to written questions from MPs, while continuing to say next to nothing about the scheme's cost.... [...]

Much owed to the few, but takeup is under 1% More than 15,000 former members of the UK's armed forces have successfully applied for a digital version of their veterans ID card since its launch in October, according to the Government Digital Service (GDS).... [...]

Labour's latest U-turn? 61 backbenchers pile pressure for Starmer to back Tory peer's amendment The British government may impose a ban on under-16s using social media, despite Labour prime minister Keir Starmer having previously expressed skepticism over the measure.... [...]

Ofcom survey finds 18-34s increasingly see life online as bad for society and their mental health Young Brits are souring on the internet, with increasing numbers seeing it as damaging to society and their mental health, according to latest research published by Ofcom.... [...]

18-year-old platform crumbles under 94M daily requests while resellers flog £62 tests for £500 The UK's Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) has appointed a new chief exec to tackle spiraling waits for practical driving tests with bots overrunning its aging booking system.... [...]

Regulator proposes strict limits on screen-based testing, cites infrastructure concerns and lack of evidence for benefits Most students taking school and college GCSE, A-level, and AS-level exams in England will continue to use pen and paper, according to proposals from the sector's regulator for a very limited expansion of …

New spy boss says officers must master code alongside tradecraft as agency navigates 'space between peace and war' New MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli outlined her vision for technology-augmented intelligence gathering in her first public speech on December 15, warning that the UK operates "in a space between peace and …

Officials insist OBR relied on 'early estimate' and real figure won't emerge until next year The head of the department delivering the UK government's digital identity scheme has rejected the £1.8 billion cost forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), but is not willing to provide an …

Atlantic Bastion combines AI systems with warships to counter increased surveillance The UK government has announced enhanced protection for undersea cables using autonomous vessels alongside crewed warships and aircraft, responding to escalating Russian surveillance activities.... [...]

Starmer rebrands unpopular scheme as convenience tool after backlash UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has relaunched his digital ID scheme as something that will make people's lives easier, less than four weeks after announcing it as a measure to tackle illegal working.... [...]

Malfunctioning equipment and manual processing cause 90-minute waits The European Union's new biometric Exit/Entry System (EES) got off to a chaotic start at Prague's international airport, with travelers facing lengthy queues and malfunctioning equipment forcing border staff to process arrivals manually.... [...]

Politico avoids the topic at Labour conference speech, homes in on AI instead UK prime minister Keir Starmer avoided mentioning the mandatory digital ID scheme in his keynote speech to the Labour Party conference amid calls for him to put meat on the bones of the plans or risk …

Met's Croydon cameras hailed as a triumph, guidance to be published later this year The government is to encourage police forces across England and Wales to adopt live facial recognition (LFR) technology, with a minister praising its use by the London's Metropolitan Police in a suburb in the south …

Socio political backdrop is not what it once was.... Opinion UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer directly addressed his new policy of mandatory digital ID in the country for 23 seconds in its effective launch speech.... [...]

Prime Minister Starmer revives controversial scheme despite past denials, sparking civil liberties backlash The UK government plans to issue all legal residents a digital identity by the end of the current Parliament, which could run until August 2029, with its use required to get a job.... [...]

Biometric Entry/Exit System phased in from October to 29 Schengen countries Travelers including Britons and Americans visiting most European countries will have to register their fingerprints and faces under a system that goes live next month.... [...]

Guidance follows privacy complaints over sharp increase in police searches of travel doc and visa pic libraries The Home Office has told police forces to check their own photo databases before asking it to search its libraries of passport and visa facial images, as well as avoiding urgent requests …