A NEW BREED

Nash, which found that women made
up only 8% of IT leadership roles – an
increase from 2014, but still lower
than the 9% figure in 2013.
Barely 6% of female survey
respondents were found to hold CIO,
CTO or SVP job titles, down from
2013’s figure of 8%.
However, last year analyst firm
Gartner said that gender diversity
has remained largely static in the
CIO role for over a decade, citing an
optimistic figure of women making
up 14% of CIOs.
And Harvey Nash’s figures suggest
that in larger organisations with an IT
budget of $250 million or more, the
diversity landscape may be slightly
less skewed.
‘Only 2% of CIOs lack a single
woman in their IT function. Yet here
also 61% of CIOs say that women make
up less than one in five of their IT
team headcount,’ said the report.
UK GOVERNMENT IMMIGRATION
POLICY COULD HAMPER TECH
INNOVATION
The government’s plans to further
restrict immigration to the UK will
damage outside perceptions of the
UK for startups, former government
adviser and Coadec executive director
Guy Levin has said. ‘If the UK wants
to be one of the leading digital
economies in the world, I think we
need to be having talented men and
women from around the world come
and support that,’ he said.
The Coadec organisation, a nonprofit
trade body for startups,
launched a petition last month to
fight back against the government’s
proposed review of the Tier 2 visa,
used by non-EU migrants to apply for
work in the UK.
Among the proposals, the
government could restrict the roles
eligible under the visa, limit the time a
role can be classed within the UK skills
‘Shortage Occupation List’, and restrict
the rights of dependants.
Coadec said this could have a major
impact on digital startups, which rely
on talent from around the world,
including outside the EU.
The review will take place over the
next few months.
MAJOR NEW ANDROID BUG
DISCOVERED
Just a couple of months after the
discovery of Stagefright, IBM
researchers have discovered a new
Android flaw that could give criminals
control over 55% of Android devices.
Dubbed ‘One Class to Rule Them All’,
it could be used by attackers to give a
seemingly harmless app with no
privileges the ability to become a
‘super app’ and help cybercriminals
take ownership of the device, gaining
access to all of the replaced app’s data.
The month in numbers
75% of primary school children said
they would rather learn how to
programme a robot than learn
a modern foreign language
(Ocado Technology)
More than a third (33%) of adults
prefer to get online through a
smartphone, compared to 30% who
are still sticking with their
laptop (Ofcom)
The London tube strikes in July and
August cost businesses more than
1.5 million working hours
(MeetingZone)
33%
75%
200%
£6.6BN
1.5M
4,236
The data breach on the US IRS,
revealed in May, was 200% worse
than feared, the US government has
said. It was thought that around
114,000 US taxpayers’ information
had been stolen, but the figure may
have been closer to 300,000
Retailers In the UK could be missing
out on £6.6 billion a year due to
lack of investment in their mobile
offering (Centre for Retail Research)
UK authorities were responsible for
‘at least’ 4,236 data breaches over
the past three years, including 401
instances of data loss or theft
(Big Brother Watch)
September 15 information-age.com 9