things will stay alive is the dry. hello this is bbc news. the headlines: the uk government is facing more questions over whether or not people can plan forforeign holidays. the cabinet minister, ben wallace said summer travel abroad is looking increasingly unlikely.

it would be premature to do that. it would be potentially risky. we are seeing a growth in variance. we have done a huge amount of work, taxpayer, nhs staff, my constituents who have been unlocked out in september, i do not want to throw that away. uk government has been warned that its decision to slash billions of dollars from its overseas aid budget is illegal. a snapshot of life in england, wales and northern ireland — millions of people are to take part in a once—in—a—decade census. homes washed away in australia as heavy rain and flash floods batter the east coast, thousands of people are ordered to evacuate. over a thousand people allowed to ignore lockdown and social distancing restrictions to attend a music festival in the netherlands, despite the rest of the country being under lockdown.

now on bbc news... click. welcome to click. i would like to share with you some personaljoy, if i may. i was getting ready to film the programme this morning when i got the best text message that i think i've received in years, inviting me to get my first dose of the vaccine.

congratulations. i presume you acted on it. yeah, sure did. took about three or four clicks, ithink, and i'm booked in for later this afternoon so it was easy. i did that and then i had a big cry. well, i was so worried when i spoke to you first thing this morning — you were so upset — but now i know they were tears of joy. yeah, i mean, i might go again — just to warn you — but this, this feeling of relief and possibly a release of pent—up emotions from the last year, i don't know what it was, but it happened, let's just say that. but here's the thing, right? before i confirmed, ifound myself looking at this text and thinking "is this genuine?" now, i checked the website that it sent me to and it did and in .nhs.uk, so it was all fine, but these are the times we're living in, where scammers target world events and take advantage of people's fears. and by genuine coincidence, this is what we're talking this week. the royal united services institute says that cyber scams reached epidemic levels during the pandemic. dan simmons has been finding out more. preparing for a dawn raid. as soon as the door�*s

breached, they will go in and then there will be a slight pause. officers are on their way to a terraced house in north london. this is the city of london police force's 10th raid against covid scammers this year alone. operation parasite is aiming to seize evidence before devices can be locked or destroyed. police! police with a warrant! a red box is flung out of a bedroom window — it seems the suspect has something to hide. but it's what the cops will find inside the house that makes them certain they have their man. that's a sim file, so it's essentially one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight mobile phones and it is used by the fraudsters to send messages. specialist equipment housing multiple sim cards is designed to fire out thousands of texts at a time, in a type of fraud

known as sms phishing, or �*smishing'. officers are now bagging up anything they believe could be evidence — phones, computers and the like. they've also have access to a digital dog that can sniff out this sort of equipment. just like a drug dog, fred has been trained to recognise the smell of materials used to make digital equipment. the search will continue for several hours. whether it's raiding a house or simply taking a website offline, police are now closing down 2,500 covid scams like this every single month in the uk. 30,000 campaigns have been stopped in the last year. but that doesn't mean that these often sophisticated cons aren't working, partly because of the way our lives have changed.

one line of attack has been to focus on the massive increase in home shopping. all those parcels have to be delivered, right? it was last autumn and i'd been doing quite a bit of online shopping. anyway, i got this text message through from courierfirm dpd, asking me to rearrange a parcel delivery. like thousands of other people, i would have gone online and left some details but i did not because it was not dpd, it was fraudsters. and the only reason i knew — because it was pretty convincing — was i had been in all day. the black friday sales started and i decided to purchase a lovely coat that i really wanted to buy for a very, very long time. anna was not so lucky and is so worried about being targeted again, we've agreed not to use her real name. when she received an email saying her coat needed to be redelivered, she handed over financial details before realising it was a fake website. she immediately told her bank about the fraud

and cancelled her card. i actually thought "now i have nothing to worry about. everything is fine and, you know, case closed." a few days later, she received a call from the phone number on the back of her bank card. man: we have detected fraud on your account. l we'lljust need to take a few pieces of security information to get this sorted out. ok, thanks for that. i can see that while we have been talking, your account has taken out a £9,000 loan. was that you? right. in that case, we'll need you to transfer that money back into our account. we'll give you the account number and sort code now. with the information she'd given them, the crooks had taken out a £9,000 loan into anna's account and were now trying to finish thejob by talking her into sending the money onto them. then i thought "ok, just

