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Brits will be given the option to use a digital version of their driver’s licence from their phone to easily prove their age when buying age restricted items online and in person – as well as proving their right to drive.
A mobile driver’s licence will be one of the first digital documents in a GOV.UK Wallet launched later this year and will ultimately allow people to prove their age from their phone in shops or online, the Science Secretary Peter Kyle announced today.
It comes alongside other new and improved ways for people to interact with government digitally, with an expansive blueprint for how the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which will now be home to a revamped Government Digital Service (GDS), will use digital tools and data to transform public services and help the taxpayer benefit from £45 billion in efficiency savings – essential to delivering our Plan for Change.
The GOV.UK Wallet will allow users to securely store government-issued documents on their phone and use them easily when needed. The technology will make use of security features that are built into modern smart phones, including facial recognition checks similar to those used when people pay using a digital bank card. It means that digital documents will be more secure, even if a device is lost.
Henrietta Blyth writes: The wildfires in Los Angeles have dominated the headlines for more than a week. Around the world we have watched in horror at the speed with which huge flames have engulfed whole communities. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated, often carrying only a handful of possessions. It feels apocalyptic, all too close to home, and everyone is talking about it.
There is also another displacement crisis on our planet. It has affected millions of people and, instead of days, this crisis has been going on for years. And virtually nobody is talking about it.
In my six years at Open Doors, I have been trying to wake people up to the unfolding catastrophe in Sub Saharan Africa. Islamist extremism is sweeping like wildfire across whole nations. Millions have been displaced, nearly half of them Christians. They have been threatened, killed, kidnapped, raped, robbed and terrorised. Their homes and villages have been burnt to the ground. They have swept up their children - often in the middle of the night - and fled for their lives. They too have lost everything.
Open Doors research estimates that the number of Christians displaced by Islamist extremists in sub-Saharan Africa is comparable to the populations of London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow combined. And it barely gets a mention in the mainstream media (Premier being an honorable exception).
This week we published news of Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List. It records a year of persecution and discrimination against Christians across the world. From this data, it ranks the nations where it’s hardest to be a Christian.
This year’s list makes for sobering reading. It records that more than 380 million Christians around the world face high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith. That’s a rise of 15 million since last year and represents 1 in 7 Christians globally. When I began work at Open Doors six years ago, the number was a ’mere’ 240 million. READ MORE...
We want the Government to implement a national strategy that protects motorcyclists from imports of unsafe clothing. This would involve:
1. Checks on all individual packages from the countries known to be the main sources of these unsafe products;
2. Determining if those products satisfy the applicable standards; with conforming products released to the consumer, and non-conforming products destroyed.
Motorcycle clothing is covered by legislation on personal protective equipment. It is required to be tested to standards, certified and to carry the CE and/or UKCA mark. Legitimate vendors have done this; however, sales have grown of nonconforming products advertised online and shipped direct from factory to consumer. Please click HERE to sign this petition - thanks!
“Microsoft 365 Apps will no longer be supported after October 14, 2025, on Windows 10 devices,” says Microsoft in a blog post. “To use Microsoft 365 Applications on your device, you will need to upgrade to Windows 11.”
While support will end for Office apps on Windows 10 in October, it doesn’t mean the apps will suddenly stop working. Microsoft notes in a support document that was updated in December that “the applications will continue to function as before” after Windows 10 support ends, but that there could be “performance and reliability issues over time.”
After previously rejecting calls to allow motorcyclists into bus lanes by default, the Government will not pursue research to determine whether the idea could hold potential safety benefits.
Minister of State at the Department for Transport (DfT), Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill said: “The Department has no plans at present to carry out research into the safety impacts of allowing greater access to bus lanes.”
The announcement follows comments made by Fabian Hamilton, Labour MP for Leeds North East, who recently told MCN: “Labour is not interested in motorcycles” – casting doubt on the likelihood of future parliamentary backing for the two-wheeled sector, raising concerns about continued support for riders and industry advocates alike.
In reply to the Government’s online consultation on default bus lane access for bikers, which ran from March 17 to July 16, 2024, respondents were overwhelmingly supportive of a change – with over 98% in favour of the proposal.
Despite this, the move was rejected, with ministers concluding: “At present, the government has no policy to encourage greater use of motorcycles.
“The safety benefits of allowing motorcycles into bus lanes are not clear at this time,” they continued.
Microsoft is reportedly laying off less than one per cent of its employees, putting the potential number of workers let go in the thousands.
The Washington-based tech giant had previously told multiple news outlets the layoffs fell across the security division and other departments and are based on performance.
“At Microsoft we focus on high-performance talent,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CRN.
“We are always working on helping people learn and grow. When people are not performing, we take the appropriate action.”
Business Insider reported that Microsoft tends to backfill roles vacated for performance reasons, resulting in little change to the overall employee count.
Microsoft had about 228,000 full-time employees at the end of June.
Microsoft has made employee cuts in the past in January, notably reducing its workforce by 10,000 people starting in January 2023 – less than five per cent of the employee base at the time.
Apple is facing fresh calls to withdraw its controversial artificial intelligence (AI) feature that has generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones.
The product is meant to summarise breaking news notifications but has in some instances invented entirely false claims.
The BBC first complained to the tech giant about its journalism being misrepresented in December but Apple did not respond until Monday this week, when it said it was working to clarify that summaries were AI-generated.
Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of the Guardian, told the BBC Apple needed to go further and pull a product he said was "clearly not ready."
Mr Rusbridger, who also sits on Meta's Oversight Board that reviews appeals of the company's content moderation decisions, added the technology was "out of control" and posed a considerable misinformation risk.
UPDATE 17th Jan 2025: Apple is pulling its AI-generated notifications for news after generating fake headlines.
