#in a shocking twist 3 new 5*s in five days has a noticeable impact on mora stocks

[hydrachea]

Happy 5.3 second half!

Not pictured: Clorinde guaranteed from losing the 50/50 to C3 Qiqi on Neuvillette. Baizhu guaranteed from losing the Chronicled 50/50 to C4 Qiqi. Arlecchino being a Capturing Radiance trigger from enough consecutive losses. And a paid pack.

I didn't actually intend to pull Arlecchino, but after my 🐳ing bout I decided to pull on the weapon banner and got her signature. Since I can't say no to impeccable drip and didn't have anyone else who could use it, welcome home daddy.

[warninggraphiccontent]

29 May 2020

Letters and numbers

More excitement than usual for government data watchers this week, as the Open Knowledge Foundation's Stephen Abbot Pugh spotted a letter from (outgoing - a comment on his job status rather than his personality, necessarily) civil service chief exec, John Manzoni, to the Public Accounts Committee.

Key points include:

A new Data Standards Authority, led by the Government Digital Service, to create and drive the adoption of standards across government, and foster collaboration

A new Centre for Data Quality, led by the Office for National Statistics to provide tools, guidance and a framework

A discovery for an integrated data platform for research into and analysis of administrative data

Work on assessing legacy technology across government, long seen as a barrier to better use of data

Some counter-fraud pilots to show the value of data-driven initiatives

The National Data Strategy will be published later this year.

The devil will be in the detail, of course (and there's not much more information available, as of yet), but there's a lot of promise in those promises. Questions still, though, about the appointment of a chief data officer (which government committed to in 2017) and government chief digital information officer - whose roles are likely to be even more important in helping coordinate another set of new organisations.

And if one letter wasn't enough... This Sunday is the tenth anniversary of David Cameron's letter to government departments on opening up their data. How much progress have we made, ten years on? This week's letter shows there are now more serious conversations about data in government, but also still much to be done. And as we've shown in the past, a lot of those datasets named by David Cameron aren't being published on time or, more to the point, actually being used.

Dot gone I was shocked and saddened to see that Doteveryone, the responsible technology thinktank, is ending its work. They've done some brilliant work over the last five years and will be much missed - though their work will be continued by the Ada Lovelace Institute and Open Data Institute, and their legacy will live on. Their focus on the impact they're having extends even to their exit: 'There is also a power to stopping. It is important to question the best structure for creating the impact you want to see', as their founder Martha Lane Fox writes. 'Collaborating is definitely more vital than ever. I think charitable organisations need to consider their individual importance far more often than currently happens.'

In other news:

Summer sun, something's begun, oh oh those summer Bites Tell me more, I hear you ask. Our eleventh Data Bites is taking place at 6pm this Wednesday 3 June - alongside sponsors SAP, we have GDS, Government Shared Services and MHCLG for what should be another brilliant event. Virtual drinks afterwards. And put 1 July in your diaries for the twelfth edition - ADR UK have pulled together a great line up around admin data in government.

Also I'm going to be interviewing a proper digital government rock star at an IfG event on Monday 8 June at 0930. Details going live here soon, which will make the whole thing more Tang-ible.

Time sheet Spotted a data-related development or transparency twist in the UK's coronavirus response? Add it to the spreadsheet here.

Appy talk The UK government has started rolling its test and trace service out across England (more on how it works here). The privacy notice has attracted some attention, with Public Health England intending to keep data from those infected for 20 (yes, twenty) years, and their contacts for five. The contact tracing app is absent at the moment. I've written an explainer on personal data and coronavirus for the IfG website which will hopefully go live soon.

Modern times I watched Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator for the first time this week. The final speech still packs quite a punch: 'more than machinery we need humanity'.

All Party Parliamentary Group therapy I was very grateful to be asked to speak at an APPG on Data Analytics event last week - their write-up is here.

Opportunities Across Government The very model of a modern civil service job ad. (Hat duly tipped to Lee.)

