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4 February 2022
Open wound
The UK government published its fifth open government National Action Plan this week.
UK civil society was not best pleased.
Nor was I.
And nor were many others, as you can see from the links in the Meta data section, below.
Parish notice
For those of you reading this newsletter on Tumblr rather than subscribing via email, this will be the last edition of W:GC to appear there, after nearly seven and a half years. The web version of Warning: Graphic Content is moving to Medium.
I used Tumblr to try out a social media platform I'd not really used before, to see if it might be a place to grow an audience, and to ensure there was a permanent home for the newsletter archive online. I've decided to move (finally) given I've not found masses of engagement there (or had time to do so), don't love the interface, many people have expressed concern over the site's approach to data, and the ability to search previous posts may as well not exist. (But apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln...)
In brief
Our Data Bites year got off to a great start on Wednesday - watch the 26th edition here (very handy Twitter thread here).
I thoroughly enjoyed chairing a thought-provoking civic tech surgery for mySociety this week on how to ensure civic technology is accessible and inclusive. Recording and minutes to follow, but more details on the TICTeC Labs project here - and you can sign up to the mailing list for more.
Congratulations to my IfG colleagues on getting the ninth Whitehall Monitor annual report out of the door!
I've not yet read the government's plan for levelling up - but I have a feeling there may be some relevant things in there. (A roundtable I chaired in 2020 is, a little surprisingly, cited twice.)
I'm excited to be taking part in the Alan Turing Institute's AI UK conference in March. Further details to follow... on a completely different note, a reminder that video of the data gameshow I hosted at the ODI Summit is available here.
The Six Nations kicks off this weekend, so obligatory plug for my post on visualising the tournament from a few years ago.
I wondered what might happen to the UK's data and digital policy after Brexit for UK in a Changing Europe's new report.
Not one, but two UK national newspapers featured charts prominently on their front pages overnight, which must be a first.
You know how I've previously tweeted and podcasted about the Bond films can teach us about data in government? Simon Worthington has taken that to another level (an all time high, you might say).
Tim Harford has published a list of the ten best books for thinking clearly about statistics. If you've got any reading recommendations, you can also add them to my old crowdsourced data reading list.
Congratulations to GOV.UK on the tenth anniversary of its beta launch. It was quite the celebration.
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
So much of what we observe in the COVID data is driven by age dynamics (Colin Angus)
'Pandemic vs endemic’ sets up two conflicting Covid endgames* (FT)
‘Pandemic of the unboosted’: low US Covid jab uptake piles pressure on hospitals* (FT - and thread)
U.S. Has Far Higher Covid Death Rate Than Other Wealthy Countries* (New York Times)
Covid’s IFR compared to flu at different ages (John Burn-Murdoch)
How dangerous is the fast-spreading new Omicron sub-variant BA.2?* (FT)
Side effects
America’s covid job-saving programme gave most of its cash to the rich* (The Economist)
Turkey, Russia Dominate European Airport Rankings After Pandemic* (Bloomberg)
On the level
Levelling Up the United Kingdom (DLUHC)
Subnational indicators explorer (ONS)
Design considerations... (Rob Fry)
Levelling-up: some wealthy areas of England to see 10 times more funding than poorest (The Guardian)
Anyone reading the Levelling Up White Paper and wondering what the heck "Moran's I" is, well (Alasdair Rae and Elvis Nyanzu)
CLOSING THE DIVIDE: How to really level up the UK (NEF)
Why Boris Johnson's levelling-up agenda could be doomed to fail (Sky News)
How the poorest school pupils have lost the most funding* (New Statesman)
Bringing the brownfields back to life: will the plan to level up housing work?* (New Statesman)
Chaotic energy
Energy prices and their effect on households (ONS)
“I’ve never seen prices like this”: as energy bills rocket, Rishi Sunak’s help comes far too late for Britain’s fuel poor* (New Statesman)
Energy bills: New price cap will put more than a quarter of households into fuel poverty - which areas will be worst affected? (Sky News)
The price is right? The April 2022 energy price rise and the Government’s response (Resolution Foundation)
Climate of fear
Observed temperature changes for 196 countries around the world paints a stark picture (Ed Hawkins)
Council Climate Plan Scorecards (Climate Emergency UK and mySociety)
Revealed: The 11 slides that finally convinced Boris Johnson about global warming (Carbon Brief)
EU wind and solar push not enough to limit global warming as coal use remains stubborn* (FT)
Global warming effect of methane from US Permian draws fresh scrutiny* (FT)
If everyone were vegan, only a quarter of current farmland would be needed* (The Economist)
Many European farmers still give their animals too many antibiotics* (The Economist)
Party
Three-quarters say findings of report into lockdown breaches is bad for the Prime Minister, the Conservative Party and trust in politics generally (Ipsos MORI)
Snap poll: 63% of Britons still want Boris Johnson to resign following Sue Gray report (YouGov)
No PM has been this far down in net approval at this point in their term since John Major (Telegraph)
Why Boris Johnson was never truly popular* (New Statesman)
Partir?
Voici le calendrier des fêtes organisées à Downing Street depuis mars 2020 (Libération)
UK
Whitehall Monitor 2022 (IfG)
Party voting instructions should be public (mySociety)
How the end of the eviction ban has pushed thousands into homelessness* (New Statesman)
Grey still UK’s favourite new car colour despite record numbers switching to ‘greener’ vehicles (SMMT)
US
Can You Gerrymander Your Party to Power?* (New York Times)
Biden, who pledged to diversify the Supreme Court, has already made progress on lower courts* (Washington Post)
It’s Harder Than Ever To Confirm A Supreme Court Justice (FiveThirtyEight)
Together at last: A migrant family’s arduous path to reunification (Reuters)
International
How Portugal’s Socialists triumphed in the general election* (New Statesman)
Government AI Readiness Index 2021 (Oxford Insights)
Will Emmanuel Macron win a second term?* (The Economist)
China pours money into Iraq as US retreats from Middle East* (FT)
Shipping line profits at full steam as trade chaos shows little sign of abating* (FT)
The race to reconnect Tonga (Reuters)
Where Military Forces Are Assembling Around Russia and Ukraine* (Bloomberg)
By one measure of living standards, South Korea has overtaken Japan* (The Economist)
WHEN WOMEN MAKE HEADLINES: A VISUAL ESSAY ABOUT THE (MIS)REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN THE NEWS (The Pudding)
Sport
Australian Open: Rafael Nadal ahead of Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in GOAT race (BBC Sport)
In tennis, the elite capture the glory—and most of the money* (The Economist)
Novak Djokovic: Doubts over timing of Covid test (BBC News)
How football jumped on the crypto hype* (The Economist)
Four Charts That Reveal Tom Brady’s Greatness* (The Upshot)
Beijing Winter Olympics Medal Count* (Bloomberg)
Meta data
Open season
UK National Action Plan for Open Government 2021-2023 (CDDO)
UK Government backslides on commitments to open government in new National Action Plan (Open Government Network - thread)
My take... (me)
Government accused of ‘backsliding’ in new anti-corruption plan (politics.co.uk)
Government transparency plan fails to meet anti-corruption body criteria (Evening Standard)
Britain may be kicked out of international anti-corruption partnership it helped set up as it waters down Open Government promises (diginomica)
Open government at risk (Joshua Rozenberg)
A look at the UK Open Government Partnership 2021-23 National Action Plan (Tim Davies)
UK Open Government National Action Plan 2022 to 2024: Welsh Government commitments (Welsh Government)
Fantastic news - Government set to introduce a national register of landlords! (Centre for Public Data)
We should soon have data on the secretive people who anonymously own tens of thousands of UK properties through offshore companies! (Anna Powell-Smith)
Unlocking the potential of open data (data.europa.eu)
ARIA ready?
US research director appointed first chief executive of Advanced Research and Invention Agency (BEIS)
UK ‘DARPA’ should let the sunshine in (Nature)
AI got 'rithm
What Robots & AI Do With Your Data | The Future of Robotics (WIRED)
Giuseppe Sollazzo - can the NHS do AI? (Rory Cellan-Jones)
Civil Service Awards 2021: Is AI helping you go on holiday? (Civil Service)
Machine learning the hard way: IBM Watson's fatal misdiagnosis (The Register)
Google and TikTok give Meta an AI lesson* (FT)
My concerns about AI (happy new year) (Joanna Bryson)
Viral content
COVID’s lesson for governments? Don’t cherry-pick advice, synthesize it (Nature)
How Covid stole our privacy (UnHerd)
Why is Covid modelling so controversial? (The House)
Tech, ethics
Two of Google's Ethical AI Staffers Leave to Join Ousted Colleague’s Institute* (Bloomberg)
On Racialized Tech Organizations and Complaint: A Goodbye to Google (Alex Hanna)
Holding to Account: Safiya Umoja Noble and Meredith Whittaker on Duties of Care and Resistance to Big Tech (Logic)
UN fired tech envoy after probe showed ‘pattern’ of harassment, documents show (Politico)
Suicide hotline shares data with for-profit spinoff, raising ethical questions (Politico)
I am on the board of @CrisisTextLine. Many people are asking us to account for our decisions. To do so, I wrote a blog post detailing my ongoing struggle to govern responsibly and ethically (danah boyd)
UK government
Our chair, Sir David Norgrove, has today responded to a letter from @amcarmichaelMP about a statement on crime statistics by @ukhomeoffice and related comments by the Prime Minister and Home Secretary (UK Statistics Authority)
We have written to @10DowningStreet regarding statements about the number of people in work (Office for Statistics Regulation)
The UK's "new direction" is evolution not revolution (Jeni Tennison)
Leaving no one behind (ONS)
Building the richest picture of our population (ONS)
Analysing data to identify risks at the UK border (Home Office Data, Digital and Technology)
Explore the Data: Food and You 2 (Social Research Association)
Sharing public sector data (POST)
A license to think afresh: how the Data Challenge empowered civil service innovators (Global Government Forum)
ICO baby
UK seeks leadership role in global privacy, says new watchdog head* (FT)
Your views matter (ICO)
FOIA fighting
Oral evidence follow up on the Cabinet Office Freedom of Information Clearing House (PACAC)
Who is this Martin Rosenbaum? (Martin Rosenbaum)
Information health
Update: GP Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) (use MY data)
How better use of data can help address key challenges facing the NHS (Health Foundation)
Beyond privacy: there are wider issues at stake over Big Tech in medicine (openDemocracy)
A farewell to harms
"We haven't completely finalised or fixed all the changes [to the #OnlineSafetyBill] or announced them publicly" @CPhilpOfficial tells @CommonsDCMS (Maeve Walsh)
Tackling Online Abuse (Petitions Committee)
In harm’s way: Why online safety regulation needs an Independent Reviewer (Institute of Economic Affairs)
Gray area
Parties inquisitor Sue Gray also in charge of finding Ofcom chair (The Guardian)
11 things missing from Sue Gray’s report (openDemocracy)
Data, numbers
Weather reports, Coronavirus data and Cherry Blossom forecasts – the numbers we choose to see (Leigh Dodds)
A dashboard by any other name (Civic Source)
The Data Charter (London Borough of Camden)
The ten best books for thinking clearly about statistics (Tim Harford)
Are data trusts a suitable stewardship model for the developing world?* (FT)
The UN is testing technology that processes data confidentially* (The Economist)
How charities can use data (Catalyst)
Everything else
To Level Up we need to Fix The Digital Divide (Good Things Foundation)
Matt Hancock: Britain will be left in the dust with our tepid attitude to cryptocurrencies (City AM)
EU to outline tech standards plan to counter China influence* (FT)
The Battle for the World’s Most Powerful Cyberweapon* (New York Times)
We will pay for our hybrid work freedoms with more hot-desking* (FT)
Some big news: Flourish is now part of the Canva family (Flourish)
What if all workers wrote software, not just the geek elite?* (The Economist)
Spotify’s Platform Rules and Approach to COVID-19 (Spotify)
What is the nature of technology? (James Plunkett)
Should the world map be more realistic? We ask an expert (The Guardian)
Opportunities
EVENT: AIUK (The Alan Turing Institute)
EVENT: Data, which direction? How can the UK best reform its data protection regime? (techUK and DCMS)
EVENT: Outlier (Data Visualization Society)
SURVEY: A more open, equitable data ecosystem for charities (The Good Ship)
AWARDS: 2022 Statistical Excellence in Journalism Awards launch (RSS)
JOB: Head of Capability - DDaT (DCMS)
JOBS: Policy advisors (CDEI)
JOB: Single Digital Presence Head of Delivery (British Library)
JOB: Editorial Data Scientist (FT)
JOB: Senior Special Projects Journalist (Visual Journalism) (Telegraph)
JOB: Data Analyst (Poverty and Economic Development) (Our World in Data)
JOB: Data Analytics Specialist (UKHSA)
JOB: Data Scientist (Cabinet Office)
JOB: Data engineers (Cabinet Office)
JOB: Head of Data and Analysis: Schools and Regions (Ofsted)
JOB: Communications and Advocacy Officer (Involve)
JOB(S): Project Lead - Data Skills Taskforce (The Alan Turing Institute)
JOBS: We're looking for a Policy Officer and a Technology Officer to join our team! (Privacy International)
JOBS (Demos)
CONSULTANCY SERVICES: to define an innovation roadmap for OKFN Tech Team (Open Knowledge Foundation)
And finally...
The good
Groundhogs Do Not Make Good Meteorologists (FiveThirtyEight)
Create a Travel Time Map (TravelTime)
Wordle: starter words, hard mode and X/6 - how are Britons playing the hit game? (YouGov)
The bad
Civic technologists: what’s your best story about data being dirty? (Alex Blandford)
The ugly
They added a 5.5 to the y axis to make the economic growth seem larger (Tracking Biden from the Left, via Marcus)
The white line shows the actual splits based on the reported %. The blue wedge shows the exaggerated %. (The Australian via Prof Dale Nimmo)
yea that’s what stands out on this graph (via @GoodPoliticGuy)
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28 January 2022
Work events
A couple of events happening next week that I'm involved in:
Next Wednesday it's the 26th IfG Data Bites. Sponsored by BearingPoint, the first Data Bites of the year has a focus on building data systems around patients/people. Watch the previous 25 events here
Next Thursday, it's the second TICTeC Civic Tech Surgery, exploring what can be done to ensure civic tech is accessible and inclusive. More on the project here.
Also, on Monday the IfG will be launching the ninth Whitehall Monitor annual report (Sue Gray permitting).
And my friends at the IfG are looking for some #dataviz assistance, as per the below - email Philip and Paul if you might be interested:
We (the Institute for Government) are looking to commission someone to produce an interactive visualisation of election result data in D3.
The visualisation would initially be for use in this May’s Northern Ireland Assembly elections, but we would like it to be designed in such a way that it could be used in Westminster and devolved elections in future years.
The design would follow a detailed brief set by the IfG, based on existing static charts and following an established IfG style.
We estimate that it would be two/three days’ work, but this would be confirmed in discussion with the chosen party.
