ByRomane Armangau Published on 31/01/2025 - 11:47 GMT+1Updated 16:13 The Italian Data Protection Authority has halted DeepSeek AI over concerns about its handling of Italians' private data. Ireland and Belgium have also requested information from the Chinese company regarding the model's use of European data. ADVERTISEMENTItalian Data Protection Authority Garante has halted processing of Italians' personal data by DeepSeek because the agency is not satisfied with the Chinese AI model's claims that it does not fall under purview of EU law. Contrary to the Authority's findings, the companies stated that they do not operate in Italy and that European regulations do not apply to them, Garante wrote in a press release. On Tuesday Garante launched an investigation into Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence and Beijing DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence, giving the companies 20 days to furnish details on how the AI chatbot complies with GDPR, the European data protection law - looking into what data is collected, for what purpose, where it's being stored and if it has been used to train the AI model.This block means that DeepSeek will not be available on app stores in Italy. However, the ban could be bypassed online through use of virtual private networks.In April 2023, ChatGPT, OpenAI's US chatbot, was also banned by Garante over privacy violations for a month. It resulted in a 15 million fine.As DeepSeeks parent companies are not legally established in any member states, data protection authorities in all 26 other members can receive complaints and launch an investigation into them. So far, only Belgian and Irish data protection authorities opened a probes requesting information from DeepSeek on the processing and storage of their citizens data. Portuguese and Spanish data protection authorities. The French data protection authority, the CNIL, told the french media BFMTV that they will "analyse" the functioning of DeepSeek and will question the company. More countries could follow suit. Go to accessibility shortcuts You might also like

Fetch A TowelEvacuate the meme jacuzzi, those The Sims 1 and 2 re-releases are actually a thing, and you can grab 'em todayYou can stop just perusing EA's weird Y2K website and properly fire up the early 2000s nostalgia machine.Image credit: EA News by Mark Warren Senior Staff Writer Published on Jan. 31, 2025 Well, EA and Maxis have had something nice for retro Sims fans in store as part of the celebration of the series' 25th anniversary - those reported re-releases of the first two Sims games are real, and they're going on sale today.Reports had claimed EA would be putting these games out digitally on PC by the end of January - so, basically this week - and it's now done so on January 31, last thing on a Friday. Timing.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. The re-releases for PC via EA app, Epic Games Store, and Steam are dubbed The Sims: Legacy Collection and The Sims 2: Legacy Collection, and are also avialable together in a Sims 25th Birthday Bundle bundle."To celebrate our legacy and honor the incredible fans that have been with us along the way, were re-releasing two fan-favorite titles that contain familiar neighborhoods and beloved characters such as the sneaky burglar, unpredictable genie, and Sunny the Tragic Clown that started it all," EA wrote in its announcement of these being a thing, "Rediscover the nostalgia and magic of the classics that welcomed so many of you into our amazing community." To see this content please enable targeting cookies.One thing to look at is the prices - which will be $39.99 for the bundle, $19.99 for just The Sims: Legacy Collection, and $29.99 The Sims 2: Legacy Collection. Another is the expansion packs included with each game. It looks like the majority of the originals are present and corrected for, The Sims 2's IKEA Home Stuff pack does look to sadly have not made its way in.Devastating news, obviously, but you do still get two different kinds of hoilday pack with that game, and the H&M Fashion Stuff pack to satiate your appetite for corporate tie-ins. The Sims 4's Throwback Fit Kit and Grunge Revival Kit have also been chucked in with these re-releases, with the first coming with the first game, and the latter coming with the second, so a nice boon fot the latest entry if you've not got those already.So you, stop chilling in the bizarre "meme jacuzzi" section of the weird Sims Y2K website EA's set up as part of these festivities, dry your meme-water coated bottom off, and check these re-releases out if you fancy!