give me the account number and sort code". so i still felt quite suspicious and i decided to google the sort code that they gave me and to see what that might come up with. then it came up with a completely different account, different bank. i said "you know what? i'm going to hang up right now and i'm just gonna call you back." and this is when theyjust started panicking a lot and they were like "no, no, no!" like, "don't hang up! don't hang up! the longer the money are out somewhere, the more likely that they are just gonna be used by fraudsters." anna then called her bank and realised the scammers had come back to hit her again. she closed that account, changed her email address and mobile number in a bid to escape the crooks. she still doesn't feel safe. i know i did not lose any money but it did feel like a real burglary, to be honest. i didn't feel like that was — that was the end, because there was still a lot of my information out there that fraudsters can potentially try and use, and i don't know

if they're gonna to use it now or in two months�* time or in two years�* time. that particular fraud netted nearly £250,000 last year. the true figure is probably much higher, due to under—reporting. in fact, during the pandemic, the uk service, the cyber helpline, saw an increase of 366% in the number of people seeking support after being a victim of cyber crime. only a quarter of those had already reported the crime to the police. detective chief inspector martina elliott helps lead the fight against fraud on a national level. the different types of fraud that we have seen have dramatically shifted. for example, online shopping fraud has gone up by 43%, which is a huge leap. we saw a definite increase in smishing after the december rollout for the covid vaccine, where we received over 1000 reports in one week. they are taking advantage at the most horrendous time. people at the moment have — are short of money, people have lost employment, they've lost jobs, they're vulnerable, and these despicable people are taking advantage of all of those things.

it's reprehensible. back at the morning raid, and 21—year—old ty gallagher has been arrested. officers find scripts on a smartphone, designed to trick victims into revealing personal information, messages with associates about the most effective ploys... they're saying they use this to make more money. ..and lists of numbers which can all be targeted at the press of a button. so that that will just send — bombard these with fake messages. i mean, can you see how many that is. and all this can be done from just sitting in your bedroom with your laptop and a mobile phone. two days after his arrest, ty gallagher pleads guilty to two charges relating to fraud.

he's awaiting sentencing. but perhaps the most worrying attacks over the past year have been the ones targeting the uk's ability to manage and counter the spread of the pandemic itself. four years ago, the wannacry ransomware attack brought the nhs to a standstill for several days, with attackers seizing control of hospital systems and demanding payments. the man in charge of protecting the uk's hospitals, vaccine research and rollout, and other key infrastructure, has been desperate to avoid a repeat. one of the things that we learned very early on was that the organisations, the businesses that supplied our hospitals, supplied the work behind the vaccine, all of those became critical, and so they're still potentially a target for states and criminals.

the ncsc has told click that the number of high—level incidents against key coronavirus—related targets like the nhs and vaccine development is happening around

the man in charge of protecting key infrastructure has been desperate to avoid a repeat. fine infrastructure has been desperate to avoid a repeat-— avoid a repeat. one of the things we learned early — avoid a repeat. one of the things we learned early on _ avoid a repeat. one of the things we learned early on was _ avoid a repeat. one of the things we learned early on was that _ avoid a repeat. one of the things we learned early on was that the - learned early on was that the organisations and businesses that supplied our hospitals, all those became critical and so they are still a target.— still a target. the number of high-level — still a target. the number of high-level incidents - still a target. the number of high-level incidents against| still a target. the number of. high-level incidents against key high—level incidents against key corona related targets like the nhs and vaccine development is happening around the clock at around 30 every month. ., ., ., , ., month. none of them are believed to have affected — month. none of them are believed to have affected the _ month. none of them are believed to have affected the nhs _ month. none of them are believed to have affected the nhs responds. - have affected the nhs responds. there has been no service disruption nor impact or through theft that we are aware of. it is hard to always be confident of everything because

you don't see everything. henge be confident of everything because you don't see everything. have any been successful— you don't see everything. have any been successful against _ you don't see everything. have any been successful against critical - been successful against critical systems? been successful against critical s stems? ., , been successful against critical sstems? . , , u ,, systems? there have been successful man somewhere _ systems? there have been successful man somewhere attacks _ systems? there have been successful man somewhere attacks against - man somewhere attacks against businesses. i can think about turning that we've, again, we deal with a number of brand somewhere cases. about ten have could have been considered part of these high chain. meanwhile, the problem of fraud particularly during the pandemic continues relentlessly. we are never going to be able to arrest our way out of fraud because the levels are rising. technology enables fraudsters so it is on the increase and it is likely to continue to increase. hopefully we are keeping pace and dealing with it and we will continue to keep pace with it. ., ., ., , with it. the level of fraud has “um ed with it. the level of fraud has jumped over _ with it. the level of fraud has jumped over the _ with it. the level of fraud has jumped over the past - with it. the level of fraud has jumped over the past five - with it. the level of fraud has l jumped over the past five years another pandemic has allowed scammers to prey on fears and uncertainty. officers admit that perhaps the most effective weapon all of this is for us to adopt a

sort of new normal and double—check any message that asks us for our details. that was done. obviously getting a text inviting you for your vaccination is a massive deal and as i said i checked the website i was being sent to ended in the right way and i was not asked for any other details about my date of birth but that might be different for you where you are. so our general advice is. check nothing is misspelled. if you're asked for your bank details orany you're asked for your bank details or any other information get suspicious. just a note that by clicking on the text you are not automatically going to be handing over bank details, just means that you are likely to be asked. if you are suspicious contact the organisation which sent the message independently. if you're in the uk you can forward any text messages.