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
UK politics
Lord Agnew's resignation added to the ministerial resignations chart (Tim for IfG)
Polling Nolan principles (Survation)
What Kind of Democracy Do People Want? (The Constitution Unit)
Issues Index: January 2022 (Ipsos MORI)
Government parties during 2020 lockdown (Telegraph)
There’s nothing special about the red wall. It’s built of voters exactly like the rest of us* (Sunday Times - thread)
Viral content
How the Biden administration failed the Omicron test* (FT)
The extraordinary success of Covid-19 vaccines, in two charts (Vox)
The simple numbers every government should use to fight anti-vaccine misinformation (The Guardian)
Racial gap in US Covid booster campaign concerns health officials* (FT)
More Than 10 Billion Shots Given: Covid-19 Tracker* (Bloomberg)
Warring scientists fight on as Omicron retreats* (The Times - thread)
Mapping recent COVID-19 cases by age (Colin Angus)
As Covid recedes, the NHS has a new challenge: clearing a backlog of 8 million* (Sunday Times - thread)
Cost of living
Why the cost of living has increased more than the ONS says* (New Statesman)
How Much Americans Make (Flowing Data)
Environment
How the world eliminated lead from gasoline (Our World in Data)
Rising temperatures threaten future of Winter Olympics, say experts (The Guardian)
China now has nearly half of the world’s offshore wind capacity* (The Economist)
How Big Beef Is Fueling the Amazon’s Destruction* (Bloomberg)
Economy
The IMF cuts its global growth forecast for 2022* (The Economist)
Just how gummed up are supply chains?* (The Economist)
Tesla Now Runs the Most Productive Auto Factory in America* (Bloomberg)
Why gaming is the new Big Tech battleground* (FT)
Spac kings lose their touch* (FT)
UK
Cities Outlook 2022 (Centre for Cities)
Levelling down: Boris Johnson is set to spend less on English regional development than previous Tory governments* (New Statesman)
Exclusive: the British public is changing its concept of class* (New Statesman)
A Russia blood to the head
What's going on at Russian military bases near Ukraine? (Sky News)
On the edge of war (Reuters)
International
CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX (Transparency International)
Corruption is getting worse in many poor countries* (The Economist)
OGP Works: 10 Findings from 10 Years of Data (Open Government Partnership)
How big was the Tonga eruption? (Reuters)
Stephen Breyer Tried to Compromise On An Increasingly Uncompromising Supreme Court (FiveThirtyEight)
Everything else
Gender & language (Reuters)
When They Warn of Rare Disorders, These Prenatal Tests Are Usually Wrong* (The Upshot)
Finding a Surprising Story in a Stack of Medical Bills* (The Upshot)
What Spotify data show about the decline of English* (The Economist)
We Taught Computers To Play Chess — And Then They Left Us Behind (FiveThirtyEight)
Maps
Four maps that explain the Russia-Ukraine conflict* (Washington Post)
Seems like a slightly misleading color scheme (Nicholas Danforth)
Hi, thanks for flagging this. We've updated the color ramp on this map to have more nuance. (Tim Meko)
If the Washington Post was covering the Irish War of Independence about a century ago like they are covering the situation in Ukraine today... (Arnold Platon)
Lighthouses of Europe (Geodienst)
More Than Digital Copies: Maps That Interpret Maps (David Rumsey)
#dataviz
Dos and don’ts of data visualisation (European Environment Agency)
Lexis diagrams with Tableau (databoy)
Meta data
Agnew's day-ee
The minister for open government (etc) resigns (Hansard)
This could be the first ministerial resignation explicitly triggered by government data failures (Centre for Public Data)
Lord Agnew states the Gov may be dropping the Economic Crime Bill from the next Queens Speech (Rachel Davies Teka)
Tales from the crypto
Why footballers are spending thousands on cartoon monkeys* (The Athletic)
Set of (downloadable!) bibliographies about crypto (The Crypto Syllabus)
Work
Google Team That Keeps Services Online Rocked by Mental Health Crisis* (Bloomberg)
Google's Remote Work Policy Has 9 Great Tips You Should Definitely Steal Today (Inc.)
The Last Target Operating Model You’ll Ever Need™ (Matt Edgar)
Honouring the grout (Thea Snow)
“Agile” is eating design’s young; or, Yet Another Reason why “embedding” designers doesn’t work (Peter Merholz)
San Francisco is scaring away the tech crowd* (FT)
Gray area
Sue Gray: The ex-pub landlord who could call time on Boris Johnson (Politico)
Sue Gray’s report: Who’s behind the partygate leaks – and why? (openDemocracy)
UK government spent £40,000 hiding secretive Clearing House unit (openDemocracy)
ONS
Britain’s Office for National Statistics did well during the pandemic* (The Economist)
To say only 17,000 people have died from COVID-19 is highly misleading (ONS)
OSR welcomes ONS blog on COVID-19 deaths: to say only 17,000 people have died from COVID-19 is highly misleading (OSR)
Measuring the changing prices and costs faced by households (ONS)
Delighted to be able to tell you that the @ONS have just announced that they are going to be changing the way they collect and report on the cost of food prices and inflation (Jack Monroe)
Improving access to data on adult social care (ONS)
Challenges and Opportunities for Health and Care Statistics (OSR)
Open for the best
What does “working in the open” mean? (Chris Fleming, Public Digital)
Promises of open government are no longer being kept* (The Times)
Ed Humpherson to Chris Mullin: Measures to support transparency (OSR)
The ICO monitors the ICO (Martin Rosenbaum)
Nature Neuroscience offers open access publishing (Nature Neuroscience)
Nature does open access (Dr. Glaucomflecken)
UK government
Government Cyber Security Strategy: 2022 to 2030 (Cabinet Office)
Since the launch of the #NationalAIStrategy in September we've made progress on our journey to becoming a science superpower (Office for Artificial Intelligence)
Financial modelling in government (NAO)
Civil Service Awards 2021: All aboard the data train (Civil Service)
Podcast: Understanding the complexity of users' lives (GDS)
Will ARIA bite the dust? Dominic Cummings’ ‘UK DARPA’ faces uncertain future (Tech Monitor)
Global data experts fire up government’s plans to promote free flow of data (DCMS)
Although... (Peter Wells)
Digital government
As Governments Get More Digital, Trust is Essential* (Wired)
Top job application tips for digital roles in government (Global Government Forum)
Data
How can we measure our data improvement progress? (Dan Barrett)
From data revolutionary to data governance advocate and back again: Three lessons from the journey (William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)
Governing data, not governed by data! (Hattusia)
Book Review: Data Practices: Making Up a European People by Evelyn Ruppert and Stephan Scheel (LSE Review of Books)
Everything else
How to Truth with Statistics (Tim Harford)
How to regulate misinformation (Royal Society)
The Draft Online Safety Bill and the legal but harmful debate (DCMS Select Committee)
Self-driving car users should have immunity from offences – report (The Guardian)
Hard truths about the gender pay gap* (FT)
Tech Policy Fellows papers are out today! Three more dispatches from the cutting edge of tech policy coming your way (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
Why mathematicians sometimes get Covid projections wrong (The Guardian)
How the politics of counting Americans got so twisted* (FT)
Sir David Cox, 1924-2022 (Royal Statistical Society)
Opportunities
EVENT: Data Bites #26 (IfG)
JOB: Executive Director - Digital, Data and Technology (The Pensions Regulator)
JOB: Head of Big Tech Expertise (DCMS)
DCMS has outdone itself today; recruiting “Head of Big Tech Expertise” starting at 47K (via Michael Veale)
JOB: Data Protection Lead (DWP)
JOB: Economist - Data Policy (DCMS)
JOB: Head of Knowledge and Information Access (DLUHC)
JOB: Chief of Staff - Office for Science and Technology Strategy (Cabinet Office)
JOB: Director of Information, Data and Analysis (Valuation Office Agency)
JOBS: Analyst Opportunities (NAO)
JOB: Tech & Digital Transformation Specialist (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
JOB: Population Health Management and Transformation Analyst (Oxford Clinical Commissioning Group, via John)
And finally...
Charts
Each dot is a station/tram stop (Alasdair Rae)
London's major tributaries if they were a London Underground map (Christopher Fowler)
Pets prove to be the pandemic’s cute, furry growth area (The Guardian)
Everything else
GIFs Are For Boomers Now, Sorry (Vice)
"Everyone has a data model until..." (Adam Locker)
We couldn’t get an artificial intelligence program to win the New Yorker Caption Contest. We did get sorta close though. (The Pudding)
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21 January 2022
Open chart surgery
IPPR published an interesting report on trust in politics before Christmas. It included this chart:
The Observer published an almost identical version of it. (I'd have kept the 'don't knows' personally - I think the fact that overtakes people thinking politicians put their country first is worth highlighting.)
There's a strong story: the public's view of politicians has got worse. (And from a not-especially-good place to start with.)
But there's a big problem with the chart and I think it could be (easily) improved. The fact that the axis has equal spacing between dates which are very much not equally spaced gives a sense of a gradual change over time, when actually there are only a few data points. (The tool I used to reverse engineer the data from the chart to make my own version tells me that if the data points were equally spaced, they'd have been from 1944, 1963, 1982, 2001 and 2020.)
It looks a bit different if you space the dates properly - yes, there has been an increase over time in people thinking politicians are in it for themselves, but it's obvious there's a marked increase in the 2010s and more specifically in 2021.
That prompts other questions: for example, what might the chart look like if we had multiple data points in other scandal-stricken years - would there be more peaks and troughs? (Though I don't doubt the falling trust over time.)
Adding markers accentuates the fact there are only a few data points. (Labelling only the relevant dates might also help - I've not done that here, as IPPR have in the original, just to make my life a bit easier.)
A former colleague once suggested that even spacing and marking the dates doesn't properly convey the big gaps between data points. They thought dotted lines might highlight that, while still allowing the reader to see the 'trend'. (There's a case to dot the lines between 2014 and 2021, too.)
I'd also be tempted to add percentage signs to the numbers on the y axis, label the lines rather than having a legend (remove the legend to become one - your readers' eyes aren't bouncing back and forth and you maximise the area given to the data), distinguish the colours more clearly and show the x axis more clearly. (I'd obviously add a title and source, etc, if I were doing this properly, and resize it for Twitter.)
But key to improving this chart is properly representing the dates and the fact there are only a few data points, which should make this chart about trust in politics itself more trustworthy.
A few other things:
I don't know where to start with this. I honestly don't. Perhaps if their deputy editor-in-chief had attended an illegal pie chart party we might have been spared it.
The Global Government Forum held a webinar on their 'responsive government' report, charts by me from last year.
I have an article in a forthcoming UK in a Changing Europe report on doing policy differently after Brexit - details of the launch here.
Data Bites details are imminent - but put 6pm on Wednesday 2 February in your diary.
Hopefully see some of you at GovCamp - and have a great weekend!
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Guilty parties
The latest tally of reported gatherings (Michael Goodier)
‘Wine-time Fridays’: Boozy culture where Downing Street staff slept off hangovers on sofas* (The Times)
Lockdown days in 2020 without allegations of parties (Alex Selby-Boothroyd)
How No 10’s alleged parties took place as UK Covid death toll rose – interactive (The Guardian)
Sue Gray investigation (IfG)
Con-sequences
Boris Johnson’s net favourability drops to another all-time low (YouGov)
Why recent scandals might be damaging to the Conservative Party (UK in a Changing Europe)
Why Rishi Sunak wouldn’t be a silver bullet for the Tories* (New Statesman)
Are you aged between 41 and 55? If so, and Sunak takes over, you'll have to deal with the trauma of being older than the Prime Minister for the first time in your life (Oliver Johnson)
Conservative Party leadership contests (IfG)
Best of 2021
The list of 2021 visualization lists (Maarten Lambrechts)
Our favourite maps around the world in 2021 (Ordnance Survey)
Viral content
Scientists and health leaders warn of ‘real danger’ after England’s Covid restrictions end* (FT)
Scientists warn on dropping England’s Plan B Covid curbs too soon* (FT)
In charts: How omicron modelling of 10k hospitalisations was wildly off the mark* (Telegraph)
India fears Covid superspreader events as states prepare for elections* (FT)
How widespread is Covid in animals and what are the risks to humans?* (FT)
Omicron drives record cases of child Covid hospitalisation* (FT)
The number of children in American hospitals with covid-19 is rising fast* (The Economist)
Vax populi
Do vaccine mandates actually work?* (The Economist)
Covid-19 vaccines have made Americans less anxious and depressed* (The Economist)
Covid passes boosted economies and vaccine uptake, study shows* (FT)
Side effects
How the UK high street was hit by the pandemic: look up your area* (FT)
China stands alone in its attitude towards the pandemic* (The Economist)
Businesses hail lifting of most coronavirus restrictions in England* (FT)
Cost of living
Woke up this morning to the radio talking about the cost of living rising a further 5%. It infuriates me the index that they use for this calculation, which grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation as it happens to people with the least (Jack Monroe)
Totally agree, so looked into the detail of the ONS numbers (Katharine Swindells)
“Cheap” items have seen much more drastic inflation than the average (New Statesman)
It is almost certainly the case - with all due respect to @BootstrapCook - that inflation measures are not underestimating cost of living pressures for those with the least (at the moment) (Chris Giles)
Controversial opinion: I don't think the ONS "grossly underestimates the real cost of inflation." (Sam Dumitriu)
Lots of discussion about differential inflation rates for low and high income people (Jack Leslie)
Response (Jack Monroe)
Cost of living crisis: Are wages keeping up with price rises? (Sky News)
Will 40 years of house price inflation see Brits turn their backs on buying homes? (Sky News)
How inflation has surged to its highest level since 1992* (New Statesman)
Poverty
UK Poverty 2022: The essential guide to understanding poverty in the UK (Joseph Rowntree Foundation)
Social Insecurity (Resolution Foundation - and thread)
Some great new charts unpacking health inequalities in the UK (Health Foundation)
Trust
Pharmaceutical and banking companies and governments are now seen as more trustworthy (Ipsos MORI)
2022 Edelman Trust Barometer (Edelman)
UK
How sprawling suburbs are stunting productivity in UK cities* (FT)
Why Britain needs more migrants* (The Economist)
How does the cost of the BBC TV licence compare to streaming?* (New Statesman)
Why aren’t there more students in school sixth forms? (FFT Education Datalab)
What do the latest data tell us about the UK labour market? (Economics Observatory)
Climate of fear
Mapping changes in temperature (1850-2021) (Ed Hawkins)
The World’s Troubling New Tempo of Temperature Records* (Bloomberg)
Climate-related mortality and hospital admissions, England and Wales: 2001 to 2020 (ONS)
Weather events cost the US $145bn in 2021 as climate change took hold* (FT)
Analysis: Cutting the ‘green crap’ has added £2.5bn to UK energy bills (Carbon Brief)
US
The Big Lie’s Long Shadow (FiveThirtyEight)
Exodus of House Democrats points to daunting US midterms challenge* (FT)
How Abortion Has Changed Since 1973 (FiveThirtyEight)
World
GPS (Bartosz Ciechanowski)
A shockwave from the South Pacific (Reuters)
Mapping a First Look at Tonga’s Devastation After the Volcano Eruption* (New York Times)
Antibiotic resistance kills over 1m people a year, says study* (FT)
How serious is Vladimir Putin about launching a major Ukraine offensive?* (FT)
How Europe is hooked on Russian gas* (New Statesman)
China’s birth rate continues to fall* (The Economist)