Bad news Shaggy mains, it looks like the online servers for MultiVersus will soon be no more. In a post to social media as well as a blog post on the official website, it's been confirmed that the end of the game's fifth season will also mark the end of MultiVersus updates in general. Read more

Update: PC only for now.The first two Sims games are still exceedingly well-regarded these days, but sadly, actually gaining access to them in a legitimate way isn't particularly easy. The first was a disc-only jobby, and the second has long-since been removed from digital platforms.Thankfully, with a new report from Kotaku (thanks, Push Square) accompanying an intriguing tease from EA itself, it looks like The Sims and The Sims 2 will be re-released on PC very soon. The catch? Well, according to Kotaku's sources, it seems as though a console release is still "unclear" at the time of writing.Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Image: Nintendo LifeFebruary usually means a couple of things for us Nintendo fans: a disappointing Pokmon Presents showcase, and the first Nintendo Direct of the year (also, a Kirby game is normally right around the corner, but that's not all that important to this discussion).Pokmon is a no-brainer, obviously, but in the year of our lord 2025, there's every chance that a Direct won't be plonked in our laps in the coming weeks. Why? The Nintendo Switch 2.In case you somehow missed it, we got our first official look at the Switch 2 earlier this month. In true Nintendo fashion, we got a two-minute trailer, a brief note on backwards compatibility, and a glimpse of what we're assuming is Mario Kart 9, before the company went speeding off into the sunset, shouting, "No further info until our April 2nd Direct. Okay? Byeeeeee".Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube794kWatch on YouTube After a swift two minutes of looking at what's behind the curtain, Nintendo covered it up again and left us with three months of waiting. What's more, it put a date on a showcase months in advance a very non-Nintendo move leaving us to wonder whether that April presentation is the next Direct or merely another Direct.So, back to the issue at hand: February. Nintendo has hosted some kind of Direct every February since 2019. With the exception of 2020's Animal Crossing-focused event and last year's Partner Showcase, these February presentations have all been full-fat deals, too.Just a taste of some February Direct alumni... Image: Nintendo LifeIn the past, these showcases are where we've caught the first glimpses of Metroid Prime Remastered (including a shadow drop), Splatoon 3, Skyward Sword HD; and the list goes on. In short, these Feb Directs are usually big events, where Nintendo comes out into the new year with all guns blazing.But 2025 is a little different. The 'firing on all cylinders' approach has come and gone with the Switch 2 reveal, and we'd have to imagine that the real big guns are reserved for whatever April has in store. If all of the really exciting news is just a couple of months away, what does Nintendo do in February?Something focused entirely on Switch 1 and its line-up for the rest of the year feels like the most obvious approach. At the time of writing, we have no first-party release scheduled for February and only Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition dated for March after that. Sure, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokmon Legends: Z-A are both listed for 2025, but it could still be months until we get them and both may well be cross-gen.A little first-party Nintendo Direct could be a nice way to send off the current console and reassure owners that support will continue for a while. The chances of a new Mario or Zelda are slim to non-existent (we imagine they're reserved for the next console at this point), but rolling out some of the company's B-tier franchises could be a neat way to keep the fire stoked while we all wait for Switch 2 remasters of both Kirby: Planet Robobot and Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War have been mooted for a while, and we still believe that Nintendo has Metroid Prime 2 and 3 Remastered tucked away somewhere.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube794kOf course, such announcements could just land via a social media post ( la Xenoblade Chronicles X's reveal), but if we're assuming Switch 1 and its ~150 million units will be supported for a while yet, there are still a good few months to fill. Heck, just look at how long Nintendo kept churning out 3DS games after the Switch's launch.An Indie World or Partner Showcase could help fill the void, though surely most big studios for the latter are focused on Switch 2 by now, and the former hardly inspires much hope of a 'stacked' Switch 1 calendar. Of course, there's always the chance that a heavy hitter like Silksong or Deltarune Chapter 3 & 4 could appear at either, but both have massively outgrown the Indie World roster by this point and, as we say, Switch 2 is right there.Look, trying to predict Nintendo is a fool's game, and we are the fools, but February is right around the corner and we want to know how much our expectations need to be tempered.Image: Nintendo LifeSo, what do you think? Do you think a Nintendo Direct is on the cards for February 2025, or is it going to be radio silence? Maybe a Partner Showcase or Indie World will carry the flame in the coming weeks instead? You can let us know your answer in the following poll and then take to the comments to share your predictions.Do you think there will be a Nintendo Direct in February? (51 votes)Yep, it's Switch 1 swan song time57%There will be a Partner Showcase, but nothing full-fat14%I can see there being an Indie World2%It'll just be a tweet announcement or two, no showcase6%Nope! It's Pokmon Presents only20%Other (comment below)2% Nintendo Direct dates and round-upsWhat did you vote for? Let us know your best guess for Nintendo's February plans in the comments.See AlsoShare:00 Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related Articles69 Games You Should Pick Up In Nintendo's 'Supercharge' eShop Sale (North America)Every game we scored 9/10 or higherOpinion: My Daughter Made Me Realise That Mario Wonder's Difficulty Options Need WorkYoshi or Nabbit, make your choiceRandom: Local Supermarket Wins Trademark Battle Against NintendoIt didn't expect to beat "such a commercial monster"