that spells the word spam. the police can investigate and reply to you as to whether it is genuine or not. welcome to the weak intake. it was the week facebook agreed to pay news corpus trailer for its journalism following a world first law to make tech platforms pay for news content. uber said it would pay uk drivers a minimum wage. holiday pay and pensions. after it lost a legal battle about workers' rights. google and headspace launched a series of children's mindfulness videos to help combat stress around online learning, social distancing and screen time. canadian researchers are developing an exoskeleton that uses ai researchers are developing an exoskeleton that uses al to see envelope in veal time. where other systems typically use manual controls this combines computer vision and deep learning to adjust

movements in relation to its surroundings. from two legs to for this robot in no way is using machine learning to shape shift. limbs can be short, stable and slow or tall, fast and nimble. for example to step over objects. camera vision informed decisions by tracking and analysing its terrain. and finally, a russian firm is helping robots look more human. robot makers showed off the new department dedicated to making realistic robot skins. there is polymeric specialists artist and 3d modellers. it is getting to tell who is a robot and who is not. as we saw earlier, police forces are targeting scammers at their homes there are also online vigilantes who are

fighting back in one of them is utilising artificial intelligence to tackle telephone fraud. we have been finding out more. this is a youtube and scam baiting. but what is a scam baiter? they trick and waste time of scam quality tried to steal money from unsuspecting innocent people over the phone. it seems to be getting more and more popular with videos flooding social media. i found it on tick—tock. usually operates by himself and him

and a few others from the community are creating an artificial intelligence but to waste scammers time. i intelligence but to waste scammers time. ., , , intelligence but to waste scammers| time— using time. i really need help here. using seech time. i really need help here. using speech recognition _ time. i really need help here. using speech recognition can _ time. i really need help here. using speech recognition can work - time. i really need help here. using speech recognition can work out - time. i really need help here. using i speech recognition can work out what are scammers saying to them over the phone and respond with some statements. it can keep on going on and on until the scammerfinally it can keep on going on and on until the scammer finally recognises that it is talking to a bot. if the scammer finally recognises that it is talking to a bot. i! i the scammer finally recognises that it is talking to a bot.— it is talking to a bot. if i can keep them _ it is talking to a bot. if i can keep them on _ it is talking to a bot. if i can keep them on the _ it is talking to a bot. if i can keep them on the phone . it is talking to a bot. if i can keep them on the phone to| it is talking to a bot. if i can i keep them on the phone to an it is talking to a bot. if i can - keep them on the phone to an hour that was an hour they were not talking to someone else. i wanted to get out there and do something. whenever i got those inbound phone calls every day, like, i can't answer all of them so if i forwarded those to an ai and even if it only wasted ten or 20 minutes that adds

up. while buchanan has wasted up to 37 hours of a scammers time this a! stage can do that for about 30 minutes. it stage can do that for about 30 minutes. , , , ., ., . minutes. it is using his own voice to seak minutes. it is using his own voice to speak but _ minutes. it is using his own voice to speak but in — minutes. it is using his own voice to speak but in the _ minutes. it is using his own voice to speak but in the future - minutes. it is using his own voice to speak but in the future he - minutes. it is using his own voice l to speak but in the future he hopes the ai will create a synthesised voices and use machine learning to pick up on the scammer saying to them and come up with their own response. i them and come up with their own resonse. , . �* them and come up with their own resonse. , . ~ ., response. i swear the ai said that exact same _ response. i swear the ai said that exact same line _ response. i swear the ai said that exact same line 50 _ response. i swear the ai said that exact same line 50 times. - response. i swear the ai said that exact same line 50 times. i - response. i swear the ai said that exact same line 50 times. i think| response. i swear the ai said that i exact same line 50 times. i think we can get to a point where we can allow people to, if they get a scam call, they could forward it right out that one of these a! is. the tricky part would be, you don't want them forwarding their number something like that. but it been

more automated and doing its thing. i do think there will be funny, you know. ~ , ., , know. we will see. so what is it like being _ know. we will see. so what is it like being on — know. we will see. so what is it like being on the _ know. we will see. so what is it like being on the receiving - know. we will see. so what is it like being on the receiving endl know. we will see. so what is it. like being on the receiving end of this ai like being on the receiving end of this a! in having your own time wasted. let's find out. he is not here right now. what did she say? where would you like to fly to? as you can see the ai does have some teething problems but it is still in its early stages and they are hoping the next big iteration of this will

be available later on in the year. the last couple of months these courts have been empty. but from the 29th of march they can resume again. i'm looking forward to getting back to playing tennis and today i will be testing out some tech to help if you are solo to capture your performance and even improve your game. if you have no tennis partner you can still play with a tennis ball launcher and oscillator which cost £780. it started as a kick starter campaign and is good solution the socially distanced tennis. the bank is quite large but it is designed to fit in a car boot with a removable battery. once charged lasts up to five hours.