Unearthing the truth: A Zimbabwean archaeologist reimagines the story of a momentous African civilisation* (The Economist)
How we created a 3D graphic of Great Zimbabwe (The Economist)
Sport
The Late, Late Show: Leicester 2-3 Spurs Analysed (The Analyst)
Pitch perfect (Kenneth Field)
Meta data
Misinformation
The online information environment (Royal Society)
Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online (Royal Society)
Why we need to talk about the online information environment (Royal Society)
We are not powerless in the face of online misinformation (Royal Society)
Should bad science be censored on social media? (BBC News)
The BBC needs defenders in an age of misinformation* (FT)
Information health
Standards roadmap (NHSX)
Whatever happened to the GP data plan? (Rory Cellan-Jones)
When It Comes to Health Care, AI Has a Long Way to Go* (Wired)
UK government
What do we mean by ‘statistics that serve the public good’? (Office for Statistics Regulation)
Good news for those who were worried about whether the UK would remove art. 22 of the GDPR (via Sam Clark)
New laws proposed to strengthen the UK’s resilience from cyber attack (DCMS)
The GOV.UK roadmap: what we’re working on through spring 2022 (Inside GOV.UK)
Enforcement notice: Ministry of Justice (ICO)
AI got 'rithm
Artificial intelligence searches for the human touch* (FT)
Why Timnit Gebru Isn’t Waiting for Big Tech to Fix AI's Problems* (Time)
Tech in the Dock: Should AI chatbots be used to address the nation’s loneliness problem? (Nesta)
Relight my FOIA
FOI during and after the Covid-19 pandemic (Scottish FOI Commissioner)
Clearing House: Government admits it’s done nothing about ‘Orwellian’ unit (openDemocracy)
Open for the best
The Open Data Task and Finish Group (Open Data Saves Lives)
Clearer, Fairer, Better: The case for UK subsidy transparency (Centre for Policy Studies, Centre for Public Data)
Trying to make a list of all the things teams publish in the name of working in the open/transparency… (Richard Pope)
Gray matter
UK government refuses to say if Sue Gray’s interviews will be published (openDemocracy)
Sue Gray: The ex-pub landlord who could call time on Boris Johnson (Politico)
Identity parade
ID systems analysed: e-Estonia (X-Road) (Privacy International)
New digital identity checking for landlords and employers to tackle immigration abuse (Home Office)
Climate
A Project to Count Climate Crisis Deaths Has Surprising Results* (Wired)
Energy Digitalisation Taskforce publishes recommendations for a digitalised Net Zero energy system (Energy Systems Catapult)
EU should ban energy-intensive mode of crypto mining, regulator says* (FT)
Net gains, net losses
Web daddy Tim Berners-Lee on privacy, data sharing, and the web's future (The Register)
Online clampdown puts sites like mine at agitators’ mercy* (The Times)
What really happened to Politics For All* (The Spectator)
Privacy
Privacy Is Power: How Tech Policy Can Bolster Democracy* (Foreign Affairs)
Who needs privacy? (Paul Bernal)
Apple AirTags - 'A perfect tool for stalking' (BBC News)
Money
Why digital trade policy is so important (Flint Global)
Microsoft plans to buy Call of Duty company Activision Blizzard for nearly $70bn (BBC News)
Go, ogle
On this date 1 year ago, under Google's employment, my life was about to change (Margaret Mitchell)
Google Team That Keeps Services Online Rocked by Mental Health Crisis* (Bloomberg)
Europe’s Move Against Google Analytics Is Just the Beginning* (Wired)
Digital, policy
Top Issues Facing Govt In Implementing Digital, Data and Technology strategies. (Emma Stace)
How to Do Agile Policy Work (James Plunkett)
Funding the Digital Policy Lab (Promising Trouble)
Everything else
Twelve million jobs to be lost to automation in Europe by 2040 (Computer Weekly)
‘Virtual reality is genuine reality’ so embrace it, says philosopher (The Guardian)
Vertically Challenged (Cory Doctorow)
India’s tech sector has a caste problem (Rest of World)
Public engagement: How to build a global evidence base? (On Think Tanks)
Digital Transformations of the Public Arena (Cambridge Elements)
Natural History Museum reaches landmark of five million specimens available online as report values economic benefit of digitising the collection to be more than £2 billion (Natural History Museum)
Does the BBC offer a model for public service digital platforms? (Bennett Institute)
Tony Blair Speech: The Future of Britain in an Era of the Three Revolutions (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
Opportunities
BOOT CAMP: How to make the most of data for good (Apolitical)
SURVEY: ONS API users - Census 2021 (ONS)
Book Launch! Geographies of Digital Exclusion: Data and Inequality (Oxford Internet Institute)
The book
EVENT: AI UK (The Alan Turing Institute)
EVENT: UK Data Protection Reform in Transnational Context: What New Direction? (School of Advanced Study)
JOB: Deputy Director Data Policy (DCMS)
JOB: Head of Data Strategy, Design and Planning (Cabinet Office)
JOB: Chief Digital & Information Officer (Planning Inspectorate)
JOB: Senior Analyst – Fiscal Reporting and Analysis (Office for Budget Responsibility)
JOB: Senior Data Modeller (Ofgem)
JOB: Open Government Participation Policy Officer (Scottish Government)
JOB: Insight Analyst (Oxfordshire County Council, via John)
JOB: Service Delivery Officer GIS Analyst (Oxfordshire County Council, via John)
JOB: Senior Data Journalist (BBC)
JOB: Head of UK Democracy Fund (Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust)
JOB: DATA PROTECTION POLICY MANAGER (Open Rights Group)
JOB: Editor - Data Rights (The Citizens)
VACANCY: Stewardship Committee Members (360Giving)
And finally...
Words
QUIZ: Which class are you, according to the Great British public?* (New Statesman)
I tried to fix my wireless earbuds. It did not go well* (FT)
Revealed: UK Gov’t Plans Publicity Blitz to Undermine Privacy of Your Chats (Rolling Stone)
The UK Has A Voyeuristic New Propaganda Campaign Against Encryption (Techdirt)
Pictures
The Most Frequently Used Emoji of 2021 (Unicode, via the ODI)
The Inuit don’t have 50+ words for snow but the British definitely have 50+ words for being drunk (Elspeth Kirkman)
i made an algorithm look at 1,000 memes on Twitter and then produce its own (Croix S. Almer)
No words
It’s time to put some order in the digital “Wild West”. (Thierry Breton)
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14 January 2022
Happy New Year!
How are we a fortnight into 2022 already?! I hope you all had a good Christmas break and have had a good start to the new year.
Given this is the first W:GC since early December, there are a *lot* of links, so I'll keep the intro as short as possible (relatively speaking)...
I blogged about my 2021 here, with some reflections on a first year of freelancing and links to all the work I did. (Hire me!) Loads of stuff I did ended up coming out in the last few weeks of last year or first few days of this one, including:
My research on how to design a research commissioning process (meta, and not the Zuckerberg kind) for mySociety. Summary here, and a first call for proposals - on public understanding of local authorities and climate - here
A summary of my forthcoming long-read on the R number (hopefully a chapter in my book, too) for Understanding Patient Data and the Wellcome Trust
The Data Game - the world's first data gameshow (probably) - from the ODI Summit, and a special ODI Christmas podcast
A special IfG Christmas podcast on what fictional governments can tell us about real ones. (We did something similar last year, and I enjoyed Terence's blogpost on a similar theme).
Some work I've been helping Public Digital and the Lisbon Council with on benchmarking digital government.
And I spoke at techUK's Digital Ethics Summit on the politics of 'mutant algorithms'.
Coming up/opportunities:
The next Data Bites will be at 6pm on Wednesday 2 February. Details will appear here soon, where you can also watch the previous 25 events.
I'm supporting mySociety with their programme of TICTeC events, on civic tech, through the year - we have a surgery on accessibility and inclusivity coming up in early February.
The Bennett Institute and Prospect have launched their latest Public Policy prize - on what a twenty-first century civil service is for. (Wrong answers only, etc.)
My friends at New Local are advertising some jobs.
Natalia Domagala (who spoke at Data Bites 25 about the UK government's algorithmic transparency work) is compiling a reading list on algorithmic transparency - help her out here.
And if you have a new year's resolution to take up a new hobby, try something different or join a choir, why don't you take up a new hobby, try something different and join a choir by giving my choir a go? For those of you able to get to north London, we have a 'Come and Sing Day' tomorrow, and a couple of free Tuesday rehearsals before the end of the month - full details here. (And should you be musically minded, you may enjoy this variation on a currently dominant theme.)
There are lots of links this week, but I would commend the Washington Post's interactive attempt to explain gerrymandering through the medium of mini golf, which you can find in the 'And finally...' section.
Have a good week
Gavin
Tumblr normally struggles when the newsletter has as many links as it does this week, so you can find this week’s full newsletter here.
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3 December 2021
See you in 2022!
Well, that's it. Another year of Warning: Graphic Content done. Thank you for reading!
I'll spare you reflections on 2021 - a big year for all things data, all in all - for now. Partly because there are still a few weeks left, but, in all honesty, mainly because I have a lot of work to be getting on with (my first year of freelancing has been exciting, but also exhausting - admittedly, a good problem for a freelancer to have!).
Here are some final things before this newsletter takes its leave until 2022:
I think it was one of the very best Data Bites events this week - you can watch it as live here and catch up on the tweets here, with the edited video appearing here shortly. As I pointed out on the night, there had already been 24 Data Bites events, so you can make your own Data Bites advent calendar should you be so inclined... If you'd like to speak at or sponsor a Data Bites event next year, please get in touch.
I've been lucky enough to do some work with the excellent team at New Local this year. They're currently hiring a Director of Research.
If you want to fill the W:GC hole in your December, try one of the newsletters listed here.
I'm going to be discussing 'Mutant algorithms: the perfect political scapegoat?' at the techUK Digital Ethics Summit next Wednesday 8 December at 1.25pm. Come! (Virtually)
All being well... my choir - the New Tottenham Singers - will be singing at our Christmas concert on Saturday 18 December. Come! (In person)
Thanks for sticking with the newsletter and me through the overwhelming number of links, puns and songs this year - have a great Christmas, a happy and healthy new year, and see you in 2022!
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
'The world is watching South Africa’: health experts sift Omicron clues* (FT)
Omicron is starting to spread around the world* (The Economist)
Which countries have reported cases of the Omicron variant?* (New Statesman)
Tracking Omicron and Other Coronavirus Variants* (New York Times)
Concerns mount over rapidly spreading B.1.1.529 variant* (New Statesman)
'The virus is always searching for its next move’: why science is alert to new variants* (FT)
Tracking the coronavirus across Europe* (The Economist)
Boosters are making a big difference* (New Statesman)
How Europe has rushed to deliver booster jabs* (New Statesman)
Visualising SARS-CoV-2 transmission routes and mitigations (BMJ)
Side effects
This year may prove even worse for the tourism industry than 2020* (The Economist)
83% of Britons support the new requirement in England for face masks to be worn in shops and on public transport (YouGov)
UK
Shadow cabinet (IfG)
From Red Walls to Red Bridges: Rebuilding Labour’s Voter Coalition (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
How MPs’ second jobs fail to gain them experience of the UK economy* (FT)
Domestic flights in the UK: where do we fly? (House of Commons Library)
Can cafe culture and more social opportunities save the high street? (Sky News)
Local enterprise partnerships (IfG)
The lasting impact of violence against women and girls (ONS)
Roe back
Abortions could require 200-mile trips if Roe is overturned (Axios)
Abortion could be banned in 26 US states if Roe v Wade is weakened* (New Statesman)
What Americans Really Think About Abortion (FiveThirtyEight)
How abortion laws in the U.S. compare with those in other countries* (Washington Post)
Hostile takeover
Exclusive: British citizenship of six million people could be jeopardised by Home Office plans* (New Statesman)
Migration crisis: ‘We believed we were going to die out there'* (FT)
Channel deaths: What the marine tracking data tells us about the rescue (Sky News)
China
Japan approves extra defence spending amid concerns over China’s rising power* (FT)
China emissions fall as economy buffeted by property downturn* (FT)
Macau casinos gamble on relations with Beijing* (FT)
China Cash Flowed Through Congo Bank to Former President’s Cronies* (Bloomberg)
World
Tel Aviv is the world’s most expensive city* (The Economist)
How regions near Stalin’s gulag benefit today from his victims* (The Economist)
Inflation tracker: the latest figures as countries grapple with rising prices* (FT)
Where are America’s lead pipes?* (The Economist)
World Population by Latitude (Alasdair Rae)
Data
Data security incident trends (ICO)
The Global AI Index (Tortoise)
#TortoiseAISummit21
Everything else
Where have weather records been broken so far this year?* (FT)
Who will win the World Chess Championship?* (The Economist)
2021 World Chess Championship (FiveThirtyEight)
The Nation’s Best Punter Is Changing The Game (FiveThirtyEight)
BEST OF THE VISUALISATION WEB… JULY 2021 (Visualising Data)
Meta data
Fascinating 'rithm
Algorithmic Transparency Standard (CDDO)
What is our new Algorithmic Transparency Standard? (Data in government)
UK government publishes pioneering standard for algorithmic transparency (CDDO)
Thread on why this matters (Ada Lovelace Institute)
Can the UK’s Algorithmic Transparency Standard’ deliver meaningful transparency? (Tim Davies)
Good to see publication by @CabinetOfficeUK based on @CDEIUK work of Algorithmic Transparency Standard for the Public Sector but we need to go further, with mandatory risk and impact assessment. See my Private Members Bill recently published (Lord Clement-Jones)
Working of algorithms used in government decision-making to be revealed (The Guardian)
Government aims to make its 'black box' algorithms more transparent (Sky News)
Global Britain
#FutureTechForum
Future Tech Forum - Opening Keynote (DCMS)
UK signs series of international digital agreements at first Future Tech Forum (DCMS)
UK impact startups raise £2 billion to solve the world’s greatest challenges (DCMS)
UK G7 Presidency Statement: Digital and Tech (DCMS)
UK Government
#OPEN Things about the UK new direction for data consultation (Peter Wells)
Official judgment portal set to go live (Law Society Gazette)
Energy performance certificates now include the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) (DLUHC)
Introducing the government’s Chief Technology Officer Council (Technology in Government)
One Login for Government: December 2021 update (Government Digital Service)
Evaluating government spending (National Audit Office)
New ID check plan to block children from porn sites* (Sunday Times)
Podcast: Maps in services (Government Digital Service)
Joining up on future technologies (Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum)
A Document Management Service fit for the future (Defra digital)
Whitehall’s top official admits need to improve civil service technical skills (Public Technology)
Government fined £500,000 for New Year honours data breach (BBC News)
Cabinet Office criticised over 'rushed' watchdog recruitment (Civil Service World)
In the future farming programme, we're trying to take a more open and collaborative approach to working with farmers and other experts (Janet Hughes)
Sir David Norgrove to Dominic Raab – Statistics on transgender prisoners (UK Statistics Authority)
Bye-CO
Farewell from the Commissioner (ICO)
Outgoing Information Commissioner calls for FOI improvements – but minister says FOI is “truly malign” (Campaign for Freedom of Information)
“We’re just socialising the idea with Ministers” (Martin Rosenbaum)
ICO calls on Google and other companies to eliminate existing privacy risks posed by adtech industry (ICO)
ICO issues provisional view to fine Clearview AI Inc over £17 million (ICO)
What is it good for?
