07 Jan 2009

A disgruntled failed applicant writes….

Hurrah. I see from Kablenet that Directgov has appointed three new directors.

Injection of fresh blood is just what DirectGov needs. Obviously we need wonderful, clear, well designed online services. DirectGov, the “flagship” has fallen into a dark place of editorialising in a broadcasting PR monotone, backed with a self-referential and hilariously inept search service.

But soft...who are the new appointments? Is it the MySociety posse? Stef from Moo? Sam of DirectionlessGov? The founders of Headshift? Are they bloggers and creatures of the contempory Internet, who can help DirectGov see the error of its ways?

No! It’s Channe 4-man, whose last post was chief operating officer at ITN. But...but....but that’s about running a broadcaster! We dont want DirectGov to broadcast at us!

And it’s big consumer brand-man, fresh from British Airways, Scottish Widows and Barclaycard. But....but......but we dont want “the world’s favourite web site” with sexy women dressed in mourning chargings us 18.7% APR and sharing our personal details with TfL! We want good, honest contempory internet services! We want APIs. And we dont want you to waste oceanic quantities of our hard-earned tax money!

And finally, it’s the former IT director for insurance intermediary the BGL group, whose brands include Fusion. ACMulr and the little-known comparethemarket.com. But....but....but......we dont want public services to be flogged to us like financial services! We want to co-create them ourselves, to participate and to care.

Gentlemen, it’s a fair cop and you all have wonderful experience in your own fields. But this has to me the feel of a “risk avoidance” set of appointments which maximises the risk that DirectGov will continue to be expensive, overbearing, centralising and editorialising, not light on its feet at all in the spirit which the contempory Internet requires. Please prove me wrong.

Final thought: when you go to DirectGov and search for “new directors” the first search result is called “Arranging a funeral”. But they can’t be dead yet! They’ve only just been appointed! (The second is about measures to tackle hospital bugs.) Hey!

If however you go to Google (for which taxpayers have not forked out £50m and counting) and search for DirectGov new directors you get a COI press release about new directors. But the COI web site appears to be down.

So, there are some things to fix for 2009. 

 

Doublethink is alive and well at MI5

From interview today with Jonathan Evans, head of the UK’s secret internal police force MI5. He must be a very clever man, with enough brain capacity to have quite different things going on at the same time:

The public would not want a society in which the security service monitors them all the time, Evans said.

Well spoken sir. Be aware, with your ANPR cameras everywhere and total intercept plans, you’re already way past the point of diminishing returns on this one.

He also robustly defended the government’s plans to allow MI5 and the other security and intelligence agencies to intercept emails and other communications which may have been sent, or posted on websites.

But....but....but.......Isn’t this what is called Doublethink? The ability to hold two completely incompatible views at the same time, without any apparent sense of contradiction? Remember we’re talking here about plans to retain ALL comms data: all the email and web addresses, phone numbers and mobile phone location data that everyone uses. Total monitoring the whole time, in fact. The very thing the public would not want.

 

02 Jan 2009

And the final valuation is…..

My site is worth
$7,249


Wow. It’s all been worth while.
 

31 Dec 2008

Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights warns UK over Intercept Modernisation

Europe has privacy standards. It’s increasingly clear that UK official attitudes fall short, and that may in turn mean that significant chunks of our UK government IT plans fall outside European law.

I’ve repeatedly seen NGO human-rights experts ridiculed and isolated for putting this to people in Whitehall. But there’s no point in dismissing this out of hand and shooting the messenger. We’re bound by the law, and we’ll need to take it on board.

Now hear the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg (in today’s Indy - cheers HJ) on Britain’s benighted IMP plans:

It is therefore worrying that new legislation proposals intend to expand the authorities’ power to allow personal data collection and sharing. Although safety measures are foreseen, the adoption of these measures would increase the risk of violation of individuals’ privacy. The retention and storing of data is delicate and must be highly protected from risk of abuse. We have already seen what a devastating and stigmatising effect losing files or publishing lists of names on the internet can have on the persons concerned. This is particularly relevant to the UK, where important private data has been lost and ended up in the public domain… Following the judgment of the Strasbourg Court [the Marper & S. DNA case] the UK will have to review whether keeping details of all these individuals breaches their right to respect for privacy.