DeepSeek has gone viral.Chinese AI lab DeepSeek broke into the mainstream consciousness this week afterits chatbot app rose to the top of the Apple App Store charts (and Google Play, as well). DeepSeeks AI models, which were trained using compute-efficient techniques,have led Wall Street analystsand technologists to question whether the U.S. can maintain its lead in the AI race and whether the demand for AI chips will sustain.But where did DeepSeek come from, and how did it rise to international fame so quickly?DeepSeeks trader originsDeepSeek is backed by High-Flyer Capital Management, a Chinese quantitative hedge fund that uses AI to inform its trading decisions.AI enthusiast Liang Wenfeng co-founded High-Flyer in 2015. Wenfeng, who reportedly began dabbling in trading while a student at Zhejiang University, launched High-Flyer Capital Management as a hedge fund in 2019 focused on developing and deploying AI algorithms.In 2023, High-Flyer started DeepSeek as a lab dedicated to researching AI tools separate from its financial business. With High-Flyer as one of its investors, the lab spun off into its own company, also called DeepSeek.From day one, DeepSeek built its own data center clusters for model training. But like other AI companies in China, DeepSeek has been affected by U.S. export bans on hardware. To train one of its more recent models, the company was forced to use Nvidia H800 chips, a less-powerful version of a chip, the H100, available to U.S. companies.DeepSeeks technical team is said to skew young. The company reportedly aggressively recruits doctorate AI researchers from top Chinese universities. DeepSeek also hires people without any computer science background to help its tech better understand a wide range of subjects, per The New York Times.DeepSeeks strong modelsDeepSeek unveiled its first set of models DeepSeek Coder, DeepSeek LLM, and DeepSeek Chat in November 2023. But it wasnt until last spring, when the startup released its next-gen DeepSeek-V2 family of models, that the AI industry started to take notice.DeepSeek-V2, a general-purpose text- and image-analyzing system, performed well in various AI benchmarks and was far cheaper to run than comparable models at the time. It forced DeepSeeks domestic competition, including ByteDance and Alibaba, to cut the usage prices for some of their models, and make others completely free.DeepSeek-V3, launched in December 2024, only added to DeepSeeks notoriety.According to DeepSeeks internal benchmark testing, DeepSeek V3 outperforms both downloadable, openly available models like MetasLlama and closed models that can only be accessed through an API, like OpenAIs GPT-4o. Equally impressive is DeepSeeks R1 reasoning model. Released in January, DeepSeek claims R1 performs as well as OpenAIso1model on key benchmarks.Being a reasoning model, R1 effectively fact-checks itself, whichhelps it to avoid some of thepitfallsthat normally trip up models. Reasoning models take a little longer usually seconds to minutes longer to arrive at solutions compared to a typical non-reasoning model. The upside is that they tend to be more reliable in domains such as physics, science, and math.There is a downside to R1, DeepSeek V3, and DeepSeeks other models, however. Being Chinese-developed AI, theyre subject tobenchmarkingby Chinas internet regulator to ensure that its responses embody core socialist values. In DeepSeeks chatbot app, for example, R1 wont answer questions about Tiananmen Square or Taiwans autonomy.A disruptive approachIf DeepSeek has a business model, its not clear what that model is, exactly. The company prices its products and services well below market value and gives others away for free.The way DeepSeek tells it, efficiency breakthroughs have enabled it to maintain extreme cost competitiveness. Some experts dispute the figures the company has supplied, however.Whatever the case may be, developers have taken to DeepSeeks models, which arent open source as the phrase is commonly understood but are available under permissive licenses that allow for commercial use. According to Clem Delangue, the CEO of Hugging Face, one of the platforms hosting DeepSeeks models, developers on Hugging Face have created over 500 derivative models of R1 that have racked up 2.5 million downloads combined.DeepSeeks success against larger and more established rivals has been described as upending AI and over-hyped. The companys success was at least in part responsible for causing Nvidias stock price to drop by 18% on Monday, and for eliciting a public response from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.Microsoft announced that DeepSeek is available on its Azure AI Foundry service, Microsofts platform that brings together AI services for enterprises under a single banner. When asked about DeepSeeks impact on Metas AI spending during its first-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said spending on AI infrastructure will continue to be a strategic advantage for Meta. As for what DeepSeeks future might hold, its not clear. Improved models are a given. But the U.S. government appears to be growing wary of what it perceives as harmful foreign influence.TechCrunch has an AI-focused newsletter!Sign up hereto get it in your inbox every Wednesday.This story was originally published January 28, and will be updated continuously with more information.