Speech by SIS Chief Richard Moore : Human Intelligence in the Digital Age (MI6)
MI6 must adapt to new technology to survive, says spy chief (BBC News)
Rules of war need rewriting for the age of AI weapons* (FT)
Towards a data-centric great game: New challenges for small states in contemporary power politics (Finnish Institute of International Affairs)
AI got 'rithm
Reith Lectures: AI and why people should be scared (BBC News)
193 countries adopt first-ever global agreement on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (UN)
Civil society calls on the EU to put fundamental rights first in the AI Act (EDRi)
Harmonising Artificial Intelligence: The role of standards in the EU AI Regulation (Oxford Internet Institute)
Regulate to innovate: A route to regulation that reflects the ambition of the UK AI Strategy (Ada Lovelace Institute)
Automation and the radicalization of America (Brookings)
AI is making applying for jobs even more miserable* (FT)
Fake AI - Edited by Frederike Kaltheuner (Meatspace Press)
#JournalismAI
Google fired its star AI researcher one year ago. Now she’s launching her own institute* (Washington Post)
Misinformation
Inside the ‘Misinformation’ Wars* (New York Times)
Those Cute Cats Online? They Help Spread Misinformation.* (New York Times)
Big tech
ODI Canalside Chats: Big questions for big tech (ODI)
Can we trust the organisations creating our digital information infrastructure? (Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy)
UK regulator expected to block Meta’s Giphy deal* (FT)
A young Argentine was caught in a cocaine-fueled celebrity scandal; 25 years later, Google won’t let her forget (Rest of World)
not sure anyone has heard but, I resigned from Twitter (@jack)
Information health
Launching the adult social care technology innovation and digital skills reviews (NHSX)
Lessons learned from the multi-agency advisory service – helping developers of AI and data-driven tech to navigate the regulatory pathway (NICE)
Data
Lessons from shocks and crises: how data can deliver for government (IfG)
Statistical Imaginaries: An Ode to Responsible Data Science (danah boyd)
@ODIHQ hosted an international roundtable in partnership w/@TheGovLab & @opengovpart to explore experimentation in #data & #AI for cities, local govt, & #DigitalTwins (ODI)
What a datafied worldview means for human rights (OpenGlobalRights)
Everything else
This fact check is interesting to me because of the way technology was used to help our team (Andy Dudfield)
Bullies rely on power to protect them, not online anonymity (The Guardian)
China surveillance of journalists to use 'traffic-light' system (BBC News)
Three Summits to Save the Open Internet? (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
UK experts call for more joined-up tech regulation (Tech Monitor)
Opportunities
EVENT: Regulate to innovate – report launch event (Ada Lovelace Institute)
JOB: Head of Data Journalism (ONS)
JOB: Head of Content Design (ONS)
JOB: Senior Data Engineer (CDDO)
JOB: Senior Research & Evaluation Analyst (GDS)
JOB: Policy/Programme Manager - Digital Identity (Maternity leave cover) (techUK)
JOBS: Graphics journalists (Bloomberg)
And finally...
It's the most wonderful time of the year
What do the public consider acceptable and unacceptable at Christmas? (Ipsos MORI)
Everything else
Want to see some graphic violence? (via David Adler)
A Map Of Sitcoms Set In London (Londonist)
Which birds are the biggest jerks at the feeder? A massive data analysis reveals the answer.* (Washington Post)
Not only is today's date a palindrome, it's also an ambigram (Michelle Kessel)
It works in two formats (Michelle Kessel)
No it doesn't (Alex Selby-Boothroyd)
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26 November 2021
Research for the hero
Have you, or your organisation, ever commissioned any research?
Have you, or your organisation, ever submitted a response to a request for proposals?
Do you Have Views on how research commissioning works or how it could work better?
I'm delighted to be working with mySociety to develop a new research commissioning process, as they look to commission research starting with their Climate Programme. We're planning to produce a short report that we hope will be of use to other organisations. If you have some insights you'd like to share, please email us. They're also thinking about how they do things in general, should you have any views on that, too.
In other news:
Next week is Data Bites week - come and hear about algorithmic transparency, real-time economic indicators, dashboards speaking truth to power, and the AI Barometer. And please get in touch if you'd like to speak at, or sponsor, an event in 2022. IfG also have an event on 'Lessons from shocks and crises: how data can deliver for government' next week.
How did I not know this Twitter account existed?
It's the annual Orwell Lecture tonight - this year given by Ian McEwan, in person and online. And you have the weekend to think about applying for my old job (which I did nearly a decade ago...), deputy director of the Orwell Foundation. And this year's Prizes are open for entries. And this year's Youth Prize has announced its theme.
I'll be speaking at techUK's Digital Ethics Summit on Wednesday 8 December - register and find more details here.
I'll be singing at New Tottenham Singers' Christmas concert, 'The Glory of Christmas', on Saturday 18 December - if you can make it to north London that day, please buy tickets here.
Have a great weekend, and see you next week for what will (probably) be the last newsletter of 2021
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
Five quick tweets on the new variant B.1.1.529 (John Burn-Murdoch)
UK boosted by third-jab success as infections surge in much of Europe* (FT)
Sadly, the nice period of falling cumulative excess UK deaths ended a while ago (FT)
Covid in Europe since September (Telegraph)
In charts: The European countries racing to vaccinate amid rising Covid cases and lockdowns* (Telegraph)
US braces for ‘fifth wave’ of Covid on eve of Thanksgiving* (FT)
The Trouble With the Case Curve During the Holidays* (New York Times)
How low vaccination rates are driving Europe’s winter surge* (New Statesman)
The pandemic in 60 seconds: animated maps show how Covid-19 spread across NSW and Victoria (The Guardian)
The Winners and Losers From a Year of Ranking Covid Resilience* (Bloomberg)
Tech
Nuclear fusion: why the race to harness the power of the sun just sped up* (FT)
NASA hopes to hit an asteroid now in case we really need to knock one away later* (Washington Post)
China’s exiled crypto machines fuel global mining boom* (FT)
Big carmakers struggle to touch Tesla production forecasts* (FT)
No ship, Sherlock
Map of post-Brexit freight routes (Irish Maritime Development Office via Ciaran Cuffe)
China blocks access to shipping location data* (FT)
Every Step of the Global Supply Chain Is Going Wrong — All at Once* (Bloomberg)
UK
Revealed: first-time homes have grown less affordable under the Tories (The Guardian)
A chart of UK MPs' salaries over time, adjusted for inflation to 2020 values (Dr James Strong)
How did your MP vote on social care funding? (The Guardian)
Exclusive: Tory MPs would be over £1m worse off in six months with Boris Johnson’s second job ban* (New Statesman)
As Tory MPs revolt over social care, is Boris Johnson losing his grip?* (New Statesman)
Climate change is now the most important issue, according to the British public* (New Statesman)
Draw your own geography (ONS)
UNIVERSITIES AND SOCIAL MOBILITY (Sutton Trust)
USA
Everything in the House Democrats’ Budget Bill* (The Upshot)
Georgia Shows Just How Broken American Unemployment Benefits Are* (Bloomberg)
The backlog in America’s immigration courts keeps growing* (The Economist)
Everywhere
Antibiotic accountability: how countries and companies perform* (FT)
Are housing rents in cities bouncing back?* (The Economist)
This Climate Does Not Exist
Everywhere else
AFRICA’S RISING CITIES* (Washington Post)
What is happening to the Turkish lira?* (New Statesman - interesting chart/important story, but there's still something incongruous about 'record low' and a spike in a chart)
How many people have been killed in Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs?* (The Economist)
Everything else
Just like modern humans, honeybees avoid each other amid plagues* (The Economist)
Jack Dorsey’s Celebrity Network Is Helping Him Give Away Billions* (Bloomberg)
Sport
Is this the beginning of a new era for men’s tennis?* (The Economist)
Magnus Carlsen Is Back To Defend His Chess Title (FiveThirtyEight)
Meta data
A sense of direction
Feedback on 'Data: a new direction': proposed government reforms to the UK data protection regime (National Data Guardian)
The ODI responds to the UK government’s consultation on proposed reforms to data protection (ODI)
The Consumer Voice: Automated Decision Making and Cookie Consents proposed by “Data: A new direction" (Which?)
Submission to Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport consultation, Data: a new direction (Cancer Research UK)
The UK government’s plan to reform data-protection laws are terrifying (openDemocracy)
UK government proposals for reforming data regulation (LSE)
Information health
Major reforms to NHS workforce planning and tech agenda (DHSC)
NHS Digital and NHSX to merge with NHS England (Digital Health)
NHS digital reorganisation: start by working in the open (Public Digital)
From oximeters to AI, where bias in medical devices may lurk (The Guardian)
Ed Humpherson to Emma Rourke (ONS): Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status publication (Office for Statistics Regulation)
Coronavirus Deaths: Understanding ONS data on mortality and vaccination status (ONS)
Simpson’s Paradox and Vaccines (Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group)
Putting data, digital and tech at the heart of transforming the NHS (DHSC)
Relight my FOIA
Today, we're hearing from Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner (PACAC)
Info Commissioner Elizabeth Denham tells @CommonsPACAC there is a "need for urgent reform in legislation as well as more powers and resources for our office" (Martin Rosenbaum)
Private firms working for UK government ‘should be subject to FOI rules’ (The Guardian)
Cabinet Office blocked data watchdog from scrutiny of secretive 'blacklist unit' (Mirror)
Further written evidence - the Cabinet Office Freedom of Information Clearing House (PACAC)
ICO fails at FOI (Jon Baines)
UK government
National Data Strategy Mission 1 Policy Framework: Unlocking the value of data across the economy (DCMS)
Unlocking the Value of Data through the NDS Mission 1 Policy Framework (DCMS)
EVENT: Join us as we discuss the NDS Mission 1 Policy Framework: Unlocking the Value of Data (DCMS)
GOV.UK login system received £100m funding in Spending Review (Public Technology)
Back to the past with government identity (Computer Weekly)
Advisory board of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation: Terms of reference 2021-23 (CDEI)
Paul Dacre should rail against ministers, not their civil servants, over his failed bid to chair Ofcom (UK in a Changing Europe)
Experimental migration data: No evidence of UK exodus (ONS)
Secondment to BBC News: the time I had to deputise for the Head of Statistics (GSS)
Providing faster and better estimates of the population (ONS)
AI got 'rithm
DWP urged to reveal algorithm that ‘targets’ disabled for benefit fraud (The Observer)
Why is a @DWP algorithm repeatedly flagging disabled people as potential fraudsters? (Privacy International)
Henry Kissinger and Eric Schmidt take on AI* (The Economist)
A Robot Wrote This Book Review* (New York Times)
Yesterday Once More: Algorithms are changing how we experience nostalgia (Real Life)
Security
END-TO-END ENCRYPTION: THE (FRUITLESS?) SEARCH FOR A COMPROMISE (Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford)
Ex-security chief: the government must prove its encryption plans work—or abandon them* (Prospect)
Palantir CEO says companies working with U.S. adversaries should justify their position (CNBC)
GoDaddy just realized it was hacked months ago (Mashable)
The Netherlands’ MoD CIO prepares for ‘data-centric warfare’ (Tech Monitor)
Misinformation
How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation* (MIT Technology Review)
Platforms and the public square (RSA)
Governments
Digital Nations Ministerial Summit (DCMS)
A Fix-It Job for Government Tech* (New York Times)
Game Design for Public Services (Public)
Everything else
Plan for UN outlines how social media firms can help prevent ethnic violence (The Guardian)
Europe’s new digital rules, known as the Digital Services Act & Digital Markets Act (Mark Scott)
Beyond excited to be this close to launching EduClarity - my new venture offering data support & training to #school #governors and #academy #trustees (Jamie Whyte)
An alliance for open and transparent land data systems and inclusive land governance: A global picture and country actions (Land Portal, Global Data Barometer, Open Data Charter)
Subpostmasters asked to withdraw support for Post Office scandal inquiry (Computer Weekly)
We are awash in digital light (MIT Technology Review)
11 Tech Books for 2021 (FOSSlife)
The open-source investigators trying to bring justice to Myanmar* (FT)
Opportunities
EVENT: Digital Ethics Summit 2021 (techUK)
EVENT: 2021 OGP Global Summit: Seoul, Republic of Korea (Open Government Partnership)
INTERNSHIP: The UK’s national institute for health data science announce their 2022 Health Data Science Black Internship Programme (HDR UK)
JOB: G7 Ethical Hacker (Cabinet Office)
JOB: Data Scientist (CDDO)
JOB: Senior Performance Analyst (CDDO)
JOB: Senior Reporting and Data Analyst (HMT)
JOB: Senior Data Analyst (UKRI)
JOB: GLOBAL DIRECTOR, DATA LAB (World Resources Institute)
And finally...
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving feasts return in force but at a more expensive price* (FT)
Thanksgiving inflation: Cost of turkey feast up 14% (Axios)
9 charts to be thankful for this Thanksgiving (Vox)
What’s on the Thanksgiving table in a hotter, drier world?* (Washington Post)
Seasons and celebrations
Our Very Unscientific Poll On When Each Season Starts (FiveThirtyEight)
Fibonacci Day (Massimo)
Fibonacci Day (Brian Bilston)
Everything else
The fifth element (via @why0hy)
A Totally Objective Ranking of Every UK Local Authority Logo (Robin Wilde)
Excel, dates... (Erik Seaberg, Austin Federa)
Only two episodes of Peppa Pig score above 6.5 on IMDb (via Alex Selby-Boothroyd)
Make it stop (Kevin Roose)
Still the greatest graphic of all time (Tobin Stone)
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19 November 2021
Bits and Bites
Data Bites
The last one of the year, the first of our fourth cycle of eight, finishing with our 100th presentation... join me on 1 December for our 25th Data Bites. We'll be getting an early look at the government's work on making decision-making algorithms transparent, and hear about CDEI's latest AI Barometer, real-time economic indicators at BEIS and dashboards and decisions from the Number 10 Delivery Unit. Catch up on the previous 24 events here.
UKGovCamp
One of the highlights of the year for public sector data and digital types is back - the excellent unconference UKGovCamp returns on 20-22 January. If you've never been, it's well worth attending. I realise I still haven't written up my session, on whether some sort of annual report on the state of government data would be worthwhile, from this year's event - though the notes are here, there's a Jamboard here, and my ODI report on mapping the UK government data landscape is a necessary first step. The good GovCamp folk are also looking for some graphic design support.
A sense of direction
Pity DCMS's servers at around 11.44pm tonight, as we approach the deadline for responses to government's consultation on data protection. Useful links in Meta data below (and here). And don't forget the next DCMS call for evidence deadline - on monitoring and evaluating the National Data Strategy (closes 3 December).
For the love of god, pie?
There are some excellent data journalists at News UK. Which makes this chart, in this article on whether Boris Johnson will get away with the current sleaze scandal, even more inexplicable and unforgiveable:
It's bad enough that it's a pie chart, when a 100% bar chart would make it easier to compare the results. It's even worse that it's a doughnut chart, which strips out the angle that would make it more readable. But why, why, WHY does the 'Agree' start in a different place for Total than it does for Conservative and Labour voters, making it even more difficult to read?
Everything else
I suspect this is an interesting read behind the paywall, but I've often used 'chartjunk' when delivering data visualisation training. Is it a term that comes with downsides? Yes. Does it help quickly summarise some important points for a non-specialist audience and provide a useful starting point for further discussion? Also yes. Is it good that data visualisation is at a stage of maturity where we can interrogate our assumptions like this? Yes. Is there a risk such discussions become overcomplicated, too niche and too focused on specialists at the expense of helping others understand the field? Also yes.
