Digital sovereignty: Time for Britain to take back control of our data March 5, 2020 They might not realise it, but the average person uses 36 cloud-based services every day. Chatting on WhatsApp, watching Netflix, sharing your work calendar with colleagues — all these services use the cloud, a network of remote servers accessed over the internet. But the cloud systems used by Europe have long been far from European. [...]
Cathay Pacific fined £500,000 over data protection breach March 4, 2020 Cathay Pacific has been fined £500,000 by the data watchdog for failing to secure its customers’ personal information. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) today said the airline’s computer systems lacked appropriate security measures to protect customers’ personal details. As a result, roughly 9.4m passengers’ data was exposed between 2014 and 2018, 111,578 of whom were [...]
US senators urge MPs to rethink Huawei 5G decision March 4, 2020 A group of senior US senators has written to MPs urging them to rethink the UK’s decision to allow Huawei to help build its 5G networks. Twenty senators, including both Democrats and Republicans, expressed “significant” concern with the decision, citing “significant security, privacy and economic threats”. In January the government gave Huawei the green light [...]
Driverless car startup Five raises $41m investment from Direct Line and Airbnb backer March 4, 2020 London tech firm Five has today closed $41m in funding from a slew of new investors, including Trustbridge Partners, Direct Line and Sistema VC. The series B fundraising was supported by existing backers Lakestar, Amadeus Capital Partners, Kindred Capital and Notion Capital — which between them have backed the likes of Airbnb, Klarna, Graphcore and [...]
Startups clash with watchdog over digital merger regulation March 3, 2020 British startups have been plunged into a bitter war of words with the competition watchdog as the two sides clash over how major tech mergers should be regulated. Industry body the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) has penned a scathing letter to chancellor Rishi Sunak warning that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) risked [...]
Competition watchdog risks ‘killing’ British tech firms, startups warn March 3, 2020 The UK competition watchdog risks “killing” rising British tech companies by launching lengthy investigations while global rivals are free to pull ahead, startups have warned. In a letter to chancellor Rishi Sunak, seen by Morning Wire, industry body the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) said the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) “eleventh-hour interventions” risked [...]
WPP shares rise as it bags bumper Intel account March 3, 2020 Shares in WPP rose more than three per cent this morning after Intel selected one of the ad giant’s companies as its global creative agency of record. VMLY&R is set to take the lion’s share of Intel’s global creative account, which is estimated at $1.4bn (£1.1bn), according to industry sources. The deal, which is thought [...]
How your old laptop could change a life March 3, 2020 At a late age I found myself homeless. I was homeless for 15 years.” This statement may sound shocking, but for Ann, this was reality — until she became a member of Thames Reach’s Step-Up project. The Step-Up project is a free support service helping low-paid Londoners progress into better paid work. As Dominika Milowka, [...]
Alphabet’s Waymo nabs $2.25bn in first external funding round March 2, 2020 Waymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet, said tonight it has raised $2.25bn (£1.76bn) in its first external investment round. In addition to Alphabet, investors included car parts supplier Magna International, US dealership chain Autonation, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and three large investment firms: Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz and sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. Alphabet [...]
Micro Focus shelves $1.4bn loan deal due to coronavirus March 2, 2020 One of the UK’s largest listed technology companies has delayed a $1.4bn debt sale due to market uncertainty caused by the coronavirus. Micro Focus had been working on plans for the $1.4bn loan — which had initially supported the acquisition of Hewlett-Packard’s enterprise software division — for two weeks. The decision follows in the wake [...]