Tag Archives: UK government

UK Cyber at a Crossroads: Three Essays on Policy, Practice, and Growth, in Reaction to the 2025 Cyber Growth Action Plan

The UK’s cyber policy has made progress but suffers from churn, overlap, and regional imbalance. The 2025 Cyber Policy sets out ambition but lacks continuity and practitioner voice. This three-part series traces the history, critiques the new policy, and argues for a practitioner-led, regionally balanced ecosystem to stabilise the base finally.

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Reviewing the 2025 UK Cyber Growth Action Plan: Promise, Blind Spots, and the Challenge of Continuity

This article, written in reaction to the DSIT Cyber Growth Action Plan 2025, reviews and critiques the government’s new approach. It recognises what the policy gets right — framing resilience as growth, creating safe havens, and calling for a one-team response — but also highlights what is missing: metrics, continuity, practitioner voice, and regional balance. Without these, the new policy risks becoming rhetoric rather than a platform for real progress. Unless the UK moves decisively from aspiration to delivery, the 2025 Cyber Growth Action Plan will join its predecessors as another missed opportunity.

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Reviewing the 2025 DSIT Code of Practice for Enterprise Connected Device Security: A Critical and Constructive Analysis

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the UK Government’s proposed 2025 Code of Practice for Enterprise Connected Device Security, published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). It unpacks the structure, rationale, and policy intent behind the Code, outlines its 11 lifecycle-aware security principles, and evaluates its strengths and limitations. Drawing on lessons from the earlier NCSC Cyber Resilience Testing (CRT) programme, it offers a set of practical, actionable recommendations to improve uptake, scalability, and long-term impact. This is a roadmap for policymakers, manufacturers, and enterprise buyers navigating the emerging landscape of connected device security in organisational settings.

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Revisiting the Home Office’s Big Data Initiative: A Success Story in Modernising Border Security

This article revisits the Home Office’s 2013 initiative to modernise border security using Big Data and Machine Learning. It highlights significant cost reductions, enhanced functionality through advanced data integration, and the strategic shift to open-source technologies, which improved security and flexibility. The piece also reflects on the challenges of avoiding vendor lock-in while strengthening UK border operations.

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Transforming Border Security: The Home Office’s Big Data and Machine Learning Strategy

In September 2015, I had the opportunity to represent the Home Office and Border Force in a panel discussion at an event covered by Diginomica, where we delved into the transformative potential of Big Data and Machine Learning technologies. Alongside industry leaders from Jaguar Land Rover and Zurich Insurance, I discussed how the Home Office is actively leveraging Hadoop and other open-source tools to modernise its data management and decision-making processes, particularly within border security operations.

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Exploring Real-World Applications of Hadoop and Big Data, with HortonWorks, Jaguar Land Rover, Zurich Insurance, and The Home Office

In a recent event, celebrating the opening of HortonWorks’ new London offices, three prominent organizations, Jaguar Land Rover, Zurich Insurance, and the UK’s Home Office, were invited to highlight their pragmatic use of Hadoop and big data technologies to extract value from unstructured data. I was pleased to be asked to represent the Home Office.

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