It looks like Microsoft has come up with a new trick to keep those who accidentally end up on Bing from leaving for Google: Simply mimic the look of Google's homepage and hope no one will notice.
Visitors to Bing.com who conduct a search for 'Google' while not signed into their Microsoft accounts might notice something strange when they hit enter, as demonstrated in this video captured by The Register. Not only does the screen look suspiciously like a Google doodle, complete with a mostly blank white screen, a search bar, and some text beneath it, but the usual top bar that shows Bing's usual search bar and various ways to filter results is moved off the screen to add to the illusion.
Once the shift to hide the actual Bing bar is complete (the remaining search window is just another Bing search field, not a Google one), there's no obvious Microsoft branding at first glance - just a small banner promoting its Rewards points as a reason to "choose Microsoft Bing." Searches for other engines don't return similar results, nor do any other search terms we tried.
In short, with everything else Microsoft has tried to do, failing to move Bing beyond a place people go to get to Google, it seems Redmond's latest ploy may involve making Bing's homepage look like Google's to create familiarity or confusion.
What's worse than (another) full-screen pop-up from Microsoft warning Windows 10 users that they should be planning for Windows 11's arrival? A pop-up that freezes and crashes as soon as it appears. It's not a good look for Microsoft and does little to instil confidence in Windows 10 users who refuse to upgrade despite the OS' impending end-of-support date.
Microsoft has been nagging Windows 10 users to move to Windows 11 for years. With the older operating system reaching its end-of-life date on October 14, 2025, the Redmond firm has been ramping up its efforts to get people to make the move, reviving an aggressive upgrade campaign in February and again in November.
Most people still using Windows 10 have little intention of upgrading until they absolutely have to, which means intrusive, full-screen pop-ups aren't something they want to see. Incredibly, Microsoft has managed to make its latest one even worse for some users.
In the wake of the Salt Typhoon hacks, which lawmakers and privacy advocates alike have called the worst telecoms breach in America's history, the US government agencies have reversed course on encryption.
After decades of advocating against using this type of secure messaging, "encryption is your friend," Jeff Greene, CISA's executive assistant director for cybersecurity, told journalists last month at a press briefing with a senior FBI official, who also advised us to use "responsibly managed encryption" for phone calls and text messages.
Just this week, CISA published formal guidance on how to keep Chinese government spies off mobile devices, and "strongly urged" politicians and senior government officials — these are "highly targeted" individuals that are "likely to possess information of interest to these threat actors" — to ditch regular phone calls and messaging apps and instead use only end-to-end encrypted communications.
It's a major about-face from the feds, which have historically demanded law enforcement needs a backdoor to access people's communications — but only for crime-fighting and terrorism-preventing purposes.
"We know that bad guys can walk through the same doors that are supposedly built for the good guys," Virtru CEO and co-founder John Ackerly told The Register. "It's one thing to tap hard-line wires or voice communication. It's yet another to open up the spigot to all digital communication."
Windows 11 24H2 is still causing problems with multifunction devices despite Microsoft marking an issue with the eSCL scan protocol as resolved.
A Register reader got in touch to say they still had trouble with a Canon ImageClass MF269dw, a multifunction printer, copier, scanner, and fax machine. They said: "It works on a Windows 10 machine, but not on Windows 11, unless both the computer and the scanner are on wired Ethernet." Our reader also noted that a Canon technician they'd spoken to said the issue was "erratic," adding: "It seems to work or fail randomly for different users in different situations."
Microsoft issued a compatibility safeguard hold on USB-connected devices using the Scanner Communication Language (eSCL) protocol in November after users who installed the Windows update experienced glitches with device discovery. The issue was reported resolved by Microsoft in December.
However, it seems that KB5048667 might not have fixed all the problems for Canon owners. According to our reader: "Canon support tells me that the 24H2 eSCL issue still is not fixed."
Jon Kuhrt (CEO of Hope into Action) writes: A few Christmases ago, when I was running a homeless charity in London, we took a phone call that I will never forget.
A businessman was due to host a major event for 50 colleagues and clients in a prestigious London member’s club. A number of guests were flying in to attend, but there was a sudden cold snap and the freezing conditions meant many flights were cancelled. So, he decided to postpone the event and contacted the club to tell them.
However, because of the late notice, the club said that he would have to pay the full amount even if no one came. As a long-term member who had spent thousands of pounds there, he was disgusted not to be given more flexibility. He phoned the manager and said: “If you charge me, I am going to bring 50 homeless people here to eat the meal I have paid for.”
The manager thought he was bluffing and reminded the businessman of the club’s dress code and that they would refuse entry to anyone who was intoxicated. The businessman replied: “Nonsense, you always let me in wearing jeans, and if you barred people who had had a drink then no one would be let in.” He slammed the phoned down. And then he phoned us... READ MORE...
Apple has agreed to pay $95m (£77m) to settle a court case alleging some of its devices were listening to people without their permission. The tech giant was accused of eavesdropping on its customers through its virtual assistant Siri. The claimants also allege voice recordings were shared with advertisers. Apple, which has not admitted any wrongdoing, has been approached for comment.
In the preliminary settlement,, external the tech firm denies any wrongdoing, as well as claims that it "recorded, disclosed to third parties, or failed to delete, conversations recorded as the result of a Siri activation" without consent.
Apple's lawyers also say they will confirm they have "permanently deleted individual Siri audio recordings collected by Apple prior to October 2019".
But the claimants say the tech firm recorded people who activated the virtual assistant unintentionally - without using the phrase "Hey, Siri" to wake it. They say advertisers who received the recordings could then look for keywords in them to better target ads.
The lead plaintiff Fumiko Lopez claims she and her daughter were both recorded without their consent. They allege they were served targeted ads after talking about products including Air Jordans.