A startup called Graze, which lets you build your own feeds for the Bluesky social network, has caught investors attention. In addition to offering tools to easily build, customize, publish, and manage Bluesky feeds, Graze will soon allow feed creators to monetize their efforts with advertising, sponsored posts, and subscriptions.In other words, Graze has stumbled upon a potentially viable business model for Bluesky before the social network itself has. Investors are taking notice, too: Graze is poised to announce the close of an oversubscribed pre-seed round of funding.Ive been doing tech startups for 30 years and this is actually the craziest early-stage growth curve Ive ever seen, says Graze co-founder and CEO Peat Bakke, speaking to the tools adoption. We went from zero literally no traffic to serving hundreds of thousands of unique people every day, tens of millions of content impressions. Its nuts. Its totally nuts. And its all word of mouth.Bakke is joined by co-founder Devin Gaffney, whose background is in social media and network analysis. The two began working together around 12 years ago on Little Bird, a social data analysis startup that relied on parsing Twitters full feed, also known as the Firehose, to extract insights that could be useful to businesses.Now, theyre working with the new generations firehose: the Jetstream offered by the open and decentralized social network Bluesky, which includes all the public posts from its now over 30.3 million users as well as future apps building on the underlying AT Protocol (or atproto, for short).Weve always been interested in social networks, especially the nascent, growing social networks, to see whats happening next, Bakke says.Image Credits:GrazeFollowing the events that drove millions to leave X to join Bluesky over the past year (and in even larger numbers after the U.S. presidential elections), the two founders seized the opportunity to start working in this space again.In November, they began building Graze, a tool that gives Bluesky users the ability to create their own algorithm, so to speak, in the form of custom feeds built with complex logic, multiple filters, and rules. And its tools have rapidly taken off.Grazes growth is being helped by Blueskys increasing popularity; the network added 23 million users over the past year.Though Bluesky looks and feels much like X (formerly Twitter), with its text-first nature, timeline, and DMs, its offering a more democratized experience than traditional social networks. Instead of being centrally managed by a billionaire owner like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, anyone can run their own Bluesky Personal Data Server and set their own moderation controls. They can also build their own custom feeds to filter the networks content in a variety of ways, instead of only relying on Blueskys algorithm.Image Credits:GrazeGraze operates on Blueskys Jetstream and works with atproto allowing people to build not just feeds, but also their own websites and experiences based on their filtered versions of the Jetstream.For instance, one Graze customer is building a social media platform focused on professional cycling. With Grazes toolset, the customer can create different algorithms that identify and track specific teams and people, and also moderate the feed so its safe for work. Its also the tool that built top Bluesky feeds like News and BookSky.Several of the apps building their own TikTok for Bluesky-type video experiences are working with Grazes toolset, too. Image Credits:GrazeWhats potentially more interesting is that Graze is one of the only platforms working to monetize these custom Bluesky feeds, and its doing it with the Bluesky teams blessing.The startup has already quietly tested sponsored posts via its platform, which loads ads into custom feeds. (Because Bluesky doesnt have a way of differentiating ads in its product, these posts use a hashtag to flag themselves as ads.)Temu cant just come in and buy like $100,000 of advertising on [someones] news feed, Bakke says. Instead, an advertiser offers a sponsored post and the number of impressions theyre aiming for. The feed operator has to consent to it. They maintain 100% editorial control over what goes into their feed.Plus, he says, if someone overruns their feed with ads, the users will likely abandon it. So, theres a natural ecosystem balancing process, he says. The ads can be set at whatever price point the feeds creator chooses. Initially, Grazes guidance is a $1 to $3 CPM rate. Thats a quarter of what it costs to advertise on other social networks, but so far, the click-through rates and engagement are comparable, he says.ScreenshotImage Credits:GrazeGraze also respects Blueskys existing privacy guidelines meaning the ads are not targeted by collecting users personal data and or demographic info, but rather by which feeds the advertiser wants to reach. (Presumably, a cat food brand would do well advertising in a feed focused on cats, for example.)Other Graze tools will soon allow for private feeds, including those that require a subscription payment to access. With both ads and subscriptions, Graze is eyeing a 30/70 revenue split, similar to the App Store, with creators taking the larger share. It will also work with brands and businesses to match them to feeds that would best serve their interests via a creator marketplace, launching next week.Portland-based Graze is currently a team of three, including front-end developer Andrew Lazowski, based in San Jose. Topics