Have a great weekend

Gavin

Today's links:

Tips, tech, etc

Why Remote Work Is So Hard—and How It Can Be Fixed* (The New Yorker)

Many Workers Would Prefer To Keep Working From Home At Least Some Of The Time (Huffington Post)

Remote work is here to stay (The Economist Intelligence Unit)

Graphic content

Viral content: cases

22 days of dither and delay on coronavirus that cost thousands of British lives* (Sunday Times)

The U.S. death toll has reached 100,000.* (Washington Post)

UK suffers second-highest death rate from coronavirus (FT)

Coronavirus Deaths by U.S. State and Country Over Time: Daily Tracker* (The Upshot)

The World Is Still Far From Herd Immunity for Coronavirus* (The Upshot)

Death registration data from ONS (Henry Lau)

Coronavirus deaths fall to six-week low (BBC News)

How covid-19 thrives in vulnerable communities of color* (Washington Post)

A deadly ‘checkerboard’: Covid-19’s new surge across rural America* (Washington Post)

Anatomy of Singapore's outbreak (Reuters)

Viral content: consequences

The Coronavirus Quieted City Noise. Listen to What’s Left.* (The Upshot)

54 Ways Coronavirus Has Changed Our World* (New York Times)

Even in lockdown, mothers bear the brunt of child care* (The Economist)

Society will not be the same after lockdowns are lifted* (The Economist)

This Is How Deeply the Coronavirus Changed Our Behavior* (Bloomberg)

The shape of things to come (Reuters)

A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression* (Washington Post)

Tracking Federal Purchases to Fight the Coronavirus  (ProPublica)

Nationwide Lockdown Stalls Indian Economic Activity in April* (Bloomberg)

This time is different – Universal Credit’s first recession (Resolution Foundation)

Anti-viral content

Council borrowed £1bn from taxpayers to bet on British sunshine (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

Ministerial resignations (me for IfG)

Off campus* (Tortoise)

The Missing £4 Billion: Making R&D work for the whole UK (Nesta)

The Only (Other) Poll That Matters? Exit Polls and Election Night Forecasts in BBC General Election Results Broadcasts, 1955–2017 (Political Studies)

#dataviz

Lollipop charts... (Hicham Bou Habib)

What are knowledge graphs, and why should I care? (Joe Baker, Convivio)

Financial Times Senior Data-Visualisation Journalist John Burn-Murdoch on visualising complex coronavirus data (Media Voices)

Meta data

Viral content

Contact-tracing app may become a permanent fixture in major Chinese city (The Register)

5 big EU countries blast Big Tech over approach to corona apps (Politico)

Digital contact-tracing: The Trojan horse in the battle over data (The Hill)

Secret data and the future of public health: why the NHS has turned to Palantir* (New Statesman)

Delivering insight on the COVID-19 pandemic: How the ONS has informed the response so far (ONS)

The Uncounted Dead (FiveThirtyEight)

Worldometer... (John Burn-Murdoch)

Surveying the landscape: COVID-19 repository (CDEI)

No surprises (National Data Guardian)

Understanding the “World of Geolocation Data” (Future of Privacy Forum)

Viral misinformation

Coronavirus misinformation needs researchers to respond (Nature)

Coronavirus: The human cost of virus misinformation (BBC News)

The pandemic and the information network (CJR)

Updating our Approach to Misleading Information (Twitter)

Trump (tweet)

Doteveryone

Five years fighting for better tech for everyone (Doteveryone)

Report: Five years fighting for better tech for everyone (Doteveryone)

Doteveryone (Martha Lane Fox)

GDPR-nniversary

GDPR: The First Two Years and Future Challenges (Infosecurity)

It's the GDPR's 2-year anniversary (Politico)

TWO YEARS UNDER THE EU GDPR (Access Now)

Anti-viral content

Re Challenges of Using Data Across Government (Cabinet Office to PAC)

Post Office reviewing 900 prosecutions since 1999 (Post Office Trial)

New report reveals UK as world leader in online safety innovation (DCMS)

Digital government without the digital divide* (Apolitical)

Update on the future of GOV.UK (GDS)

Store and online data will bring a generational change to ONS price statistics (ONS)

How to improve data quality and get faster responses for your community (Ordnance Survey)

CDEI publishes briefing paper on facial recognition technology (CDEI)

A guide to statistics for journalists (Reuters Institute)

Before the pandemic, @ICOnews had been moving towards issuing enforcement notices against public authorities repeatedly breaching #FOI time limits (Campaign for FoI)

Stats (IfG)

Opportunities

EVENT: Data Bites #11: Getting things done with data in government (IfG)

EVENT: Datajam Event Series: Health (National Innovation Centre for Data, Datajam North East and ANNE)

JOBS: Head of Digital Markets, Senior Policy Advisor and Policy Advisor, Digital Regulation and Markets (DCMS)

JOB: Lecturer (Data science) (ONS)

And finally...

The Highlands of Europe (Alasdair Rae)

‘Randonauts’ have found a great way to spice up lockdown walks* (Wired)

A concise, travel-like-a-local guide to 74,762 attractions, according to 9,526,193 reviews (The Pudding)

How to spot dodgy academic journals* (The Economist)

Statham (Gemma Twomey)