Ian McEwan gives the Orwell Lecture next week. We're also looking for a deputy director - deadline 29 November. And the 2022 Prize opens for entries next week.
Maybe it's just me, bending over backwards to see it, but... I can't help but think that this visual hits something of a bum note.
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
Botched covid-19 test results in Britain led to thousands of extra cases* (The Economist)
European countries bring back Covid restrictions as cases rise* (FT)
Weekly data: No, Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy hasn’t worked (Investment Monitor)
Boosterism
Boris Johnson urges Britons to get Covid booster jabs* (FT)
COVID-19: Booster jabs for over-40s - The data behind the vaccine expansion and the route to a lockdown-free winter (Sky News)
Vax populi
Pfizer Fights to Control Secret of $36 Billion Covid Vaccine Recipe* (Bloomberg)
Which vaccine is the most effective against the Delta variant?* (The Economist)
Vaccines are finally arriving in Africa—but the rollout will be a challenge* (The Economist)
Cop out
Can the world ‘Keep 1.5C Alive’?* (FT)
How has Cop26 shifted the dial on the climate crisis? A visual guide (The Guardian)
Biden aims to speed up climate policy push after COP26* (FT)
Why Many Americans Underestimate Who Is Most Concerned About The Environment (FiveThirtyEight)
Working it out
What we’re getting wrong about the “Great Resignation”* (New Statesman)
How UK job vacancies have reached a record high* (New Statesman)
Men without university degrees have suffered the biggest hit to employment since COVID (The Conversation)
Property
New data on property in England & Wales owned by overseas individuals (The Centre for Public Data)
Hong Kong’s high-end property sales boom despite protests and pandemic* (FT)
Politics
Boris Johnson plan on ‘second jobs’ would hit fewer than 10 MPs (The Guardian)
MP data: Parliamentary activities (House of Commons Library)
Labour now leads the Tories in most polls – but it should avoid celebration* (New Statesman)
Local government funding in England (IfG)
How popular is Joe Biden?* (The Economist)
Place
All the countries scaled and shaped correctly (@artlebedev via Neil Kaye)
Topographic cross section across the entire world, roughly around the equator (Daan Beelen)
Can colouring in maps improve the sustainability of our cities? (The Alan Turing Institute)
UK
How the UK trails behind Europe for high-speed rail* (New Statesman)
How ambulance waiting times in England have surged* (New Statesman)
Constituency data: road traffic accidents (House of Commons Library)
Everything else
What Makes Life Meaningful? Views From 17 Advanced Economies (Pew)
Wall Street Is Churning Out SPACs at Investors’ Peril* (Bloomberg)
America’s falling standards in reading and maths predate the pandemic* (The Economist)
What age do players in different positions peak?* (The Athletic)
Cinema owners say simultaneous streaming has become a scourge* (FT)
Afghanistan: Millions at risk of starvation as vital seeds go to waste in warehouses (Sky News)
How Goldman's BRICs Flew Then Faded in Two Decades* (Bloomberg)
BEST OF THE VISUALISATION WEB… JUNE 2021 (Visualising Data)
Meta data
A sense of direction
Outline of the ODI’s draft response to the UK data protection consultation (ODI)
Responsible innovation: what does it mean and how can we make it happen? (Ada Lovelace Institute)
mySociety’s response to ‘Data: a new direction’ (mySociety)
medConfidential response to the DCMS Data Consultation (medConfidential)
UK Data Protection Law consultation. Speak up. (Defend Digital Me)
Event Recap: Can GDPR’s ‘Automated Decision Opt-Out’ Be Improved Without Harming Users? (Center for Data Innovation)
Harms race
End this epidemic of scam ads, put them in the Online Safety Bill! (Martin Lewis)
This afternoon's @HoCpetitions hearing on #OnlineAbuse (Maeve Walsh)
"What if you could only speak online if you had a car number plate": quick comments on yet another weird Internet surveillance proposal (Neil Brown)
AI got 'rithm
THE STEEP COST OF CAPTURE (Meredith Whittaker, Interactions)
Operationalising AI ethics: barriers, enablers and next steps (AI & Society)
Surveillance as a Service: The European AI-Assisted Mass Surveillance Marketplace (Oxford Internet Institute)
What Went Wrong With Zillow? A Real-Estate Algorithm Derailed Its Big Bet* (Wall Street Journal)
UK’s AI masterplan vs reality (Engineering & Technology)
You Are Here: When maps become algorithms and algorithms become maps (Real Life)
The Age Of AI Scrambles Strategy (Noema)
With the Metaverse on the way, an AI bill of rights is urgent (Venture Beat)
We trained a machine learning model to automatically detect climate misinformation (John Cook and others)
A sense of face
Facial recognition and biometrics in schools (Defend Digital Me)
Facial Recognition Has Its Limits. Just Ask the ‘Super-Recognizers’* (Bloomberg)
Take it sleazy
Is Britain a corrupt country? Here’s why it’s impossible to tell (openDemocracy)
Sunlight isn’t the best disinfectant to combat sleaze, statutory watchdogs are (i)
Lack of 'VIP lane' transparency shows need for procurement reform (IfG)
Testing firm can profit from sale of Covid swabs* (Sunday Times)
UK government
Government scientists seek real-world insight for net-zero policymaking (Civil Service World)
Measuring complex digital services (Data in government)
Cabinet Office explores creation of £5m digital platform to manage all government grants (Civil Service World)
Data Bites 24: using automation to make government grantmaking more transparent (IfG)
Why we think online HTML forms are usually better than document-based forms in government (Government Digital Service)
Decision on Data Best Practice Guidance and Digitalisation Strategy and Action Plan Guidance (Ofgem)
Introducing the Government Data Maturity Model (Government Data Quality Hub)
Making your geospatial data easy to find: Metadata best practice guide for data publishers (Geospatial Commission)
UK stop-and-search data ‘withheld to hide rise in discrimination’ (The Guardian)
LOTI to develop data ethics governance approach for London (Computer Weekly)
Viral content
Covid statistics and the era of hyper-scrutiny* (The Spectator)
Sir David Norgrove speaks at University College London: Covid and the Use and Abuse of Statistics (UK Statistics Authority)
Antisocial media
You Are the Object of a Secret Extraction Operation* (New York Times)
Life, the metaverse and everything: a quick guide* (FT)
The world’s most professional whistleblower (Politico)
Facebook Isn’t Telling You How Popular Right-Wing Content Is on the Platform (The Markup)
Helping our community stay safe while having fun on TikTok (TikTok)
Data
Amazon's Dark Secret: It Has Failed to Protect Your Data* (Wired)
Enabling data sharing for social benefit through data trusts (GPAI)
Analysis (Peter Wells)
African Statistics Day: How the ONS is supporting better statistics across Africa and the developing world (ONS)
Making data count against child abuse (University of Edinburgh)
Reading Stories in Data: A Conversation with Dan Bouk (The Order of Multitudes)
Training and Capacity Building Strategy (ADR UK)
Data Scores as Governance (Data Justice Lab)
Everything else
Nadine Dorries: Culture secretary says social media has been hijacked (BBC News)
Update on Open Banking (CMA)
Who is Charlotte Crosswell, incoming trustee of the Open Banking Implementation Entity? (AltFi)
Commission on Information Disorder Final Report (Aspen Institute)
Was Japan’s ‘lost’ generation ahead of the virtual curve?* (FT)
DataKind UK’s new five-year strategy (DataKind UK)
John Doerr wants to stop climate change—with OKRs (Wired)
The Hidden Labor of Information: A Conversation with Craig Robertson (The Order of Multitudes)
Opportunities
EVENT: Data Bites #25: Getting things done with data in government (IfG)
EVENT: UKGovCamp 2022
EVENT: Lessons from shocks and crises: how data can deliver for government (IfG)
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS: A co-produced evaluation of the JUST AI fellowship programme (Ada Lovelace Institute)
CALL FOR EXPERTS in the data protection field (Council of Europe)
JOBS: Data Scientist (ONS Data Science Campus)
JOB: Lecturer (Data Science) (ONS Data Science Campus)
JOB: Trainee Lecturer (Data Science) (ONS Data Science Campus)
JOB: Senior Performance Analyst (GDS)
JOB: Lead Data Scientist Data Science and Statistical Evaluation Lead (Upstream Evaluation Lead) (HMRC)
JOB: Data Quality Lead (HMRC)
JOB: Lead Data Architect (DfE)
JOB: Lead Analyst (ONS)
JOB: Director of Digital, Data, and Technology (UK Export Finance)
JOB: News Graphics Editor (The Guardian)
JOB: Digital Campaigner (Foxglove)
JOB: Data Scientist (NCVO)
And finally...
Icelandverse (Inspired by Iceland)
Popular/best selling artists by English county of origin (r/MapPorn)
the open internet (Heather Burns)
Voila. The stupidest table I’ve ever seen that wasn’t deliberate satire (via Rob Ford)
one of the odder DfT datatasets (Alistair Baldwin)
Today in late capitalism, apparently there is a whole product category of "mouse jigglers"... (Noah Veltman)
Canned or fresh: The great cranberry sauce debate (Axios)
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12 November 2021
A sense of direction
The government's mega consultation, Data: A new direction, closes a week today if you want to have your say. Most of the activity I've been involved in, including various events and roundtable write-ups, has now concluded - I've summarised that (and other contributions) in a thread as well as in Meta data, below.
Some high level thoughts based on those events and various other conversations:
There's much more detail in the consultation on removing 'barriers' and much less on new 'safeguards' that might be necessary or protecting existing rights. In general, it feels like there's something missing throughout on how to engage and involve the public on an ongoing basis in these big decisions about how data is used. It's focused on 'data', not the impacts on individuals and groups. And - as I'm sure a lot of responses will make clear - there's also a false dichotomy between opportunities and the need for sensible regulation - the two are intrinsically linked
The legislation seems to be less of a problem - and reforming it therefore less of a priority - than other issues, such as culture, a lack of data foundations (poor data quality etc) and tools, guidance and support in using existing law. It's worth remembering GDPR is only a few years old - people are still getting used to it
That also means businesses - whom the consultation is designed to help in reducing burdens - might also not be willing to overhaul a regime they've recently spent time and money getting used to. In providing more flexibility - organisations being able to implement their own privacy management plans, doing away with existing measures like data protection officers and impact assessments - the proposals could actually make life more difficult, with organisations reinventing the wheel and not learning from one another in a way enabled by a more consistent regime. Abolishing what is regarded in some quarters as red tape may only result in a phoenix of greater bureaucracy and burdensome paperwork rising from the ashes
Running through the whole thing is a question of how to regulate in an agile and adaptable way in a fast-moving world. Even though I remember similar conversations about media regulation a decade ago - with lots of people gesturing towards biomedical regulators, particularly the HFEA - it feels like there's a gap (certainly in civil society knowledge) around what good regulation should look like and bets practice in how UK regulators currently operate
That does leave me a little worried about Chapter 5, on reforming the ICO - I don't know the best answer, or how to think about the best answer, to questions like whether certain powers are best merged into one regulator or separated into several. Where is the line? That chapter is also a good example of a particular mindset (that I remember from my work on the legislative plans following the Leveson Report) which one could call the cynicism of the benign: the need to be sceptical of things which may look perfectly reasonable but may not operate so reasonably in practice, especially when combined with other reforms. For example, the proposal to give the DCMS secretary of state a power to require the ICO to set up a panel of external experts to help it with new codes and guidance looks like it's just formalising something the ICO already (sensibly) does. And yet... putting that into some form of regulation or legislation and having the power reside with the secretary of state changes the dynamic - will the SoS and their advisers really stay out of the process? Even if the ICO is under no legal obligation to follow the panel's advice, will the political reality allow them to ignore it? - especially with new powers for the SoS to quash new ICO guidance and require them to start all over again.
I also think DCMS deserve credit for their attempts to engage on this. Yes, it's *very* long, which makes responding more challenging. Yes, we could have done with longer to respond. And the whole exercise highlights the difficulty in reaching beyond certain audiences - to all sorts of groups who are not interested in data policy but will be affected by any changes. But the level of activity has been much greater than one would normally expect around a government consultation, and we should give praise where it's due - as well as thinking about how to do things even better next time.
Remember, submit your response here.
In other news:
The Orwell Foundation, of which I'm a trustee, is hiring a deputy director (a title I held the best part of a decade ago). It's a terrific job - please apply if you might be interested, or forward to others who might be!
I enjoyed a sneak peek of the government's forthcoming algorithmic transparency standard (something that appears in Chapter 4 of The Consultation). Further details coming soon, and you might want to put Data Bites on 1 December in your diary if you want to find out more (invitation appearing soon) - or take a look at the CDEI research that informed the exercise.
You don't want to know.
A big thank you to Simona Bisiani and DataJournalism.com for featuring this newsletter in their round up of newsletters useful to data journalists. And a reminder that if that's not enough, I've got an open spreadsheet here.
I made some charts for the latest Global Government Forum report, on 'responsive government'.
My friends at Full Fact are looking for a new office. I can confirm from my time at the IfG that they're excellent neighbours, so do get in touch with them if you can help out.
The original, the classic, the most niche.
