A challenge, before #ukgovit tonight
I know. I’ve gone on about this before. The URL doesn’t work. It’s a very small thing, a very minor impediment to using the site. But for me and probably many others it is a glitch that we trip…
The People Photographer
The People Photographer
I know. I’ve gone on about this before. The URL doesn’t work. It’s a very small thing, a very minor impediment to using the site. But for me and probably many others it is a glitch that we trip…
Caveat: this is not a technical description of how the Gateway works. Nor does it cover the behind-the-scenes services that the Gateway provides in terms of messaging and interoperation between various government systems. But it is my description of the…
(Yes, that is me on the left…) Imagine you have some diamonds. Small, valuable and very, very desirable. You don’t want them to get nicked, so you lock them in a safe with a bloody massive key. Made of splendonium…
I did a thing that might have been very wrong yesterday. But I’m not sure. So this is part confessional, part taking advantage of it as a vehicle for discussion. (And a fair bit of hand-wringing into the bargain.) I…
A year, almost to the day, from the launch of data.gov.uk it seems clearer that it was really trying to fire at three targets simultaneously: transparency, usefulness and good old commercial value. Three targets that have some overlap, but also…
Although we think that “being open” will increase trust and transparency, the reverse is more likely. I came to this paradoxical conclusion after reading an interesting piece on perverse economics [link; but summarised here to save you jumping around]: why…
Think of a speed camera. Think of the proposal for the Public Data Corporation. One of them has attracted controversy. This seems to be based on instinct or ideology, without much groundwork being put in on the complex models and…
The usual parade of whimsy on this blog about this or that in public services, or things-that-make-my-head-hurt-in-general, has been rudely interrupted by a series of diatribes on identity and trust online, with a focus on people interacting with government. Why,…
In which we look more deeply into that business of what an online trusted relationship actually means—over and above the mechanics of actually “proving” something about it to a particular degree. New readers will probably want to read an introductory…
This is where the going gets tougher. The previous post here was about the different things we use to bodge our way around the minor inconvenience that you can’t actually prove anything about identity with absolute certainty (and it’s all…
This online identity stuff is very difficult—as I’ve written here before: much harder to truly grasp than it should be, in a peculiar way. I think that one of the reasons is that there are really two, logically separate things…
A quick visit to post a small parcel. And, as an added bonus, a nice view of a broken public service. The Charing Cross main Post Office is just off Trafalgar Square, and gets pretty busy—especially at lunchtimes. Last time…