So is this “benighted and loathsome IMP” (Blimp) consultation to be a serious engagement, or just a way of smoking out the oppo so they can get on with it anyway but know what kind of objections they’re likely to face and from whom? Really, if the people in charge can’t see why this is a bad idea I now think they’re beyond educating; we simply need new people in charge.

 

IMP: a hell-house of personal private information

Sir Ken MacDonald, former DPP, tells IMP like it is in The Guardian:

“The tendency of the state to seek ever more powers of surveillance over its citizens may be driven by protective zeal. But the notion of total security is a paranoid fantasy which would destroy everything that makes living worthwhile. We must avoid surrendering our freedom as autonomous human beings to such an ugly future. We should make judgments that are compatible with our status as free people.” Maintaining the capacity to intercept suspicious communications was critical in an increasingly complex world, he said. “It is a process which can save lives and bring criminals to justice. But no other country is considering such a drastic step. This database would be an unimaginable hell-house of personal private information. It would be a complete readout of every citizen’s life in the most intimate and demeaning detail. No government of any colour is to be trusted with such a roadmap to our souls.”

 

22 Dec 2008

Is publishing people’s addresses safe or not?

Hang on. Bob Quick says that by making it clear where he lives (in a leak to the loathsome MoS) the Tories have put the lives of his family at risk, because of the nature of his job. But putting our explicit details on ContactPoint (circ 450,000) and on the NHS secondary uses service (circ 1m or so) and the National ID register (circ all IPS’s maktes inthe pub) keeps society safe. I’m not sure I entirely get this.

To look on the bright side, perhaps police sensitivity about their own privacy is a starting point from which we can agree that it matters for everyone.

 

21 Dec 2008

SHOCK! UK Government Agency Invites Customer Complaints to Improve Services!

As explored in ThePublicOffice, we know that user created feedback has the potential to play an important part in improving public services (cf Patient Opinion, FixMyStreet, Inaccessible Barcelona etc). We’ve just returned from a quick trip to Paris (where we were REALLY smug to be spending the €145 we found residing in various pockets, under the mattress etc, rather than spending £’s at a 1:1 exchange rate). Leaving Gare du Nord this afternoon, I was interested to see a poster of the UK Border and Immigration Agency, which was headed ‘COMPLAINTS’ in large letters. The text went something like this:

Your complaints can help us improve our service. Please feed them back bah blah blah....

This is wonderful! Has Lin Homer brought about a change in culture at the BIA?? In my excitement, this Ideal Gov correspondent tried to take a quick snapshot of the sign to share with IG readers, a gesture to which the BIA staff responded urgently (and with paranoia?)… “Madam, c’est interdit de prendre des photos”.

I was however, sad to find that there were no equivalent signs on arrival in the BIA area at St Pancras (just equally assertive notices about not assaulting staff). Indeed, the BIA website complaints section fails to invite service-improving commentary from punters. Perhaps I have simply picked up on a small revolution starting quietly with the team which happens to be situated at the UK border at Gare du Nord....

 

20 Dec 2008

change.gov comments policy

The Obama campaign seems to take good manners quite seriously throughout. Here’s the policy for the many thousands of comments on change.gov:

* Know the comment policy - Change.gov’s comment policy has four components that serve as guidelines for those interested in posting comments: stay focused, be respectful, tell the truth, no spam.

* Set up an account - Setting up an account helps build community around the discussions and allows you to rate other people’s comments.

* Rate other comments - Participants can rate comments only after setting up an account. Comments can be rated by using the “thumbs-up/thumbs-down” buttons or responding directly to comments with the participant’s own thoughts.

* Post a comment - Comments can be left by entering information in the text field at the top of the discussion. Participants can also respond directly to another user by using the “post reply” button at the bottom of the comments.