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
Rising Covid infections in Europe spark fears of new wave* (FT)
As winter draws near, covid-19 threatens Europe once again* (The Economist)
Scientists optimistic that UK’s latest Covid wave has peaked* (FT)
Daily falls in England’s Covid cases on longest run since February* (FT)
A Delta outbreak of 246 people that emanated from 2 children (via Eric Topol)
Vax populi
'Nein Danke’: the resistance to Covid-19 vaccines in German-speaking Europe* (FT)
How the UK trails most other major countries on Covid-19 vaccine coverage* (New Statesman)
What We Know So Far About Waning Vaccine Effectiveness* (New York Times)
Side effects
Will people heed government advice to stay at home this winter?* (The Economist)
How Covid pushed a generation out of the cities* (New Statesman)
The gender gap in academic research widened during the first wave of the pandemic* (The Economist)
Where are the UK’s 1m plus job vacancies concentrated?* (FT)
Good Cop, bad Cop
2C or 1.5C? How global climate targets are set and what they mean* (Washington Post)
The Picture of Inequality: CO2 Emissions per Capita and by Country in 2019 (AQAL Capital)
Several rich countries have decoupled GDP growth from emissions* (The Economist)
Climate change: Is the UK on track to meet its targets? (BBC News)
Why the world is still on course for climate catastrophe* (New Statesman)
Concern for environment reaches record high in YouGov top issues tracker (YouGov)
Who is the biggest polluter? Depends how you ask (Reuters)
THIN ICE? Understanding voters’ support for net zero (Onward)
World Can Only Avoid Climate Catastrophe If New Climate Promises Are Kept* (Bloomberg)
How Scientists Know That Climate Change Juices Heat Waves* (Bloomberg)
The World's Addiction to Palm Oil Is Only Getting Worse* (Bloomberg)
Greece’s Popular Islands Are Crowded — With Plastic* (Bloomberg)
Poll position
Ratings for the Conservatives and Boris Johnson fall in Ipsos MORI’s latest Political Monitor (Ipsos MORI)
Labour under Starmer is now doing better than an average UK opposition party (Ipsos MORI)
To regain lost ground at the next election, Labour will need to convince voters that it can deliver greater social justice and security without risking the economy (LSE British Politics and Policy)
49% of Americans disapprove of the president (Reuters)
First look: What your congressional district is Googling (Axios)
Resist The Pundits: What The 2021 Elections Can (And Can’t) Tell Us About 2022 (FiveThirtyEight)
How maps reshape American politics* (New York Times)
Why White Voters With Racist Views Often Still Support Black Republicans (FiveThirtyEight)
Liberal democracy is still under threat* (New Statesman)
China
How China’s tech bosses cashed out at the right time* (FT)
T-DAY: The Battle for Taiwan (Reuters)
UK
What the latest NHS data tells us - and how many people in England are waiting for treatment (Sky News)
Boris Johnson’s radical planning reform for housebuilding in England hangs in balance* (FT)
Whether it's quicker by car or train from Leeds... before and after HS2 and NPR (Tom Forth and Northern Agenda)
A new suite of labour cost and labour income statistics (ONS)
Press Tracer: British and Irish Newspapers Lineage, with search (British Library)
Everything else
Charting GE’s Historic Rise and Tortured Downfall* (Bloomberg)
Gloomy picture for paint highlights depth of supply chain crisis* (FT)
According to Twitter, Twitter’s algorithm favours conservatives* (The Economist)
Civil servants confident in their organisations’ agility but barriers to progress remain, study finds (Global Government Forum)
#dataviz
Failure is part of the visualization process (James Cheshire)
#30daymapchallenge
Meta data
A sense of direction
Leading barristers warn that government proposals to reform UK data protection law may lead to discrimination (Legal Education Foundation)
Expert perspectives on the UK data protection consultation (ODI)
Ada Lovelace Institute hosts ‘Taking back control of data: scrutinising the UK’s plans to reform the GDPR’ (Ada Lovelace Institute)
Setting a new direction for the Information Commissioner's Office (IfG)
The ICO is right to push back against government meddling (Computer Weekly)
Harms race
Reaction to the Draft Online Safety Bill: A reading list (House of Commons Library)
On online content, London tries to out-regulate Brussels (Politico)
Carnegie UK Revised Online Safety Bill – Nov 2021 (Carnegie UK)
Amendments & Explanatory Notes Carnegie UK Revised Online Safety Bill – Nov 2021 (Carnegie UK)
The UK’s Online Safety Bill is a “hostage-taking” law. That should terrify you. (Heather Burns)
Damian Collins MP on why Online Safety Bill can rebalance relationship between big tech and journalism (Press Gazette)
Internet Safety Is the New Internet Freedom (Slate)
Boris Johnson accused of creating conflict of interest over Ofcom chair* (FT)
Ex-Tory adviser married to Tory MP will help choose Ofcom chair (The Guardian)
Lloyd and clear
Supreme Court blocks mass iPhone claim against Google (BBC News)
Google swats away £3bn Safari Workaround ad-tracking cookie lawsuit in Supreme Court victory (The Register)
Lloyd v Google: Supreme Court unanimously rejects claimant’s representative action (Pinsent Masons)
The decision in #LloydvGoogle, and the sole speech of Lord Leggatt, is hugely important for effective access to justice (Thomas de la Mare)
A short thread on the #UK's Supreme Court decision in Lloyd vs Google. This is bad news. (Carissa Veliz)
AI got 'rithm
Timnit Gebru Says Artificial Intelligence Needs to Slow Down* (Wired)
How to make the algorithms serve us, not the other way around (Tim Harford)
MPs call on the government to take urgent action on AI accountability to curb economic disruption and invasive surveillance of workers (APPG Future of Work)
Algorithmic tracking is ‘damaging mental health’ of UK workers (The Guardian)
LAPD ended predictive policing programs amid public outcry. A new effort shares many of their flaws (The Guardian)
Daniel Ek’s €1bn Europe tech investment group puts first stake in Helsing* (FT)
Pamela McCorduck, Historian of Artificial Intelligence, Dies at 80* (New York Times)
UK government
Government to ‘remain vigilant’ on carbon footprint of data storage (Public Technology)
Make your technology sustainable (CDDO)
Introducing the Number 10 Innovation Fellows (Digital people)
Launching GOV.UK’s new menu bar (Inside GOV.UK)
£2bn big data big-spending notice from Cabinet Office (UKAuthority)
10 years of GOV.UK in three minutes (The National Archives)
Conserving the 1921 Census (The National Archives)
Sir Ian Diamond: Data is essential to saving our planet (Civil Service World)
The importance of communicating data quality (Government Data Quality Hub)
How designers in the UK government help address climate change (Design in government)
Will public interest in statistics last? (Office for Statistics Regulation)
Parliament
It's time to talk about the Register of MPs' Interests (Martin Williams)
First pass at a geographic area ontology (House of Commons Library)
Evidence session on Open Justice (Justice Select Committee, via Natalie Byrom)
Health information
GP Data for Planning and Research (GPDPR) (use MY data)
Unsubstantiated and incoherent: the UKRI-funded case for even more money be poured into HDR/DARE (medConfidential)
“The power to surveil, control, and punish”: The dystopian danger of a mandatory biometric database in Mexico (Rest of World)
Why is the head of NHS England peddling dodgy Covid stats – and why didn’t the media challenge her? (CapX)
Information health
The Fall and Rise of the Mediators (Discourse)
If it’s not public, does it even matter? (Sean Boots)
How do you know? Correct information doesn’t always come with its own bright halo of truth. What makes something worth believing? (Aeon)
Open government
An 'Illustrative Menu of Options': Biden’s big democracy summit is a grab bag of vague ideas (Politico)
How corrupt is Britain? (Politico)
The Brexit dark money lobby has a new target – climate change action (openDemocracy)
Minister McGrath launches Public Consultation on the FOI Act (Irish Government)
Big tech
The Facebook Papers
Mark Zuckerberg and the tech bros are still on top – but their grip is loosening (The Guardian)
China and Huawei propose reinvention of the internet* (FT)
The parable of IBM* (FT)
Beyond the regulation of big platforms – supporting different visions for digital ecosystems (Ada Lovelace Institute)
From ‘walled gardens’ to open meadows (Ada Lovelace Institute)
Economies of Virtue: The Circulation of ‘Ethics’ in Big Tech (Science as Culture)
Privacy
Tracking-industry body IAB Europe told that it has infringed the GDPR, and its “consent” pop-ups used by Google and other tech firms are unlawful. (Irish Council for Civil Liberties)
‘Our notion of privacy will be useless’: what happens if technology learns to read our minds? (The Guardian)
'Snooping technology' reports spark call for stronger law on staff surveillance (Civil Service World)
Everything else
Levelling up with data. (Open Innovations)
8 must-read newsletters for data journalists (DataJournalism.com)
Quick review of the first open session of the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry (Nick Wallis)
New ways into the lucrative world of data science (BBC News)
Radical Proposal: Data Cooperatives Could Give Us More Power Over Our Data (Stanford University Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence)
ODI Summit 2021 | Data <> People: roundup (ODI)
I have, for all the reasons you might imagine, a sudden need for links to research (not opinions) on why the word “portal” is useless in public facing digital services (Alex)
Opportunities
EVENT: Working well with artificial intelligence: people and place (British Academy)
EVENT: Thinkers for our time: W.E.B. Du Bois (British Academy)
EVENT: Online Safety Bill | Panel Discussion (ResPublica)
CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Data ethics in practice – supporting organisations in their ethical data processes (ODI)
CALL FOR COLLABORATION: tackling the climate crisis with data (ODI)
SURVEY: Government Data Science Festival 2022 (Government Data Science Festival)
JOB: Senior Data Analyst (DIT)
JOB: Data Scientists - Fraud and Error (DWP)
JOB: Head of Robotics and Intelligent Automation (DfE)
JOB: Senior Product Manager - Data Specialist (GDS)
JOB: Senior Manager - Data Policy & Controls (Ofgem)
JOB: Senior Manager - Data Quality (Ofgem)
JOBS: Program Director and Program Coordinator, What Works Cities program (Public Digital)
JOB: Data Analyst (Citizens Advice)
JOB: FREELANCE POLICY CONSULTANT (FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION) (Open Rights Group)
JOB: Data & Innovation Consultant/Delivery Manager (Open Innovations)
JOB: HIRING A NEW FUND DIRECTOR (European Artificial Intelligence Fund)
And finally...
The 6,089 Dundee WW1 victims: Search their names, ages, ranks and addresses (The Courier)
What’s up with Wotsits, Quavers and Monster Munch? (Computer Weekly)
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5 November 2021
Watching, brief
Another very busy week, so another short intro - normal service will be resumed shortly:
Data Bites 24 marked the end of our third cycle of eight events and featured our 100th different speaker. Edited video should appear here shortly, but you can watch the event as live here (and read the tweets here). Join me on 1 December for another great line-up (and as ever, full archive here).
This week included the final event of the five organised by the Ada Lovelace Institute around the government's data consultation. Watch them all here.
I had a fantastic time hosting The Data Game, the world's first ever data gameshow (probably) for this year's ODI Summit. There will be video at some point...
And IfG couldn't have found a better day to host a conference on ethical standards in public life, which you can watch here.
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
Covid rate of cases per 100k by age in England over the last year (Toby Nangle)
Covid UK: coronavirus cases, deaths and vaccinations today (The Guardian)
Children Drive Britain’s Longest-Running Covid Surge* (New York Times)
Global Covid-19 death toll tops 5m but underestimates true figure, say experts* (FT)
The number of people who have died from covid-19 is likely to be close to 17m* (The Economist)
Russia’s excess mortality soars since start of Covid pandemic* (FT)
COVID-19: Is the booster jab rollout going fast enough to stop a winter surge? (Sky News)
US battles to sell parents on benefits of ‘kid-sized’ jabs for children* (FT)
Good COP, bad COP
Draw your own chart: test your climate change knowledge* (FT)
Climate change statistics (GOV.UK)
New UK climate change portal to inform understanding and decision-making (ONS)
Support for climate change policies and perceived effectiveness: which drives public opinion more? (YouGov)
I asked people this week how they might vote in a referendum on Net-zero (Chris Curtis)
How You View Climate Change Might Depend On Where You Live (FiveThirtyEight)
COP26: Climate change graph 'needs more colours' as world gets hotter (BBC News)
Extreme weather: the worrying consequences of climate change ahead of Cop26* (Telegraph)
Climate change could bring near-unliveable conditions for 3bn people, say scientists* (FT)
COP26: oil price soars even as the world turns against fossil fuel* (FT)
COP26: where does all the climate finance money go?* (FT)
How much will it cost the UK to reach net zero?* (FT)
National climate pledges are too weak to avoid catastrophic warming. Most countries are on track to miss them anyway.* (Washington Post)
Unlimited Sand and Money Still Won’t Save the Hamptons* (Bloomberg)
Vanishing tropical rainforests (Reuters)
Why the deforestation agreement is badly needed to save the Amazon* (New Statesman)
The world has pledged to stop deforestation before. But trees are still disappearing at an ‘untenable rate.’* (Washington Post)
How does Europe get its gas?* (FT)
BP Looks Dirtier Than Exxon in New Data From Giant U.S. Oil Field* (Bloomberg)
Why India is the worst polluter of sulphur dioxide (Sky News)
What would a world powered entirely by offshore wind look like?* (The Economist)
Why the world must abandon coal power to avoid climate catastrophe* (New Statesman)
Virginia
Republican Glenn Youngkin wins Virginia governor’s race* (FT)
Rough Night for Democrats Exposes the Party’s Weakness* (New York Times)
How Youngkin shifted the vote toward Republicans across Virginia* (Washington Post)
Virginia governor’s race (Reuters)
How Republicans Swept A Bluish State (FiveThirtyEight)
Virginia voters reject the president’s party when picking a governor, yet again* (Washington Post)
Plane
Mapped: The flight paths still wiped out by the pandemic* (Telegraph)
Spate of US flight cancellations prompts fears of holiday meltdown* (FT)
UK
MPs are trying to overhaul a system that is finding them increasingly guilty* (New Statesman)
Who made more this year: you or your house?* (New Statesman)
Boris Johnson is set to preside over the lowest income growth during any parliament on record* (New Statesman)
How does Rishi Sunak’s 2021 Budget affect voters in the Red Wall?* (New Statesman)
The State of the State 2021/22 (Reform/Deloitte)
Procurement statistics: a short guide (House of Commons Library)
Housing in London 2021: The evidence base for the London Housing Strategy (Greater London Authority)
In data: our damaging inequality illusions* (Prospect)
London Under The Microscope (Valentina D'Efilippo and Loud Numbers)
US
Abortion restrictions will push many American women across state lines* (The Economist)
God And Guns (FiveThirtyEight)
A handful of items are driving inflation in America* (The Economist)
Everywhere else
The Spread of European Printing Activity (1450-1650). Mapped! (Visualising History)
Global Trends 2021: Aftershocks and continuity (Ipsos MORI)
In Just One Year, Beijing’s Crackdown Has Changed Corporate China Forever* (Bloomberg)
In sub-Saharan Africa, electrification is associated with less political engagement* (The Economist)
Afghanistan: Flurry of Islamic State Khorasan attacks could be sign of group's growing strength (Sky News)
Everything else
58 Ways to Visualize Alice in Wonderland (Richard Brath)
Can data die? (The Pudding)
Soccer Looks Different When You Can’t See Who’s Playing (FiveThirtyEight)
Submit your research for coverage in The Economist (The Economist)
Meta data
Harms race
Our *final* #OnlineSafetyBill public evidence session has started, with Secretary of State @NadineDorries; Ministers @DamianHinds and @CPhilpOfficial; and Online Harms Director Sarah Connolly (Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill)
Season finale of "#OnlineSafetyBill: Scrutiny", starting soon on Parliament TV (Maeve Walsh)
Tech bosses could face criminal cases over online harm, warns UK minister (The Guardian)
Culture Secretary urges public to buy newspapers in fight against big tech misinformation (City AM)
Why we should all be worried about the government’s Online Safety Bill (The New European)
The Guardian view on regulating social media: necessary but risky (The Guardian)
Government response to the House of Lords Communications Committee’s report on Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age (DCMS)
Paul Dacre will get second chance to apply for Ofcom chair, ministers confirm (The Guardian)
Gill Whitehead appointed Chief Executive of Digital Regulators Forum (Ofcom)
‘She often speaks without thinking’: Nadine Dorries, our new minister for culture wars (The Observer)
Consultation, consultation, consultation
The UK’s data protection reforms: explaining and mapping the proposals (ODI)
DATA: A NEW DIRECTION CONSULTATION GUIDANCE (Open Rights Group)
DCMS consultation: “Data: a new direction”: response by the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner (Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner)
Government’s Proposed Data Reforms Would Hinder the Honest & Empower the Dishonest (Phil Booth for Byline Times, via Sam)
Developing a National Data Strategy indicator suite (DCMS)
Information health
Are vaccine passports and covid passes a valid alternative to lockdown? (BMJ)
Why vaccine passports are causing chaos* (The Economist)
Do EU Governments Continue to Operate Contact Tracing Apps Illegitimately? (Liberties)
ONE YEAR UNDER COVID-19 CONTACT TRACING APPS: WHAT HAS EUROPE LEARNED? (Liberties, Access Now)
UK statistics tsar rebukes Health Security Agency over flawed jabs data* (FT)
Transparency and data – UKHSA’s vaccines report (UKHSA)
Standards deviation
Upholding Standards in Public Life (Committee on Standards in Public Life)
Upholding Standards in Public Life - Speech by Lord Evans (Committee on Standards in Public Life at IfG)
Ethical standards in government one-day conference (IfG)
MAJOR AND URGENT REFORM NEEDED TO UPHOLD STANDARDS BY UK POLITICIANS (Transparency International)
UK government
GDS secures up to £400m funding for One Login digital identity project (Computer Weekly)
‘The potential is there for widescale chaos’: Securing the UK’s identity framework (Tech Monitor)
Developing a data strategy and delivering it (Data in government)
Spending Review 2021: Investing in data to build back better (ODI)
Crowdsourcing policy: how can collective intelligence improve policymaking? (Policy Lab)
Transparency – more key than ever in the WhatsApp era (The MJ)
On the misrepresentation of statistics in public life (Will Moy)
AI got 'rithm
Yuval Noah Harari on the power of data, artificial intelligence and the future of the human race (CBS 60 Minutes)
‘Yeah, we’re spooked’: AI starting to have big real-world impact, says expert (The Guardian)
The Guardian view on spooky science: AI needs regulating before it’s too late (The Guardian)
Metamorphosis
Facebook, Citing Societal Concerns, Plans to Shut Down Facial Recognition System* (New York Times)
Don’t Go Cheering Facebook for Killing Its Face Recognition Database Just Yet (Gizmodo)
Documents reveal Facebook targeted children as young as 6 for consumer base (NBC News)
Five points for anger, one for a ‘like’: How Facebook’s formula fostered rage and misinformation* (Washington Post)
Facebook's metamorphosis - will it work? (BBC News)
Big tech etc
Apple has too much power over its rivals* (FT)
Memory lanes: Google’s map of our lives (The Observer)
How to Fix Social Media* (Wall Street Journal)
It’s the tech giants, not socialist politicians, who are coming for our liberty* (New Statesman)
Beijing targets 'super large platforms' (Protocol)
Everything else
Why people believe Covid conspiracy theories: could folklore hold the answer? (The Guardian)
Wikipedia in Chinese editing war of words (BBC News)
Location data collection firm admits privacy breach (BBC News)
The softer side of data governance: a playbook for non-technical users (ODI)
World Series: The sports data pioneer who spotted baseball's big fix of 1919 (BBC Sport)
Opportunities
Now available: MozFest 2022 CFP support! (Mozilla)
CONSULTATION: Artificial Intelligence and IP: copyright and patents (IPO)
CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Work with us to develop resources on datasets & pseudonymisation (Understanding Patient Data)
RESEARCH CONSULTANCY OPPORTUNITY: Policy briefing on beneficial ownership transparency reforms and gender (Open Ownership)
JOBS: Deadlines extended - Senior Researchers on Future of regulation, Public sector use of data and algorithms (Ada Lovelace Institute)
JOB: Data Analysis and Visualisation Manager (House of Lords)
JOB: Data First SAIL data-sharing and research lead in Data & Analytical Services Directorate (MoJ)
JOB: Energy Systems Data Architect (Ofgem)
JOB: Head of Data Management (HMRC)
JOB: Data Scientist (DWP)
And finally...
