The UK has what is known as a "Standard Scale" of fines for criminal acts. For example, breaking the law may incur "a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale". Part of the reasoning behind this, so I understand, is to make it simpler for the Government to update the value of those fines. Rather than having to change every law in the land - and have tedious votes on them - it's possible to change one law and have its provisions cascade down to all others. Efficient! The modern…
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One of those things that organisations love to do is issue identifiers. My credit card provider issues me with a Customer ID, a Billing ID, a Reference Number, and an online login ID. All of which are different. And none of which match the embossed plastic card they sent me. The state also issues identifiers. I know, I know, I am not a number, I am a free man. But I have a passport number which is different from my National Insurance Number which is different from my NHS number which is…
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How do you modernise the technology of a huge organisation like the UK's Ministry of Justice? Kim Rowan has some bright ideas. 🔊 💾 Download this audio file. Read Kim's post on the Application Modernisation Team For more technical posts, read the Just-Tech blog on Medium. …
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(Disclaimer - I currently work for GDS, although I don't work on FOI. This is an opinion piece and doesn't represent the views on any of my employers - past, present, or future.) The Irish government recently complied with a Freedom of Information Act request from journalists at RTÉ. The journalists wanted copies of messages sent via a WhatsApp group. The Irish government complied and sent out several pages of documents. Let's take a look at three of the core mistakes that they made. …
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Well, it's not often I get to completely influence the UK Government's approach to open standard. GOV.UK is adopting .ODF as their official document standard! All documentation will be also made available in HTML & PDF. Sweet! Yeah, yeah, so I only played a small part in the (no doubt) hideously complicated process - but I'm happy to take full credit :-) Last year, the UK Government opened up a Standards Hub. They were actively soliciting for challenges that the UK Government could take…
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This is part 4 of a series of blog posts looking at the security of the UK Government's web infrastructure. Over the last few days, I've shown that hundreds of websites run by branches of the UK state are in a perilous state of disrepair. There are multiple sites with hugely embarrassing XSS flaws, running ancient and unsecured software, languishing unmaintained and long since abandoned. What are the consequences of failing to invest in security and maintenance? The websites become a haven …
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Cyber Security is of vital national importance. As the United Kingdom places more of its infrastructure onto the Internet, bugs and glitches go from minor inconveniences to full scale national emergencies. Suppose, for a moment, that a hacker were to interrupt payment processing for banks, or tamper with the UK's water supply, or cut off the phone lines. The economic damage alone could run into the billions. Anyone discovering such a flaw could illegally exploit it for their own gain, or…
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The BBC is reporting that the Government is so afraid of prisoners having access to concealed mobile phones, they want to introduce a ban. UK officials are considering banning the sale of small mobile phones designed to resemble car key fobs. A government spokesman told the BBC that it was discussing the issue with the National Trading Standards Board and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. It follows a report by the Times suggesting some of the Chinese-made products were being advertised…
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David Cameron wants to block certain "pornographic" search terms. He joins a long list of MPs who simply don't understand what they're talking about - like Claire Perry, Andy Burnham, and Helen Goodman. I've talked before about my time working as an "Adult Material Classifier" for Vodafone UK. In short, my team and I used to watch pornographic videos and classify whether they were suitable for inclusion on Vodafone live. There were the usual limitations (no more than two participants, all…
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Another year - another OpenTech! See blog posts from 2010 and 2011. It feels like every year the event gets bigger and better. It's still the same crowd of politically aware techies, and it still costs a ridiculously cheap fiver to come along, and the talks were of an abnormally high quality. Here are my thoughts from the day. Farmification Of Factories Fascinating talk from Lisa Ma about living and working with workers in a Chinese joystick factory. Raises interesting questions about…
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Strolling along London's Southbank the other day, I came across one of those new-fangled information posts. Crudely stuck to it was a decidedly old-fashioned piece of paper bearing a planning notice. But! My my! What's that in the lower left corner? A QR code! Unsurprisingly, scanning the code takes you directly to the planning application on the web. Although the site isn't specifically designed for mobile, it's light weight enough to access even on a low powered phone. The planning…
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On Thursday, I attended my first TeaCamp. It's a mini-meetup for UK Gov folk doing interesting digital things. These are some random jotterings based on the discussions both at the event and at BeerCamp afterwards. All conversations were under Chatham House Rules. Social Media is a problem for all organisations - whether public or private. Rightly or wrongly, the "public" see an organisation as having a single mind and a single focus. Anything which gives the impression of a lack of unit…
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