* Stay on topic - Posting comments related to particular topics or questions posed benefits the community.

 

18 Dec 2008

Doc Searls’ draft VRM principles

The idea of user-driven data (also called buyer-centric commerce, customer managaged relationships, or vendor relationship management - VRM) offers a powerful antidote to the database state. Instead of endless central registers sharing data to form a sort of toxic soup, users (citizens, taxpayers, parents, patients - you and me) would be equipped with a data store and the ability selectively to disclose or share what was appropriate with differents parts of the public service.

We know it better, it’s our data, and we care more about having the right data in the right place and right time. It’s the easy and respectful way to achieve a proper healthy ecosystem of personalisaton and choice. And it supports the sort of data minimisation and privacy by design that would reduce data nitwittery and start to restore trust.

Now Doc Searls has drafted some “founding principles” for the VRM wiki:

VRM Principles

1. Relationships are voluntary.
2. Customers are born free and independent of vendors.
3. Customers control their own data. They can share data selectively and control the terms of its use.
4. Customers are points of integration and origination for their own data.
5. Customers can assert their own terms of engagement and service.
6. Customers are free to express their demands and intentions outside any company’s control.

These can all be summed up in the statement Free customers are more valuable than captive ones.

In a broader way, the same should be true of individuals relating to organizations. With VRM, however, our primary focus is on customer relationships with vendors, or sellers.

I think that, just like Kim’s seven laws of identity all those years ago, this early draft needs some feedback so that the principles of VRM are broadened to address the CRM-like problems of Transformational Government. I think that means a small broadening of principles, and a revision of the language. What do you think?

 

Are we Jacqui’s weapon?

The Home Secretary said an odd thing in announcing yet more bills and action plans and joined-up approaches and measures and powers under the banner ”Policing and Crime Bill - putting people first”:

The public is our best weapon in fighting crime

Look luv. We’re not your weapon. We’re the whole point. We’re the master, not the servant, remember? A weapon, it seems to me, is an inanimate tool which does your violent bidding. So this is entirely the wrong language.

WIBBI the Home Secretary understood the public to be thoughtful, generally non-violent, and increasingly concerned about what she’s doing? I think it’s more a case of

Sorry if our honest attempts to protect the public from crime have become so crude and authoritarian that they’re pissing you off. We now realise that would be profoundly counterproductive, and will desist.

 

SOPCom

Speaking on 16 December 2008 to Ideal Government’s favourite organisation, Intellect, Jacqui Smith (the Home Secretary) said:

… Safeguards, openness, proportionality and common sense.

For the public to have confidence that we will protect them and protect their rights, it is our responsibility as a government to ensure that these standards apply even as technology evolves.

... I am equally clear that we have to measure these efforts [robust powers to tackle crime and disorder] against our standards for safeguards, openness, proportionality and common sense.

... I will continue to put safeguards and openness, a sense of proportion and above all common sense, at the heart of everything we do.

Her speech is entitled Protecting rights, protecting society and, taken on its own, is thoroughly admirable.

It is a warning to Intellect that they’re going to have to raise their game and it should strike terror into the heart of IPS if projects are going to be judged henceforth on the basis of “Safeguards, Openness, Proportionality and Common sense”. In that case, for them, the game is up.

For the rest of us, this is progress. The Home Secretary has provided us with the criteria by which to judge any Home Office initiative. They are her criteria. She has volunteered them. We haven’t foisted them on her.

She hasn’t provided an inference engine, a machine on which you just turn the handle and out pops a decision, we still need to think. We may wish to add further criteria. The Home Secretary, too, may add criteria. But at the core of any review/criticism/assessment of any Home Office initiative, we now have SOPCom.

Take, for example, IMP. Not sure how to get started on assessing it? What are the criteria by which it should be evaluated? SOPCom. SOPCom gives you a way in, a way to get your ideas organised, a way to review IMP on the Home Secretary’s own terms.

It was a good day, 16 December 2008.