Words
Sequences of Covid-19 vaccines released via WhatDoTheyKnow (mySociety)
With Facebook’s change to Meta, what’s the new Big Tech acronym? (The Verge)
The UK Government Web Archive is 25 today (The National Archives)
Pictures
Data... (@BelfastAgmt)
When you tell an 'omics lab to dress up for Halloween (Cathrine Petersen)
Food for thought (Alasdair Rae)
Games
MapBusters: Land's End to John o' Groats edition (Ahmad Barclay with Sam Cottrell, via John)
Deforestation isn’t a game. But if you want to know more about how cheese is driving deforestation play ours (The Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
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29 October 2021
It's quizness time
Here are some words I wasn't ever expecting to type: join me at the ODI Summit on Tuesday for The Data Game, a brand new data-based gameshow! I'll also be taking part in a panel on ways of thinking about and talking about data. If you'd like a discount, there are details here, and I even have a few FREE TICKETS to give away if you drop me an email on this address.
Elsewhere:
Wednesday brings the latest IfG Data Bites - sign up here for a great line-up, watch the previous events here - and the final Ada Lovelace Institute event on the government's data consultation - sign up here, watch the previous ones here.
I gave evidence, alongside a great cast of journalists and experts, to PACAC's inquiry on freedom of information this week - watch it back here.
Happy 3rd Birthday to the Economist's Graphic Detail section! It's well worth signing up for their Off The Charts newsletter, here.
On the subject of newsletters, some of my Ada colleagues have just launched a new one on the craft of research.
And it's nice to see a graphic you created around five years ago Having A Moment.
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Rishi business
Economic and fiscal outlook – October 2021 (OBR)
The Boris Budget (Resolution Foundation)
Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 (IFS)
Five things we learnt from the October 2021 budget (IfG)
Civil service cuts should be informed by proper workforce planning (IfG)
The most important graphs on Rishi Sunak’s Budget* (New Statesman)
The cost-of-Brexit chart that Rishi Sunak didn’t mention in the Budget* (New Statesman)
Viral content
Health leaders accuse ministers of bungling rollout of UK Covid booster jab* (FT)
From Baltic to Balkans, Covid crisis engulfs central and eastern Europe* (FT)
What previous Covid-19 waves tell us about the future of the pandemic. (New York Times)
Covax falters as rich countries buy up Covid vaccines* (FT)
People with covid jabs have been less likely to die of other causes* (The Economist)
Who Had Covid-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Cases?* (New York Times)
Side effects
Would the British public support another Covid-19 lockdown?* (New Statesman)
New York’s Once-Thriving Asian Businesses Struggle to Recover From 4,000% Unemployment Spike* (Bloomberg)
COP a look at this
COP26: How every country’s emissions and climate pledges compare* (FT)
With COP26 kicking off this week, here is a thread on the history and current state of carbon emissions (Nesta)
Why the UK's climate record is worse than it looks (Sky News)
Democratising the climate fight: tracking the crisis (Sky News)
Methane leak near COP26 venue underscores emissions challenge* (FT)
The Chinese Companies Polluting the World More Than Entire Nations* (Bloomberg)
A new study argues that insufficient infrastructure doomed the first electric cars* (The Economist)
DOWN RIVER: Years of drought have dropped the Parana river to levels not seen in 77 years (Reuters)
UK
British Social Attitudes 38 has launched (NatCen)
Who would win if a general election was held tomorrow?* (New Statesman)
Is the Green party vote share good news for Labour? (Paula Surridge)
How UK consumer confidence is plummeting* (New Statesman)
US
Americans Don’t Trust Their Congressional Maps To Be Drawn Fairly. Can Anything Change That? (FiveThirtyEight)
Democrats backed a commission to draw fair House lines in Colorado. Now they worry they gave up their power.* (Washington Post)
New York City’s Prime Neighborhoods See Big Jumps in Home Prices* (Bloomberg)
Television Genres Over Time (Flowing Data)
Everything else
The Bunk of Generational Talk* (Wall Street Journal)
As Sudan’s government wobbles, coups are making a comeback* (The Economist)
The CEOs delivering consistent shareholder returns* (FT)
America is the big winner of China’s crypto crackdown* (The Economist)
How Facebook shapes your feed* (Washington Post)
Declutter and Focus: Empirically Evaluating Design Guidelines for Effective Data Communication (Visual Thinking Lab)
Meta data
About Face
Facebook stories: Some of the stories published this week based on documents leaked by Facebook whistleblower @FrancesHaugen (Donie O'Sullivan)
We've just published our first set of stories (via Mark Scott, Politico)
Relentless ‘Facebook Papers’ Leaks Will Continue Until Morale Improves (Gizmodo)
‘The Problem Is Him’: Kara Swisher on Mark Zuckerberg’s crisis and ours.* (New York Magazine)
'History will not judge us kindly'* (The Atlantic)
Inside the Facebook Papers* (Wired)
Internal Alarm, Public Shrugs: Facebook’s Employees Dissect Its Election Role* (New York Times)
Two Facebook whistleblowers leaned in, but only one became a media star (The Conversationalist)
What You Don’t Know About Whistleblowers (Chelsey Glasson)
Two Ideas to Make the Facebook Papers a Turning Point for Accountability in Tech (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
Things can only get Meta
Founder’s Letter, 2021 (Meta)
Facebook changes its name to Meta in major rebrand (BBC News)
Zuckerberg Announces Fantasy World Where Facebook Is Not a Horrible Company (Vice)
The Metaverse Is Bad* (The Atlantic)
Rishi business
DCMS funding for data & digital in #Budget2021 (via Jeni)
And the UK Statistics Authority - number, small print (HM Treasury)
Shared Outcomes Fund Round Two (HM Treasury)
Spending Review 2021: Priority outcomes and metrics (HM Treasury)
Harms race
'Someone said they wanted to see me trapped in a burning car and watch flames melt my flesh': Nadine Dorries reveals the online abuse she has received as she promises tougher laws against web trolls (Daily Mail)
UK hands Big Tech headache over to super-regulator (Politico)
What’s in a name? The case for inclusivity through anonymity (Twitter)
Twitter says Online Safety Bill needs more clarity (BBC News)
Taming the tech giants is one thing. Giving free rein to censors quite another (The Observer)
The draft Online Safety Bill: abandoning democracy to disinformation (Constitution Unit)
Big tech
Regulating Big Tech: Policy Responses to Digital Dominance (edited by Martin Moore and Damian Tambini)
An *enormous thread* on alleged @Google @Facebook collusion based on the just-released *unredacted* complaint from the Texas AG (Patrick McGee, FT)
Examining algorithmic amplification of political content on Twitter (Twitter)
Twitter admits bias in algorithm for rightwing politicians and news outlets (The Guardian)
Lina Khan Isn’t Worried About Going Too Far* (New York Magazine)
UK government
Ordnance Survey lacks direction after chief executive's departure (Sky News)
Supporting Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) professionals to progress (Digital people)
Covid response policy unit extends data science support in £500k deal (Public Technology)
The multi-agency advice service (MAAS) (NHSX)
Test and Trace update (Public Accounts Committee)
Implementing national data strategies: start small, think big (ODI)
Relight my FOIA
Written evidence: The Cabinet Office Freedom of Information Clearing House (PACAC)
Oral evidence: The Cabinet Office Freedom of Information Clearing House (PACAC)
The FOI system is utterly broken. Here’s how to fix it (openDemocracy)
2020 was worst year on record for UK government secrecy (openDemocracy)
70% of public concerned by UK government secrecy (openDemocracy)
AI got 'rithm
Testing the potential for AI in the NHS (UKAuthority)
Letter: Creating an AI bill of rights is a distraction* (FT)
To stop algorithmic bias, we first have to define it (Brookings)
Information health
I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned about understanding patient data over the past few years (Natalie Banner)
What’s next for Understanding Patient Data (Understanding Patient Data)
‘Conditioning an entire society’: the rise of biometric data technology (The Guardian)
Football
‘A numbers game’: the hidden work of football statisticians (The Guardian)
How Arsenal use data to help bring youth players into first team, monitor physical load and aid rehab* (The Athletic)
Politics
TheyWorkForYou is bad – but a world without it would be worse* (New Statesman)
Polling in America Is Still Broken. So Who Is Really Winning in Virginia?* (New York Magazine)
Everything else
Notes on a statistical scandal* (FT)
Tesla’s driving data storage system hacked by Dutch investigators (The Verge)
Unbelievably this headline is based on this: a random twitter poll (Anthony Wells)
Farewell to Rory Cellan-Jones (Dave Lee)
UK data research infrastructure: Reviewing the existing landscape (DARE UK)
Can better data lead to better decisions for local councils? (New Local)
A new CEO for Open Knowledge Foundation – Renata Ávila (Open Knowledge)
Opportunities
EVENT: Data Bites #24 (IfG)
EVENT: DOES MORE DATA MAKE FOR BETTER POLITICS? (Birkbeck Politics)
EVENT: Have your say on UK data reform and help the GMCA respond too (Open Data Manchester)
EVENT: AI AND GLOBAL SECURITY WITH ERIC SCHMIDT AND JAMES MANYIKA (Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford)
JOB: International Data Transfers - Development and Implementation of New Tools Lead (DCMS)
JOB: Data Access Policy Lead (HMCTS)
JOB: Senior Data Scientist (GDS)
JOB: Data and Policy Analyst (Open Data Services)
JOB: SEO Senior Policy Officer, Data Innovation (Geospatial Commission)
JOB: Policy Lead (Innovation Growth Lab) (Nesta, via Jukesie)
And finally...
Rishi business
Tradition (Graham)
Making a (percentage) point (Rachel Cunliffe)
Everything else
FoI response or barcode? (Emily Thornberry)
Mathieu Lehanneur designs 3D-printed sculptures based on population statistics (Dezeen)
Found the perfect logo for my mail-order school-wear business (Alex Selby-Boothroyd)
No time to die: An in-depth analysis of James Bond's exposure to infectious agents (Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease)
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22 October 2021
Dear diary
I'm in the middle of a lot of deadlines at the moment (a nice problem for a freelancer to have!) so this introduction will be even more confined to self-promotion than usual. Some things I have coming up:
I'm giving evidence on Freedom of Information and the Cabinet Office's clearing house on Tuesday, alongside some fantastic experts. I led the IfG's analysis of FoI stats for many years - their explainer is here.
Speaking of IfG... The next Data Bites will be on 3 November at 6pm. We have a great line-up: Harry Lee from DCMS on The Consultation; Selvin Brown from BEIS and Alastair Vetch from our sponsors, Slalom, on data-led policy delivery; Brhmie Balaram from NHSX on AI ethics in health and care' and Toby Jolly from Cabinet Office on using automation to make government grantmaking more transparent. Full details and a registration link will appear here very shortly - catch up on the previous 23 Data Bites here in the meantime.
For more on The Consultation... We've now held three of the five Ada Lovelace Institute events on it - video here, along with details on how to sign up for the two remaining events. This week it's 'Redesigning fairness', thinking about the concepts, contexts and complexities when it comes to AI and data.
I'm going to be speaking on 'Data dreams: new ways of thinking and talking about data' at this year's ODI Summit. Discount details here if you'd like some money off.
