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Taking the pulse of the Public Sector: Where policy meets tech Innovation.
There’s so much happening at The Register in our coverage of government tech that we've created a dedicated section for the public sector, which offers you a front-row seat to the intersection of governance and technology. From e-governance initiatives and cybersecurity protocols to digital transformation in public services, however fast (or slow) it happens, we bring you analyses, updates, and insights that matter.

A close-up thumb in front of a digital fingerprint recognition overlay.

UK wants fresh fingerprints on £300M biometrics platform

Home Office probes supplier interest as core police and immigration system heads for support shake-up

Close-up of a police officer in a checkered cap covering their face with one hand.

UK abandons police database cloud move after £35M transformation stalls

Home Office finds 80% of code cannot be reused, balks at £26M in extra costs

Traditional terraced houses in warm sunset light with parked cars and trees.

Planning and land searches hit by IT problems in 3 councils following SaaS migration

EXCLUSIVE: Searches go missing, house sales fall through, and a 5G mast erected by mistake

mighty chiwawa http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-2270480p1.html

Palantir CEO: 10 percent of the world 'professionally hates us'

The Iran war has been great for business

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Royal Navy chief backs drones, autonomous weapons in ‘Hybrid Navy’

Plan mixes crewed ships, robot escorts, and long-range strike to bolster a stretched fleet

Job's a good 'un: Bank of England tech project wins watchdog praise

PAC: Now why can't everybody else in public sector do it like this?

Mythos complicates the breakup, says Pentagon CTO, but Anthropic is still barred

Emil Michael says agencies are evaluating the cybersecurity model, not deploying it

security cctv camera on the roof of the van. mobile surveillance camera. Pic by: Semiglass / Shutterstock

UK pensions dept goes shopping for spy-van tech with £2M surveillance tender

Covert cameras, live-streaming systems, and in-vehicle recording kit sought to catch out fraudsters

DVLA's 14-week driving license fiasco – the tech, people and chatbot trying to clear it

Medical license applicants still waiting months while agency insists it's 'putting things right'

crying business man washed up on beach talks into phone

UK.gov's DCMS to new CDIO: Migrate from Google to Microsoft, overhaul ERP, build a team

£125k and a pension await whoever can herd 6 departments onto single platform without losing will to live

Man in front of a laptop computer. Pic: photoschmidt / shutterstock

UK govt dept sent a document 'in error.' Now it's being used in a £370M contract lawsuit

Comparison between 2 vendors was never meant to be seen ... or made

The Navy's autonomous carrier-based refueling drone has finally flown

After missing its 2025 target, Boeing's MQ-25A Stingray is one step closer to a carrier deck

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Trump's Golden Dome gets $3.2B of contractors and an AI sprinkle

Space Force awards 11 firms prototype deals to build orbital interceptors

ICO chief John Edwards steps back as workplace probe quietly unfolds

UK’s data watchdog confirms its boss has been off the job since February while an HR investigation runs

Watch out UK taxpayers: 28,000 HMRC staffers just got an AI copilot

Microsoft Copilot now heading into ‘Official Sensitive’ work after winning back just 26 minutes a day in a trial

Pentagon wants to water down drone program with autonomous subs

What, you didn't expect autonomous military craft to stay in the sky forever?

A protest march in London in opposition to Digital ID in December 2025. Image credit: Elena Rostunova / Shutterstock

UK gov pays public £550 to discuss Digital ID – then bans journalists from the room

Nothing says 'We want honest opinions' like a 36,000-letter mailshot with no awkward questions allowed

US Air Force department names firms to power its bases with mini nukes

Three vendors matched to three sites

farmer sitting on a tractor at the cowfarm

American farms have a new steward for their safety net, disaster programs... Palantir

Wins $300M deal over Salesforce, IBM because of 'integration with existing USDA systems,' among other things

Linux may get a hall pass from one state age-check bill, but Congress plays hall monitor