----------

And actually – is it Christmas or something? – the good news carried on next day.

The Civil Service Network carried an interview with Sir David Normington on Wednesday 17th December 2008 at 12:33:

What are your priorities for 2009?
I think the key challenge for us is to connect better with people’s real concerns on, for example, policing, crime and immigration. We need to build public confidence that we are tackling effectively the things that make people feel insecure in their daily lives.

How do you intend to achieve them?
We need to raise our game again in 2009. We need our people to be more professional, more skilled and more knowledgeable about the issues they are dealing with. We want our staff to be listening more to public concerns and getting a first-hand view of the issues we are dealing with. We also want good, confident relations with our key partners and stakeholders, on many of whom we rely for the delivery of effective services.

Connect with people’s concerns? Build public confidence? Effective tackling of insecurity? Professional, skilled, knowledgeable staff? Partners and stakeholders? Delivery? IPS have had it.

----------

Anyone who doubts that need only look at Encouraging good behaviour, a 21 November 2008 article by Bill Crothers, executive director commercial and chief information officer at the Identity and Passport Service:

With the government set to issue the first identity cards to foreign nationals [only non-EEA foreigners, you should make that clear] from next month, the £4.6bn National Identity Scheme (NIS) is gathering momentum [no and no].

... Operating constantly in the public spotlight ... [che? can we see the OGC reviews now?] ... we have to build, at pace [with delivery 14 years from now? 20 years from when David Blunkett fired the starting pistol?] ... a secure way of storing the identity data of everyone who lives and works in the UK.

... the NIS has important stakeholders right across government and in the devolved administrations ... [not in DWP or DIUS or DCSF or the DoH – so, where? and if these stakeholders exist, why aren’t their costs included in the NIS cost report?]

Relationships work on multiple levels – personal, professional and corporate. That means socialising is important ... [time on for good behaviour?]

... we have agreed some novel commercial arrangements by moving away from using fixed-price contracts for development work ... Most of our development work is contracted on a target price basis ... where we have to integrate deliverables from multiple suppliers, we create an ‘incentive pool’ to cover the expense of integration. If there is money left over at the end of integration, it is shared between all the suppliers involved and IPS [“novel", perhaps, but will costs be kept under control?].

When I started work as executive on this job in April last year, a large team of people had been working on the NIS for nearly four years. They had done some very good work [that’s not what OGC thought, neither did the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, neither did the NAO], but our pace is now quickening [not hard]. Within 14 months we have ... Completed a framework procurement, linking five of the largest industry suppliers to the NIS ... [what is a framework procurement? why have so many prospective suppliers removed their name from the list of candidates?] Completed the procurement of the first component of the NIS, the systems that will provide an ID card for ‘critical’ workers ... [that’s the card the airlines say is unnecessary. surely the first component of the NIS is the cards for non-EEA foreigners, isn’t that what you said?] Launched about £1.5bn of additional procurements for the strategic systems that will form the core of the NIS [such as?] ... Reinforced the political vision for the programme through a set of clear public statements [you mean the political vision was wavering? no-one knew why IPS is there? they still don’t].

All programmes need competent, professional management – good planning, proper risk management, good controls – but in my view that is never enough. In the worst case what you can end up with is a beautifully documented disaster. [quite]

The glacial pace of delivery at IPS is a mystery. There are two possible explanations. Either they are olympically ineffectual. Or there is someone, somewhere – someone with the power to make things not happen – deliberately putting the brakes on. If the latter, a Merry Christmas to you, and a Happy New Year.

 

17 Dec 2008

Our staggering progress on Data Protection

Sir Bonar writes:

I thought it might be timely to dwell briefly on the matter of Data Protection and the quite staggering improvements we have made in this area. The background, as you probably know, is that there have been isolated incidents of data loss, generally of low-grade intelligence material which had already been lost beforehand.

We should stress above all that Data Protection is a top priority for Government Departments. We now have a fast-acting Data Loss Reporting Procedure, which entails a memo being sent to me personally for any loss of over 250,000 records. I pass this to my private office, triggering the Data Losses News Management Programme procedures.

