Ministry of Justice apologizes after court staff accessed Southport victims' files

Sensitive personal data was involved, but there is no evidence it was shared with third parties

MPs and peers tell UK to stop winging it on AI regulation 2 days ago

MPs and peers tell UK to stop winging it on AI regulation

Nscale swallows lion's of UK datacenter investment 6 days ago

Nscale swallows lion's of UK datacenter investment

UK energy operator sticks with Palantir in £21M direct award 8 days ago

UK energy operator sticks with Palantir in £21M direct award

UK puts Google AI on the flight path to fewer contrails 29 days ago

UK puts Google AI on the flight path to fewer contrails

UK's tech talent pipeline shrinks as overseas worker visa applications fall 7% 29 days ago

UK's tech talent pipeline shrinks as overseas worker visa applications fall 7%

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has apologized after court staff accessed documents relating to victims and survivors of the 2024 Southport murders without authorization.

For a limited number of people, the material accessed included sensitive personal data assessed as likely to pose a high risk to their rights and freedoms. There is no evidence that the information was shared with third parties.

"We are appalled that this happened and recognise the distress it will have caused victims, survivors, and their families," an MoJ spokesperson said.

"We apologise to those affected – unauthorized access to court files is completely unacceptable.

"This is now being investigated urgently, and the prime minister has asked the Lord Chancellor to oversee this.

"All wrongdoing will be met with extremely firm action."

The Register asked the MoJ how many staff accessed the files, whether they remained employed, and what their reasons may have been. It did not address those questions.

Those affected include members of victims' and survivors' families, all of whom are being contacted directly. The MoJ did not disclose how many people were involved.

HM Prison and Probation Service and HM Courts and Tribunals Service are investigating the matter. The Information Commissioner's Office has also been informed.

The MoJ breach is the latest in a series of incidents involving inappropriate access to sensitive records connected to the attack.

Separately, North West Ambulance Service investigated potentially inappropriate access by some of its staff to records of patients in the Southport attacks.

And nearly 50 staff were found to have inappropriately accessed the medical records of some victims treated at Aintree University Hospital, near the place of Axel Rudakubana's attacks.

Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time and has since been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, attacked a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, England, on July 29, 2024, killing three children and injuring eight other children and two adults.

False claims the attack online prompted violent, racially charged riots across the UK. Police made 1,511 arrests in the weeks that followed and brought 960 charges .

Rudakubana was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 52 years. ®

Enterprises are sweating legacy IT assets as AI investment grows

Hardware such as mainframes found to hold the data and business logic needed to build those AI services

Nine-year-old runs up $118,000 bill on dad's corporate credit card advertising his Roblox YouTube channel

He'll need to earn around $13K a year to pay pops back between now and when he turns 18, so at least there's that free labor to look forward to

HPE makes its “unified storage” claim real as B10000 R6 hits GA

PARTNER CONTENT: Pairs block and adjacent file workloads with independent scaling of performance and capacity

Fedora 45 beta drags the Linux console into the 21st century

Kmscon brings smooth scaling, richer colors, and better Unicode support beneath GNOME 51

Open weights are not open source: Why AI's favorite label is under dispute

Downloading a model is increasingly easy. Understanding how it was made, or changing a system at its root, is another matter

SpaceX aims Starship for orbit on September 22

Flight test 14 angling for 10 hours in space and a splashdown in the Pacific

SAAS Salesforce staggers back to feet after global outage

Salesforce staggers back to feet after global outage

databases Oracle celebrates banner quarter with another round of layoffs

Oracle celebrates banner quarter with another round of layoffs

NETWORKS Virgin Media offloads email services to third-party provider

Virgin Media offloads email services to third-party provider

CYBER-CRIME Ukrainian lawyer's second career as a Conti coder earns him 4 years behind bars

Ukrainian lawyer's second career as a Conti coder earns him 4 years behind bars

software Another Microsoft team admits it’s struggling to handle flood of AI-generated code

Another Microsoft team admits it’s struggling to handle flood of AI-generated code

virtualization VMware defends ending downloads of SDK that helps VM backups – or migrations to rivals

VMware defends ending downloads of SDK that helps VM backups – or migrations to rivals

cyber-crime Spain gets its first taste of AI-aided cyber attack Data protection chiefs call for 'immediate review' of data protection models

Spain gets its first taste of AI-aided cyber attack

Data protection chiefs call for 'immediate review' of data protection models

SYSTEMS AI networking startups race to replace Nvidia's NVLink Intel spin-off Cornelis and newcomer Delos Data pitch open alternatives for scaling AI beyond the rack

