"Iran shut down a British power plant for four days in an unprecedented cyber attack," reports the Telegraph. More details from the BBC: The government said that at no point was there a risk to the UK's energy system, but the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has contacted power companies to advise them about the risk of cyber attacks... DESNZ said the incident had affected a small-scale generator and at no point had there been a risk to the wider energy system. The UK's power network has a number of smaller gas generators which provide short-term power when needed. Thanks to Alain Williams (Slashdot reader #2,972) for sharing the news.

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Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shared this report from the Guardian: Children's lungs grew bigger and stronger after the most polluting vehicles were restricted from entering London, a study has found. Examinations of London schoolchildren before and after the introduction of the city's ultra-low emission zone found a restoration of lung capacity that had been stunted by exposure to pollution... "Traffic pollution in cities damages children's health and development," said Chris Griffiths, a professor of primary care at the University of Oxford and Queen Mary University of London, and the study's joint senior author. "We provide the strongest evidence yet on how these harms can be prevented. Ambitious clean-air zones should be considered a priority for cities globally with traffic-related air pollution." Air pollution from traffic has stunted the development of children's lungs in London for decades. Previous research found that by the age of eight or nine, children from the most polluted areas had 5-10% less lung capacity than their peers elsewhere. That impairment, which scientists said was the result of exposure to nitrogen dioxide, put them at increased risk as adults of developing respiratory diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and premature death.

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Reuters reports: Incoming British prime minister Andy Burnham will scrap the government's troubled plans for a digital ID scheme when he enters office on Monday, a spokesperson for the new Labour Party leader said. Resources devoted to the scheme, deemed a "fiasco" by a cross-party committee of lawmakers, will be redirected to Burnham's priorities, the spokesperson said... "All the time and resource that was going to be spent on a national ID scheme will go instead to where it's most needed, such as helping with the cost of living," Burnham's spokesperson said. In November, the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog estimated the cost of the digital ID scheme at around £1.8 billion ($2.4 billion) between financial years 2026/27 and 2028/29.

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Facial recognition technology in U.K. shops "will soon alert police in real time to the presence of serious offenders," reports The Guardian, "with civil liberties groups warning of a 'dangerous escalation' towards surveillance and criminalisation in the retail sector." Facewatch, a facial recognition system used by more than 100 businesses including Sainsbury's, B&M and Spar to monitor thieves, said it was launching a UK-first feature to "alert police instantly when the most serious offenders trigger a live facial recognition match". Facewatch's chief executive, Nick Fisher, said the "unique technical development" would be launched in autumn and would warn police in an average of four seconds when the "worst offenders" were flagged on its network... Charlie Whelton, the policy and campaigns officer at [civil liberties nonprofit] Liberty, said it was concerned about this "untested, opaque development" and the way facial recognition technology had been allowed to "proliferate without anything to govern it". "It's not against the law to walk into a shop even if you've committed crimes in the past," he said. "The idea of calling the police on somebody who hasn't committed a crime, but there's a concern they might, is really upending the way we do things. And of course, it's not infallible. These systems do make mistakes, and it's very hard to argue with that when it happens to you." A number of people have been forced to leave shops after being falsely identified by Facewatch technology as a shoplifter, with some describing it as "Orwellian" and saying they felt as though they were "guilty until proven innocent"... The use of the Facewatch technology looks set to quickly expand, with Sainsbury's recently announcing plans to increase its use from 55 stores to more than 200 by the end of the year. Facewatch said it alerted retailers almost 300,000 times that a "known repeat offender" had entered a store during the first six months of 2026, and that its system allowed staff to intervene "before theft, abuse or violence could occur or escalate"... [E]xperts argue the use of facial recognition technology in shops to catch shoplifters is disproportionate. Nuala Polo, the UK public policy lead at the Ada Lovelace Institute, which studies the impact of AI on society, said: "There are other, much less intrusive means that you can use to catch shoplifters where you don't need to be scanning millions of faces every day, virtually without consent...." The campaign group Big Brother Watch has criticised police for "inserting themselves into this cowboy operation" and said people would be matched against "a secret blacklist compiled by unaccountable businesses and private security guards".

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