WRITTEN ON Sunday, August 8th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Design: Co-creation, Foundation of Trust, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, We told you so...

The closure of ContactPoint and the onset of the Databankendämmerung is – let’s say it again – cause for celebration. It’s also cause for congratulation to those who campaigned long and hard, with negligeable resources, against the brick wall of prevailing wisdom to get rid of it.
That’s not to say the underlying problems ContactPoint [...]

WRITTEN ON Monday, March 29th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Ideal government IT strategy, Identity, Transformational Government, We told you so...

The #idealgits process now has a supportive champion in Jim Knight, DWP Minister charged with all digital aspects of Smarter Government.
Jerry and I had a second meeting (we can’t really say where or with whom) at which it was Jim who led in setting out the case for personal control over personal data. There’s [...]

WRITTEN ON Monday, December 28th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Ideal government IT strategy, Political engagement, We told you so..., What do we want?

Britain’s ideal government IT strategy (#idealgits) first needs a plain top-level statement of the role of technology in the context of the society we’re trying to become. We’re going to try to set this out here.
It has to address the big issues directly and succinctly.
This means it has to support the overriding economic and [...]

WRITTEN ON Friday, December 18th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Design: Co-creation, Design: user-oriented, Foundation of Trust, Government Procurement, Ideal Goverment - project, Ideal government IT strategy, Identity, Pertinent Art, Policies, Political engagement, Power of Information, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

It’s time to say what we want from government IT.
Let’s do this together. Let’s say “wouldn’t it be better if” about how tech affects transparency, costs and the quality of public services and how they affect our lives.
@ntouk and I have long since been fed up with what one senior Whitehall official yesterday called [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, December 10th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Bad stuff, Data nitwittery, Identity, Official fibbing/bad stats, Pertinent Art, Political engagement, Save Time and Money, Transformational Government, We told you so...

In a speech yesterday Michael Wills (whom I dont know myself, but he’s Labour member of Parliament for Swindon North, and a Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice) called for a new, more courteous and respectful dialogue over government’s use of personal data.
IdealGovernment has wanted this for years. But – as he [...]

WRITTEN ON Monday, December 7th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Political engagement, We told you so..., What do we want?

In light of the Smarter Government launch Ive been racking my brains for that Morike quote. Can only find Hegel on the German Wikipedia
die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts)
But that’ll be it. As dusk beckons, Minerva’s owl takes flight. After many years, and with [...]

WRITTEN ON Friday, September 25th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Identity, We told you so..., What do we want?

This powerful No2ID ad – much more striking, foreful and truthful than the stupid Home Office smiley-fingerprints ads launched today – was the subject, it seems, of complaint to the Advertising Standards Association by one single reader of the New Statesman.

pdf here
The complaints were:
that the ad: 1. misleadingly exaggerated the information that would be [...]

WRITTEN ON Thursday, September 24th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Data nitwittery, Foundation of Trust, We told you so..., What do we want?

Wired has a nice graphic for the FBI’s God-quest. It shows several of the businesses which handed over customer records to the state:

WRITTEN ON Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Identity, We told you so..., What do we want?

Pleased to be able to report the dogs b*llocks of ID announcements:
Washington, D.C. – September 9, 2009 – Ten industry leaders – Yahoo!, PayPal, Google, Equifax, AOL, VeriSign, Acxiom, Citi, Privo and Wave Systems – announced today they will support the first pilot programs designed for the American public to engage in open government – [...]

WRITTEN ON Friday, September 4th, 2009 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Official fibbing/bad stats, Political engagement, We told you so..., What do we want?

Having dumped controversial former chief executive Wally O’Dell in 2005Diebold has now finally dumped its e-voting unit. This was a deeply unpleasant history, and the new buyer Election Systems & Software (ES&S) is far from Ideal.