The Coalition Government has allocated $18.5m for its project to develop a system to allow law enforcement and other agencies to share and match photos using biometric identification. [ + ]

The advent of more user-friendly web-based tools is finally helping overcome lingering cultural attitudes that have limited the use of GIS in many councils. [ + ]

The NSW Department of Finance has put out a job ad seeking candidates with strong project and financial management experience to take over the position of group CIO. [ + ]

The Queensland government expects that its $1bn, 20-year e-health investment strategy will create over 1000 jobs and improve healthcare services in the state. [ + ]

NationalMap, which combines government geospatial information, was used to develop interesting new uses for public sector data during GovHack 2015. [ + ]

In a salutary lesson for all governments including Australia's, a US Department of Commerce probe accuses an official of misappropriation of government computing equipment. [ + ]

The Department of Defence's Defence Science and Technology Group has teamed up with Oculus to explore using VR technologies such as the Oculus Rift in military training and education. [ + ]

In the ongoing saga of the ill-fated Queensland Health SAP/Workbrain-based payroll system, IBM has lodged legal action seeking to have the state's claim against it thrown out. [ + ]

ACCC chairman Rod Sims recommended in a recent speech that nbn should make preparations to eventually split up into different businesses that would compete with each other in certain aspects. [ + ]

The first ICT conference focusing on management of major emergencies and disasters will be held in Bulgaria from 4–6 November. [ + ]

The Attorney-General's Department expects a system to allow law enforcement agencies to more easily match facial images using biometric data to be operational by mid-2016. [ + ]

Settling months of speculation, the federal government has announced that the CSIRO's Digital Productivity flagship and NICTA will merge, forming one of the largest digital innovation teams in the world. [ + ]

The federal government's Digital Transformation Office is launching a national recruitment campaign for talented people capable of accelerating the pace of digital transformation across the government. [ + ]

The government will implement all key recommendations of a review aimed at simplifying and standardising the approach to managing and allocating spectrum to telcos, broadcasters and others. [ + ]

The Digital Transformation Office is pushing application developers within government agencies to standardise and facilitate use of their applications by developing application programming interfaces to an evolving set of design standards. [ + ]