UK and US risk losing security advantage, says chief scientist

The UK and the United States are at risk of losing their scientific and technological advantage in the field of national security, the UK government’s chief scientist for national security has warned.

Anthony Finkelstein, professor of software systems engineering at University College London, said that the advantage that Britain and the US had was at risk of “ebbing away”, as technologies that were once highly protected and accessible only to governments were now widely available on the open market. Any previous government advantage was being whittled away now that 3D printers could be accessed via Google and drones bought from Amazon, he said.

“An adversary can leverage vastly expensive platforms and the research base of a $1-billion (£770-million) industry that governments cannot match.”