speed, frequency and the rate of the bulls can be adjusted and operated by remote control across the court. it holds up to 144 by remote control across the court. it holds up to i44 tennis balls at one time. we are using just over 74 hour practice. this is the oscillation mode. starting again. it is time to collect the bowls. there is time to collect the bowls. there is no automated collection bowls but it does come with this handy telescopic tube which makes it a lot easier to collect. i’ge telescopic tube which makes it a lot easier to collect.— easier to collect. i've seen many machines _ easier to collect. i've seen many machines at _ easier to collect. i've seen many machines at various _ easier to collect. i've seen many machines at various sizes. - easier to collect. i've seen many machines at various sizes. it - easier to collect. i've seen many machines at various sizes. it is l machines at various sizes. it is very unique, it is portable and easy to carry. but the other machines you have to have wires, long cables. and in terms of health and safety —wise

this is brilliant, brilliant idea. capturing this action has been automated videoing assistant and connects via bluetooth and follows you as you move around the court. this is a prototype of the device which will be available in the autumn and it started on kick starter. it has nine speeds and rotates in 2.5 seconds. fully charged it has ten hours of battery life. i charged it has ten hours of battery life. ., charged it has ten hours of battery life. . ., . ., life. i wanted to create something that would capture _ life. i wanted to create something that would capture video - life. i wanted to create something that would capture video footage l that would capture video footage easily for people who wanted to submit their footage to tennis coaches. ., , submit their footage to tennis coaches. . , . ., ., coaches. other features include zoom trackin: coaches. other features include zoom tracking and — coaches. other features include zoom tracking and this _ coaches. other features include zoom tracking and this eyesight _ tracking and this eyesight attachment which connects to apps like zoom on tick—tock. that is in first prototype. you screw it on and it does the machine learning itself which means that anything mounted to it has good auto tracking capability being piggybacked onto the eyesight

module. after a three—month wait will be great to get back to playing tennis with or without a human partner. that is it from us for now. as ever you can keep up with the team on social media, find us on youtube, instagram and facebook and twitter bbc click. watching and we will see you soon. goodbye. dry out there today and allowed the dry quiet start to the week ahead but if we take a look at the prospect as we go through the week do expect to see a bit more in the way of rain and when particularly towards the north and west of the

country. southern and eastern areas will stay lift they dry. that showers quite nicely on our rainfall chart for the week. the blue colours indicate rainfall totting up mainly across the hills in the west. lack of blues in eastern areas. a continual dry theme, and dry today because we've got high pressure in charge. a bit cooler though. that cold front pushed through during the night. it has introduced more northerly wind and a slightly cooler feel. you will notice the cooler feel across the eastern coast of england where yesterday we got into mid—teens as far as temperatures are concerned. mostly dry. morning ccontinued to break up for many and most of you will see some sunny spells of the day. longest across southern scotland and parts of north—west england the winds will be lighter. temperatures down over what we have seen the past few days it will still feel fairly pleasant in the sunshine. chilly again. east anglian and parts of kent — seven or 8 degrees here. as the go to this evening and overnight, clear skies by night. they will drop a bit further

and with those clear skies around there will be mist and fog patches two and a greater chance of some frost. the north of scotland with outbreaks of rain. city centre temperaturess above freezing the dog degrees of that once you get into the suburbs. to start the new week high pressure is still with us and it slipped a bit further southwards. the air is now coming up to the atlantic across scotland and northern ireland. a breeze here through monday and the chance that they can cloud some spots of rain every now and again. emphasis will be dry. brighter day through eastern areas and not as chilly. you're not getting the wind off that chilly sea. those winds coming from the south—west pick up on tuesday. tuesday should be dry for most. a bit more cloud in the west and these weather fronts will push their way eastwards the tuesday night into wednesday. bringing a change to the west of the week. it could even be wintry during friday. things will stay largely dry.

good afternoon. the government has warned the european union that any attempt to block the export of doses of coronavirus vaccine to the uk would be "counterproductive". the defence secretary ben wallace told the bbc there's a risk of reputational damage to the eu

if it stops vaccine manufactured there from leaving.