Colorado amendments could exempt open source OSes, code repos, and containers

Chase got a spiff of $77 million to create one job with New York datacenter

Official involved in deal tells El Reg number doesn't paint entire picture of datacenter's economic benefit

The AI analyzes the 'speech bubble shapes' and 'character data as symbols' from the manuscript on the left, then proposes font styles and character sizes within the bubbles of the manuscript on the right. ⓒMiyuki Tonogaya/SQUARE ENIX

Indonesia’s game rating system paused amid claims it leaked developer creds and glimpses of major new titles

PLUS: India bins ID app pre-install plan; Robot wins Beijing half-marathon; AI writing Manga speech bubbles; and more!

Capita won disastrous UK pensions gig after acing performance checks

Top civil servant tells MPs bid was strong on quality and value for money

The Maine State House in Augusta, Maine, USA.

Loud, power hungry - opposition grows to datacenters as Maine passes bit barn ban

If there's one thing folks want less than Copilot in their taskbar, it's a bit barn in their backyard

Brussels tells Google to hand rivals its search crown jewels as privacy row brews

Includes a to-do list on search data sharing and platform access as DMA enforcement ramps up

Cops hand Motorola £25M no-bid deal to keep 2000-era radios alive

Biz as usual for Brit public sector: ESN replacement is 12 years late and £3B over budget

UK told its Big Tech habit is now a national security risk

Open Rights Group says years of reliance on US giants have left Britain exposed

UK state bank considers lengthening disastrous IT program

Already £1.3B over budget and 4 years late, NS&I could extend timetable beyond 8 years

Attention, gamers: The FAA wants YOU to be an air traffic controller

GG noob, who cleared you to land?

Veterans Affairs has lost track of software licenses amid $985M bill

Department putting systems in place to manage 'restrictive licensing practices'

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France’s digital directorate dumping Windows desktops, adopting Linux instead

Après ça, le déluge, as plans call for move away from plenty more American software and hardware

Fewer than 3 in 10 register for HMRC's Making Tax Digital shake-up

Most sole traders and landlords ignore marketing campaigns, though fines are coming

Infographic explaining south korea's universal data scheme

South Korea introduces universal basic mobile data access

Everyone gets unlimited 400 Kbps access, oldies get expanded caps, and leaky telcos get their social license back

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UK.gov's top tech jobs pay more than prime minister earns

DSIT hiring directors general with packages reaching £260K plus pension

Capita's pension portal exposes civil servants' private data

As if the backlog, the bugs, and the chatbot fixes weren't enough

RAF eyes cheap drone-killer as Typhoon jet tests laser-guided rockets

BAE says trials could offer cheaper way to counter uncrewed aerial threats

Japan relaxes privacy laws to make itself the ‘easiest country to develop AI’

Opting out of personal data use won't be an option because Minister says that's a 'very big obstacle' to AI adoption

OpenInfra General Manager talks sovereignty, governments deploying tech 'kill switches'

Geopolitics enter the room as Thierry Carrez shows that there's more to Kubecon than AI

Want to be the IT Crowd for the BBC? An £800M contract beckons

Supplier will need to look after networks, email, tech support, tools and more – plus find cost savings

Live and Let AI: Former CIA officer says human spies matter more in the LLM age

AI is eroding trust in digital communications and data, giving old-school spycraft fresh relevance for modern agents

'People's Panel' to check if UK wants controversial Digital ID will cost £630K

We could tell you no for free

facepalms all round. Pic credit: Shutterstock

UK government admits Capita pension portal was crapita at launch

PAC grilling reveals £239M bought a system that couldn't handle the work, the volumes, or placeholder text

India's space program can't spend money fast enough, putting missions in peril

Satnav systems aren't well, IP is being sold too cheap, and thousands of roles remain open

'Empathetic' Salesforce bots to help those fired by uncaring humans

I’m sorry, Dave. I can’t give you your job back, but here’s the form you fill out to collect benefits

UK wants to know if banning under-16s from social media does anything useful

300 families undergo 6-week trial to test impact on sleep, school, and home life

HMRC hands £473M Fujitsu migration deal to AWS after competition melts away

Insiders say single-bidder process left little room for negotiation

A member of the Royal Marines is seen here onboard XV Patrick Blackett taking part in an uncrewed / autonomous operational demonstration. Pic credit: Crown Copyright

Nothing screams casual career pivot like joining the UK Ministry of Defence for a cool £162K

AI and quantum on to-do list for Chief Digital Technology Officer in charge of £140.7M budget. Fancy it?