AI networking startups race to replace Nvidia's NVLink

Intel spin-off Cornelis and newcomer Delos Data pitch open alternatives for scaling AI beyond the rack

AI AND ML Anthropic and OpenAI look to Uncle Sam to make them too big to fail American model devs are trying to convince Washington to cement their dominance

Anthropic and OpenAI look to Uncle Sam to make them too big to fail

American model devs are trying to convince Washington to cement their dominance

on-prem Datacenter developers want your backyard. FAS says negotiate harder Tax breaks, water, noise, decommissioning - report tells local officials what to nail down before signing

Datacenter developers want your backyard. FAS says negotiate harder

Tax breaks, water, noise, decommissioning - report tells local officials what to nail down before signing

LEGAL Nvidia's Groq acquihire is on the DOJ's radar, but it's already too late Even if regulators did somehow unwind the $20B deal, there's a growing list of alternatives ready to take Groq's place, no merger required

Nvidia's Groq acquihire is on the DOJ's radar, but it's already too late

Even if regulators did somehow unwind the $20B deal, there's a growing list of alternatives ready to take Groq's place, no merger required

Security Russians are posing as Signal support to launch phishing attacks PLUS: US takes down Iranian propaganda sites; Marketing company asks 'Why Do We Have Your Information?' And more!

Russians are posing as Signal support to launch phishing attacks

PLUS: US takes down Iranian propaganda sites; Marketing company asks 'Why Do We Have Your Information?' And more!

Security Microsoft patches failed to fix on-prem SharePoint, which is now under zero-day attack PLUS: China upgrades smartphone surveillance tools; Ring eases anti-snooping stance; and more

Microsoft patches failed to fix on-prem SharePoint, which is now under zero-day attack

PLUS: China upgrades smartphone surveillance tools; Ring eases anti-snooping stance; and more

Black Hat and DEF CON DEF CON Franklin project enlists hackers to harden critical infrastructure Voting village reports have been so successful, says Jeff Moss, that the whole of DEF CON will now be included

Black Hat and DEF CON

DEF CON Franklin project enlists hackers to harden critical infrastructure

Voting village reports have been so successful, says Jeff Moss, that the whole of DEF CON will now be included

Security EQT buys majority in Swiss cybersecurity biz Acronis Went at equivalent of $3.5B+ valuation for entire firm, though portion sold not specified

EQT buys majority in Swiss cybersecurity biz Acronis

Went at equivalent of $3.5B+ valuation for entire firm, though portion sold not specified

Malware Month Ten years since the first corp ransomware, Mikko Hyppönen sees no end in sight On the plus side, infosec's a good bet for a long, stable career

Ten years since the first corp ransomware, Mikko Hyppönen sees no end in sight

On the plus side, infosec's a good bet for a long, stable career

Shopify extends lifeline to Tailwind as vibe coding erodes web dev platform's bottom line Acquisition gives open source CSS framework 'a stable long-term '

Shopify extends lifeline to Tailwind as vibe coding erodes web dev platform's bottom line

Acquisition gives open source CSS framework 'a stable long-term '

Switzerland tests a FOSS escape route from Microsoft 365 Swiss Army sticks a knife in American cloud apps with its own FOSS push

Switzerland tests a FOSS escape route from Microsoft 365

Swiss Army sticks a knife in American cloud apps with its own FOSS push

Feel peak Windows was 7? You might like Kumander Linux Debian and Xfce – solid, sensible choices – with a pretty skin

Feel peak Windows was 7? You might like Kumander Linux

Debian and Xfce – solid, sensible choices – with a pretty skin

Canonical shuttering some of its legacy chat channels The Ubuntu Pastebin went in June, IRC gets demoted

Canonical shuttering some of its legacy chat channels

The Ubuntu Pastebin went in June, IRC gets demoted

Audacity audio-editing app no longer looks like it's from the early 2000s The FOSS tool for audio editing has a fresh coat of paint, and new features to boot

Audacity audio-editing app no longer looks like it's from the early 2000s

The FOSS tool for audio editing has a fresh coat of paint, and new features to boot

Haiku OS rises / Beta 6 sails open web / Virtual winds fly fast A real alternative to running some kind of FOSS Unix clone

Haiku OS rises / Beta 6 sails open web / Virtual winds fly fast

A real alternative to running some kind of FOSS Unix clone