I believe I can say with some confidence that no such “rapid response” equivalent requirement to report exists in the private sector. Meanwhile we have

- enhanced departmental roles increasing accountability with senior information risk owners at board level owning risk and reporting to accounting officers on data security measures.
- made huge training efforts: 12 staff have been trained in my private office alone, and our online training package is available to over 500,000 staff. This new civil service wide e-learning package is delivering data security training on an unprecedented scale.
- increased technical precautions to minimise the likelihood of data losses — banning of blackberries, new procedures to interdict the use of memory sticks, encryption programmes in all Government Departments with over 30,000 laptops encrypted in MOD alone.

Above all, I think the jewel in the crown of our efforts on Data Protection is the Guidance we have issued entitled Situational Awareness of Data Protection. We have updated and improved Guidance being issued on a weekly basis covering all aspects of departmental security including physical, personnel and information security.

I hardly see what more we could possibly be doing.

 

So just how often has your data been lost?

We can’t tell, of course. But the splendid Open Rights Group can help you start to make sense of it. Just click on the picture and fill out their survey:

 

16 Dec 2008

An appeal for charity at Christmas

We are used to claims from IPS and their predecessors that ID cards will prevent identity theft, for example, and benefit fraud and illegal working and crime and terrorism.

These are long-dated promises. And dubious promises at that – there is no reason to believe that the NIS can deliver any of these benefits, even when it is a reality.

But for the moment, it is not a reality, there is no NIS, there are no ID cards, the police aren’t linked to the NIR, DWP aren’t linked to the NIR, employers and banks and retailers aren’t linked to the NIR, not least because there is no NIR. The NIS is just a plan, an expression of wishful thinking.

Roll-out of the ID card scheme is due to start in earnest in 2012 and is geared to the renewal of 10-year passports. By 2022, 80% of the population over the age of 16 might have an ID card. If we are to rely on the NIS to prevent 80% of identity theft &c, then we have to hold our breath and hope, for the next 14 years.

www.publicservice.co.uk published an article yesterday, ’Poll suggests ID scheme opposition‘, discussing the conflicting findings of two sets of polls. According to IPS, 59% of people are consistently in favour of the NIS, while No2ID find that the figure is more like 31%.

We are used to that, too.

But something changed yesterday. The www.publicservice.co.uk article also includes this:

… an Identity and Passport Service spokesman told Public Servant Daily: “Identity cards are already a reality, bringing benefits to the individual and the country by reducing identity fraud and related crime, including illegal working”.

If the unnamed spokesman is talking about IPS’s NIS-type ID cards, then this is manifestly false. IPS’s ID cards are not already a reality. They do not exist. They are a figment of IPS’s imagination. It follows that they cannot already be bringing benefits to individuals and to the country, and the IPS spokesman must be deluded.

It is lonely at IPS. No-one will talk to them and they have no successes to their name. That’s not surprising. They don’t try very hard – in fact, it’s hard to see that they have achieved anything at all in the past six years, they and their predecessors. They have consistently set themselves very low targets and failed to reach even that undemanding standard.

But, especially at Christmas, we must be charitable when we see the disastrous effects unending failure has on people’s mental stability. IPS have now apparently entered a fantasy world. It seems that they have moved from believing that ID cards will bring certain benefits to believing that they are already delivering those benefits.

Their spokesman is emitting a cry for help. They need treatment, and we cannot honourably stand by and ignore the suffering of our fellow human beings, not at Christmas, not at any time. WIBBI IPS were put out of their misery now?

 

15 Dec 2008

Ideal (poor) customer service


Listening to what the customer wants /needs is always the best way forward. The Observer reports that Firebox.com is offering to give Christmas presents a personal touch - by wrapping them badly for £3.95 an item. Commenting on this Crap Wrap service, a firebox.com spokesman said:

‘It takes a high degree of skill to deliberately wrap a present this poorly.’

LOL

 
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