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CMA dithers on cloud probe as Microsoft's meter runs on taxpayer dime

Every month of 'careful consideration' is another month Redmond laughs all the way to the bank

UK police force presses pause on live facial recognition after study finds racial bias

Cams statistically more likely to ID Black people, says new research

UK to rethink tech buying after Palantir contracts

Government looks for sovereign tech as NHS deal nears break clause

Starmer's digital ID reboot raises same old questions as its Blair-era ancestor

Audit trails aplenty, but no price tag – and no clue how long your data sticks around

GOV.UK chatbot gets smarter but slower as LLMs improve

Accuracy jumps from 76% to 90% across public pilots, while users wait nearly 11 seconds for answers

Ofcom sees no need for overhaul in next phase of fiber rollout despite BT domination

Regulator nudges broadband market, hopes competition will turn up in 2031

Horizon redress still a mess, MPs say – and Fujitsu hasn't paid a penny

System compensating victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal still slow, thousands of ex-subpostmasters waiting for payments

Cabinet Office sign. Pic: Sgt Tom Robinson RLC/Crown copyright

Watchdog boss calls Capita's £370M DWP win 'extraordinary' amid pension portal dumpster fire

PAC chair asks Cabinet Office if anyone bothered telling dept about the shambles before handing over the keys

Illustration of a military drone firing a missile

Pentagon AI chief praises Palantir tech for speeding battlefield strikes

Going from eight systems to one means fewer people make decisions to unleash Epic Fury

District denies enrollment to child based on license plate reader data

Automated checks raised doubts, though key questions remain unanswered

Whitehall seeks lone C++ coder to keep airport passenger model flying

Government offers £100K to support software forecasting how travelers choose departure hubs

Swiss e-voting pilot can't count 2,048 ballots after USB keys fail to decrypt them

Officials suspend Basel-Stadt trial and launch probe

Whitehall can't cost digital ID until it decides how to build it

Consultation launched, People's Panel planned, yet still no price tag attached

Governments across Asia order work from home, thanks to Iran war

Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines are all trying to conserve fuel

Palantir’s lethal AI weaponry deployed to find chairs for US government staff

As Department of Agriculture employees return to the office, it needs ‘real-time analytics to optimize employee seat assignments’

Document Foundation urges EU to ditch Excel lock-in for cybersecurity law consultation

LibreOffice steward says Commish undermines its own standards by asking for feedback via Excel spreadsheet

UK digital ID brief quietly moves to new minister after resignation

James Frith takes reins from Josh Simons, who quit even though he was cleared over journalist vetting scandal

Lawmakers take pick to ICE's warrantless location tracking purchases

After DHS’s $2.3M PenLink contract gets ‘shady’ label

Bank of England says it can run £431M settlement system without Accenture

Deputy governor tells MPs central bank now has in-house skills and IP to maintain revamped RTGS

Trump orders purge of 'woke' Anthropic from government

Without a single 'You're Fired' joke

Microsoft HoloLens finds second home in the military after failing battlefield tests

Let’s hope air cargo checks don’t trigger the same headaches

Sopra Steria sues UK government over £958M Capita outsourcing award

French firm claims DWP failed to identify rival's bid was 'abnormally low' and alleges govt breached procurement rules

Anthropic to Pentagon: Autonomous weapons could hurt US troops and civilians

AI upstart won’t remove Claude’s guardrails to stay onside with Dept. of War