HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has urged professional users and court visitors to sign up for the GovWifi service as it aims to deliver faster wireless connectivity to all criminal courts by 2021.
It is rolling out GovWifi around criminal courts as a central element of the programme. The service has been developed by the Government Digital Service and includes an automatic Wi-Fi sign-in for government buildings with cloud based authentication, enabling users to access networks as they move between sites.
It said this makes the service available to more people, reduces the amount of paper in the process and is helping people who need to work from multiple courts. It made the point that where Wi-Fi has not been upgraded there is insufficient bandwidth for downloading large case files and video clips.
HMCTS said it is six months into the three-year initiative that will add to the existing Professional Court User (PCU) Wi-Fi network, and that full building coverage has now been provided to 31 criminal courts in England.
All civil and family courts and tribunals already have full building Wi-Fi.
Image from GOV.UK, Open Government Licence v3.0