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A coffee and bagel at Jerome Deli Delicious is $4, a rarity in New York City these days. Regulars pour into the Morris Heights locale at the corner of Jerome Avenue and 176th Street from either the elevated 4 Train or a small pedestrian plaza connected to a signature Bronx step street, much like the one Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga made famous in Joker. Above the promenade, and its accompanying bodega, a brick building with nice detailing rises up, offering low-income and supportive housing for New Yorkers in need. Many of the residents there are mothers and their children, and people who had previously experienced houselessness. The intersection of Jerome Avenue and 176th Street used to be home to Jerome Hotel, a 2-story building with no windows looking out onto the street, whose only sunlight came from an internal courtyard. Now, a 16-story midrise by Marvel Architects stands where Jerome Hotel once did. The new building has 175 residential units perched above two storefront properties, a deli and a hardware store, with ceiling heights that are almost as tall as the elevated subway line across the sidewalk. Rent from the ground leases helps support the wraparound services offered to the residents who live upstairs.The buildings height was made possible thanks to the Jerome Avenue Neighborhood Plan from 2018, which entailed upzoning. (Josh Simpson/Courtesy Marvel Architects)The foyer has an original sign from Jerome Hotel. (Josh Simpson/Courtesy Marvel Architects)Marvel completed Jerome Court Redevelopment, or 1769 Jerome, in 2021, with clients Bronx Pro Group and Service for the Underserved (S:US). The former is a for-profit developer committed to building affordable housing in The Bronx; the latter is a nonprofit that operates supportive housing all over New York City. The buildings in S:USs portfolio like 1769 Jerome provide vital services for residents such as on-site nursing, case managers, social workers, and so forth. Many people who live in S:US properties came there by way of the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS).Giving someone a home of their own was the absolute goal, but also making them feel comfortable, said Tenisha Powell, a senior property manager at S:US, who helped steer the project together with Arlo Chase, S:USs senior vice president of real estate and property development. We tried to build a community-based environment instead of an institutional setting, giving great opportunity to those struggling with mental health issues, and other things.A HybridAside from a good, cheap breakfast, The Bronx is great for lots of reasons: Architects like its irregular, sometimes bewildering street layout that contrasts with the 1811 Commissioners Plan for Manhattan, and the hyper orthogonal geometries it yielded, but also its topography which affords sweeping views as far as the eye can see. From the upper floors at 1769 Jerome that face north, Kingsbridge Armory is clearly visible, a bulwark soon to be transformed by FXCollaborative, but also Westchester County further afield. Guido Hartray, founding partner at Marvel, told AN that the design for 1769 Jerome responds to the sites unique urban conditions. He described the building as a hybrid between, say, the heroic, midcentury residential towers that populate much of The Bronx (think: River Park Towers by Davis Brody Bondor Herman Jessors Co-op City) and the kind of architecture Jane Jacobs preferred, where sensitivity to the human scale is paramount.1769 Jerome is just a few feet away from the 4 train. (Josh Simpson/Courtesy Marvel Architects)In an institutional setting, you either get tons of privacy, or you have lots of openness with no privacy, both of which can be really off putting, Hartray said. It was a challenge to find the right balance between privacy and openness. We tried to find ways of achieving both privacy and openness that would give people choices and flexibility, so they can choose the space to support what theyre doing. Powell echoed Hartrays sentiment, she said that the design was about moving away from the closed walls typical in so many institutional buildings. This was achieved by thoughtful conversations between clients and architects which resulted in choices to have a light-filled, open foyer, expansive windows that look out onto terraces, conference rooms with semi-opaque glass for privacys sake, and so on. 1769 Jeromes community lounge, landscaped patio, computer room, food-based operators, laundry and fitness area all make for good, stable housing for people who need it most.Building HomePrior to 1769 Jeromes construction, S:US had converted the former Jerome Hotel into Single-Room Occupancy (SRO) housing. The Jerome Avenue Neighborhood Plan from 2018, which rezoned two miles of Jerome Avenue, afforded both S:US and Bronx Pro Group the opportunity to build something much taller than the existing 2-story building that was on the site. Hartray noted that the upzoning unlocked all sorts of architectural opportunities that wouldnt have been previously possible before 2018.Typical Unit Interior (Josh Simpson/Courtesy Marvel Architects)Some units look out toward the Manhattan skyline (Josh Simpson/Courtesy Marvel Architects)Residents are welcome to use a number of building amenities, including a computer area (Josh Simpson/Courtesy Marvel Architects)We wouldnt be doing our job if we built one less apartment to make what we think is a nicer looking, more aesthetically pleasing building, Hartray said. We had to build all the apartments we could. That was the fundamental goal. Hartray added that the final building envelope was a thoughtful negotiation between achieving maximum density, sculpting architectural form, reducing noise from the train tracks, and figuring out how to get as much natural light as possible in the units. The primary entry for residents was also intentionally placed on the pedestrian plaza that feeds into the Bronx step street, which was meant to help activate the area, and make it safer for everyone.S:US employees have offices inside the building on the ground floor. (Josh Simpson/Courtesy Marvel Architects)Powell noted that the housing scheme underway at 1769 Jerome is different from other affordable developments that went up as a result of the Jerome Avenue Neighborhood Plan and the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) program former Mayor de Blasio strived for. 1769 Jerome has 105 supportive housing units, and 69 affordable housing units. Theres also a superintendents unit inside the building. This ratio between supportive and low-income housing, as opposed to market rate and low-income housing, Powell said, is a relatively new idea that S:US is experimenting with. A terrace located on an upper floor was furnished with outdoor seating and planters. (Josh Simpson/Courtesy Marvel Architects)Housing is the biggest component when it comes to not recycling the system of homelessness, and having the services available to maintain community, psychiatric services, case management services, transportation is essential, Powell said. Having people continuously checking up on them is also huge, she added. Here, managers are able to meet residents either in their office or right in their homes, and even at the deli; wherever they feel comfortable. Theyre available during the days and evenings, if necessary.In the next few years, another project by Marvel Architects and S:US will complete just a few blocks north of 1769 Jerome, adding even more much needed supportive housing in The Bronx.

Customers of Barclays Bank have been left unable to access web app and online banking, make payments to and from their accounts, or access customer services, in the wake of a significant IT outage at the bank which struck on Friday 31 January.According to Ooklas Downdetector service, reports of issues affecting UK customers began shortly after 5am on 31 January, and have remained relatively constant since then, with peaks at approximately 7am and 9:20am in the morning.In a statement posted to social media network X (formerly Twitter), Barclays confirmed it was experiencing an ongoing outage and apologised to those who have seen issues with its services as a result.Were having some problems with some of our systems today were sorry about this and were working hard to fix the issue, a spokesperson said.You may have trouble using some features in our app, Online Banking, as well as payments in and out of your accounts were also unable to help you over the telephone or our Message Us service.You can still use your cards and cash machines as normal, said the spokesperson, although this goes against reports from customer, some of whom are saying that they have had their cards repeatedly declined.The bank also said that if people have been unable to make a payment, they should not attempt to make it again. More information on affected services is available here.Banks and other financial services organisations are acutely vulnerable to IT disruption given the extent to which they are relied on by consumers and businesses alike, and such outages are not infrequent.Earlier this month, an outage at Capital One in the United States saw customers locked out of online banking services for days following a supply chain incident that was ultimately traced to a power outage at FIS Global, a third-party supplier of fintech services such as payment processing that works with Capital One.At the time of writing, there is no evidence or indication to suggest that the downtime at Barclays has been caused by a cyber attack or other form of security or supply chain incident.In instances where they are responding publicly to questions, Barclays customer service teams are currently referring only to technical issues.However, the IT outage at Barclays has a significant sting in its tail given Friday 31 January is the HMRC deadline for filing self-assessment tax returns, which must be done by midnight.This has raised justifiable concerns among self-employed customers because those who miss this deadline face an initial fixed penalty of 100 even in the event that there is no tax to pay, or payment has been made on time, with additional penalties following.People who provide HMRC with a reasonable excuse for missing the annual deadline may avoid a penalty, but all these cases are always considered on an individual basis.This has left many Barclays customers concerned, with many taking to social media to ask if the bank will compensate them for any fines incurred.Read more about IT service outagesOutages might be rare, but they are rarely cheap, any amount of downtime can cost you money. Learn how to minimise the risks and survive a cloud service outage.Datacentre generators are rarely run; however, they must go through regular testing and maintenance to ensure they work when a power outage occurs to prevent server downtime.CrowdStrike executive Adam Meyers appears before a US government committee to explain the series of errors that led directly to one of the biggest IT outages in history.