Have a good weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
Covid calculus shifts as NHS faces ‘extremely challenging’ winter* (FT)
UK falls behind European peers in battle against Covid ahead of winter* (FT)
Why cases, hospitalisations and deaths are much higher in the UK than elsewhere in Western Europe (John Burn-Murdoch)
Is a winter wave of coronavirus infections looming?* (The Economist)
New Delta descendant may be more infectious than its ancestor* (FT)
The impact of vaccine mandates is modest, but potentially crucial* (The Economist)
How Covid-19 vaccines have dramatically reduced deaths* (New Statesman)
Why Britons are tolerating sky-high Covid rates – and why this may not last (The Guardian)
Climate of fear
Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener (BEIS)
Three charts that show what’s wrong with the UK’s net zero plans (The Conversation)
Climate change: How much carbon dioxide has been produced since you were born? Enter your year of birth to find out (Sky News)
How the world is on course for failure on climate change* (New Statesman)
How to Stop 30 Years of Failing to Cut Emissions* (Bloomberg)
The World Is Nowhere Near to Kicking Its Dirtiest Habit* (Bloomberg)
What will climate change look like near me? (BBC News)
Net zero and the tax system (IfG)
UK
Performance Tracker 2021 (IfG)
Government will take 18 years to reach rape charges target, data shows (The Guardian)
How government departments still bear the scars of austerity* (New Statesman)
How redistributive was New Labour?* (New Statesman)
An intergenerational audit for the UK 2021 (Resolution Foundation)
A very simple plot of those areas in England among the 1% MOST deprived, and 1% LEAST deprived (Alasdair Rae)
USA
The Democrats Have a Lot of Cutting to Do* (The Upshot)
Biden Has Lost Support Across All Groups Of Americans — But Especially Independents And Hispanics (FiveThirtyEight)
The Supreme Court’s Conservative Revolution Is Already Happening (FiveThirtyEight)
Republicans’ trust in democracy has plunged since 2016* (The Economist)
In short supply
Supply crisis: These industries have job gaps like the HGV sector - and show no sign of bouncing back (Sky News)
What’s plaguing the American economy? According to the Fed, it’s shortages* (The Economist)
The economy, stupid
Diversity and Division in Advanced Economies (Pew)
A chastened WeWork lists on the New York Stock Exchange* (The Economist)
The permanently temporary 2021 economy, in charts* (Washington Post)
Fines for financial misconduct fall from post-crisis highs* (FT)
Everything else
Is Your Company Diverse? See How Top Employers Stack Up* (Bloomberg)
Immigration: a journey in music and numbers* (FT)
The skies over the South China Sea (Reuters)
Blockchain: a clickable guide* (FT)
Cricket looks set to become a global game* (The Economist)
NASA’s Lucy Launches on 12-Year Mission to Jupiter’s Trojan Asteroids* (New York Times)
Meta data
Law. (HUH. YEAH.) What is it good for?
A quick spreadsheet with some of the big UK government legislative-type things around data/tech algorithms/digital (Peter Wells)
Can Online Safety Bill tackle social media abuse of MPs? (BBC News)
Would ending online anonymity reduce abuse against MPs?* (New Statesman)
UK wrestles with online anonymity in wake of MP’s killing (Politico)
(Perceived) anonymity is one of the principal reasons for the lack of civility on social media... But can it be ended? (Peter Neumann)
Why Labour just lost the tech sector’s vote (Heather Burns)
Information health
UK waits on admission to EU Digital Covid Certificate scheme (Public Technology)
AI projects to tackle racial inequality in UK healthcare, says Javid (The Guardian)
AI got 'rithm
Should workers audit the algorithms which make decisions about them at work? (Institute for the Future of Work)
Existential Risk (A New AI Lexicon)
The line between human and machine begins to blur (Boston Globe)
Much ‘Artificial Intelligence’ Is Still People Behind a Screen* (Bloomberg)
Facial recognition cameras arrive in UK school canteens* (FT)
I'm looking for people responsible for AI and Data Science teams at corp companies / startups that train their teams on the job (Tabitha Goldstaub)
Big tech
Pope Calls for Tech and Media Reforms (Tech Policy Press)
Facebook's Fall From Grace Looks a Lot Like Ford's* (Wired)
Facebook plans to change its name as part of company rebrand – report (The Guardian)
Facebook Uses Deceptive Math to Hide Its Hate Speech Problem* (Wired)
lord puttnam announces retirement from house of lords: full speech (David Puttnam)
This government is helping big tech to undermine British democracy (The Guardian)
This charity wants to cure or kill Big Tech* (Wired)
UK government
Sunak to impose tight spending settlement by using ‘old’ official data* (FT)
Centre for Digital Public Services appoints joint Chief Executive (Centre for Digital Public Services)
Next slide, please! (Government Statistical Service)
Understanding the UK Artificial Intelligence commercialisation (DCMS/OAI)
We are now questioning Sir David Norgrove, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Ed Humpherson, Director General for Regulation, Office for Statistics Regulation and Sir Ian Diamond, National Statistician (PACAC)
Digital ID
Single sign-on: What we learned during our identity alpha (Government Digital Service)
Will the new Gov.uk app learn from the failure of Verify? (Tech Monitor)
#GoodID Awards 2021 (#GoodID)
In response to the ICO’s opinion on Age Assurance for the Children’s Code (YOTI)
Hacker steals government ID database for Argentina’s entire population (The Record)
Digital government
At @StateUpHQ we're launching a new forum for people with an interest in #govtech, #civictech, & tech for place & planet (via Sam Gilbert, StateUp)
The Future of Digital Government (PUBLIC)
Measure for measure
TechScape: From Friends to Squid Game – why Netflix viewing figures matter (The Guardian)
The traffic lights will kill us all one day – unless the watermelons get us first (the once-chosen path)
Knowledge
FILE NOT FOUND: A generation that grew up with Google is forcing professors to rethink their lesson plans (The Verge)
What Motivates Lifelong Learners (Harvard Business Review)
Experiments in collective intelligence design 2.0: Collective Intelligence Grants Programme (Nesta)
Keeping it civil
The civil society data gap matters – and this is how we fill it (Civil Service World)
This fund wants to fight Big Tech. NGOs fear the worst. (Politico)
Game over for digital rights? (Heather Burns)
Launching UK-CAT (UK Charity Classification)
Everything else
Microsoft tech pioneer Jacky Wright tops list of most powerful black Britons (The Voice)
Public perceptions of bottom-up data institutions (ODI)
Apparently, it's the next big thing. What is the metaverse? (BBC News)
On TheyWorkForYou (epic Twitter discussion started by John Ashmore)
False Positivism: Why “planetary computation” and “data-driven governance” will not solve the world’s problems (Real Life)
Two new books explore the impact of accelerating technology. A third explains how to profit from it* (The Economist)
Opportunities
JOB: Second Permanent Secretary (DfT)
‘This is sector is being revolutionised by emerging technologies’ – DfT seeks to boost leadership with second perm sec (Public Technology)
JOB: Director, Data Growth and Operations (ONS)
JOB: Policy Lab Creative Technologist (DfE)
JOB: Data Policy and Strategy Lead (Cabinet Office)
JOB: Head Data Exploitation (MoD)
JOB: Data and Analytics Lead (UKHSA)
JOB: Senior Technology Advisor, Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (DCMS)
JOB: Head of Cross-Government Data Strategy (DHSC)
JOB: Senior Manager - Data policy and Regulation (Ofgem)
JOB: Deputy Director, Data and Analytical Services Directorate (MoJ)
JOB: Head of Economic Analysis (ICO)
JOBS: Women in Data Science and AI project in the Public Policy programme (The Alan Turing Institute)
JOB: Senior Researcher (Future of Regulation) (Ada Lovelace Institute)
JOB: Lead Researcher Heritage Data Science (Science Museum)
JOBS (The GovLab)
FELLOWSHIP: Innovation Fellowships Scheme (British Academy)
RESEARCH: The ICO is looking to commission technical and legal research on the interplay between #ArtificialIntelligence + #dataprotection's fairness principle (via Sophia Ignatidou)
And finally...
Lost in translation
⚠️ Caution! ⚠️ These emoji mean different things in different countries (Rest of World)
“Squid Game” is only the latest Netflix hit to break the language barrier* (The Economist)
Charts
mind-bending chart crime in the new UK net 0 strategy (Camilla Hodgson)
The best #dataviz 404 page I've seen (Georgios Karamanis)
Everything else
Bus lane camera mistakes woman's sweater for number plate (BBC News)
Data optimism, pessimism, realism (Andrew R)
Everyone talks about how bad social media is for your mental health but... (Newley Purnell)
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15 October 2021
Map's the way, aha, aha, I like it, aha aha
Over the last few months, I've been working with the Open Data Institute to map who is responsible for data in government in the UK, and what data-related initiatives are underway.
This week, we published a report on the exercise and why it matters. Rather than condensing my thoughts on the whole thing to a few paragraphs in this newsletter, I've blogged alongside it, focusing on some of the challenges and where we all might want to take such an exercise next. And you can read the mammoth 100+ page crowdsourced document here - a huge thank you to everyone who contributed.
And remember: the ODI Summit is taking place on Tuesday 2 November, and there are details here if you'd like some money off your ticket.
Lots of other bits and pieces this week:
I'm supporting the Ada Lovelace Institute with their event series informing the government's mega data consultation. We've already held events on responsible innovation and lessons from the pandemic (video appearing shortly); still to come are events on accountable AI, redesigning fairness and responsible AI research. Join us!
Prompted by a few things, I shared an old reading list on all things data. What have I missed? Please go ahead and add to it - there were some useful Twitter replies, too.
The next Data Bites (our 24th) will be on Wednesday 3 November - details here soon. That's where you can also watch previous events, including the edit of October's event.
A few data in government things to be aware of. First, a speech by the Cabinet Secretary which talks quite a bit about the importance of data - even if some of the things mentioned, like setting objectives for permanent secretaries, are less transparent now than they used to be. Second, it looks like we have some ministers. Third, the announcement of an app allowing access to government services was accompanied by news about digital government advisers. And finally - some difficult reading from the health and science select committees on data during the pandemic, and much else.
This year's Orwell Lecture will be given by Ian McEwan on 26 November - you can sign up to attend in person here, with the lecture also being livestreamed. The subject is 'Politics and the imagination, reflecting on Orwell's essay 'Inside the Whale', available on the Orwell Foundation website.
Who knew Google Calendar could be amusing?
If, for some reason, you're missing my musical comedy government data stylings, try this from Wonkhe's David Kernohan.
And the most viewed piece of retained EU legislation is...
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
Covid response hampered by population data glitches* (FT)
Covid by numbers: 10 key lessons separating fact from fiction (The Observer)
What the most-vaccinated Trump counties have in common* (Washington Post)
Side effects
Covid-19 has led to a sharp increase in depression and anxiety* (The Economist)
The number of doctors is falling and appointments are going up – but that's only part of the problem (Sky News)
Covid or Brexit? (Sunday Times)
Tech
Half of China’s top developers crossed Beijing’s ‘red lines’* (FT)
US overtakes China as biggest bitcoin mining hub after Beijing ban* (FT)
5G IS HERE, SORTA (Reuters)
Energy and environment
The climate disaster is here (The Guardian)
UK, US, China: how the world’s carbon ‘centre of gravity’ moved over 200 years (The Guardian)
Twelve UK energy suppliers have failed in three months* (New Statesman)
How methane-producing cows leapt to the frontline of climate change* (FT)
See How Britain’s Gas Shortages Became a Crisis Overnight* (New York Times)
Contracting Emissions (alpha) (Spend Network)
Europe’s electricity generation from wind blown off course* (FT)
Net zero: decarbonising the city (Centre for Cities)
Flood-Threat Assessment Finds Danger Goes Far Beyond U.S. Homes* (Bloomberg)
Fish and Overfishing (Our World in Data)
Politics
Why are the Tories still leading in the polls?* (New Statesman)
Wisconsin: The incubator for America’s tribal politics* (Washington Post)
‘We’re talking about a big, powerful phenomenon’: Multiracial Americans drive change* (Washington Post)
The pivotal state for making America’s Senate more proportional is Alaska* (The Economist)
Russian elections once again had a suspiciously neat result* (The Economist)
Public services
The growing gap between state school and private school spending (IFS)
How the funding gap between state schools and private schools has dramatically widened* (New Statesman)
NYC Cops Log Millions of Overtime Hours. New Yorkers Don’t Feel Safer.* (Bloomberg)
Economy
Green Budget 2021 (IFS)
Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators: 14 October 2021 (ONS - interesting to see them pick up on Bloomberg's Pret Index*)
Yachts to yoghurt: inside the UK government’s venture capital portfolio* (FT)
Why quitting your job is good for the economy* (FT)
How a $2 Million Condo in Brooklyn Ends Up With a $157 Tax Bill* (Bloomberg)
New York’s Real Estate Tax Breaks Are Now a Rich-Kid Loophole* (Bloomberg)
The IMF warns that the global economic recovery will be grossly uneven* (The Economist)
What’s wrong with America’s consumer-price index?* (The Economist)
Everything else
The supply chain crisis and US ports: ‘Disruption on top of disruption’* (FT)
In Florida, Petty Condo Politics Jeopardizes Residents' Safety* (Bloomberg)
This Is How Everyday Sexism Could Stop You From Getting That Promotion* (New York Times)
Classifying UK Charities (UK Charity Classification)
We need more maps (Ed Conway)
Meta data
Consultation, consultation, consultation
ICO response to DCMS consultation “Data: a new direction” (ICO)
Reforming UK data protection laws – the ICO responds (Panopticon)
What we talk about when we talk about biometrics… (Surveillance Camera Commissioner's Office)
Need help responding to the government’s data reform plans? Here’s something to make the process a little easier (Open Data Manchester)
The Culture Sec may think her job's all about attacking the BBC and undermining the independence of charities; you’re responsible for important issues like data protection too. I’ve written to Nadine Dorries asking her to explain what DCMS’s recent proposals would mean for trade. (Emily Thornberry)
Assessing UK Data Protection Reform in Transnational Context: What New Direction? (David Erdos)
Ada Lovelace Institute hosts ‘Taking back control of data: scrutinising the UK’s plans to reform the GDPR’ (Ada Lovelace Institute)
Information health
Coronavirus: lessons learned to date report published (House of Commons Science and Technology Committee and Health and Social Care Committee)
The covid tech that is intimately tied to China’s surveillance state* (MIT Technology Review)
UK government could face legal action over huge, secretive health database (openDemocracy)
Plans to hand over NHS data to police sparks warning from government adviser* (The Independent)
Enabling AI-driven health advances without sacrificing patient privacy (MIT News)
AI got 'rithm
The algorithm undermining Black History Month (The House)
State of AI Report 2021
Experimental approaches to #data and #AI (ODI)
Reboot AI with human values (Nature)
The Intelligence of Bodies: The philosophical and musical failings of “Beethoven X: The AI Project” (VAN Magazine)
A global AI bill of rights is desperately needed* (FT)
China Isn't the AI Juggernaut the West Fears* (Bloomberg)
Harms race
Ex-minister predicts ‘huge battleground’ over UK’s plan to set internet content rules (TechCrunch)
TechScape: UK online safety bill could set tone for global social media regulation (The Guardian)
We must stop being slaves to the algorithm (William Hague in The Times)
Whistling
Facebook whistleblower to appear before UK Parliament (BBC News)
Frances Haugen takes on Facebook: the making of a modern US hero (The Observer)
How to blow the whistle on Facebook – from someone who already did (Sophie Zhang for The Guardian)
Oversight Board to meet with Frances Haugen (Oversight Board)
Facebook has just suffered its most devastating PR catastrophe yet (The Guardian)
How do you solve a problem like Facebook?* (New Statesman)
The latest revelations mark the beginning of the end for the House of Zuckerberg (The Observer)
In the dark
Cabinet policy obliges ministers to delete instant messages (The Guardian)
Transparency group that helped introduce UK FOI law faces closure (openDemocracy)
Transparency concern ignored in Elliot appointment (Martin Rosenbaum)
UK government
New one stop service for GOV.UK unveiled (Cabinet Office)
Cabinet Secretary Lecture: Wednesday 13 October 2021 (Cabinet Office)
ONS launches private beta of Integrated Data Service (UKAuthority)
The National Strategy for AI in Health and Social Care (NHSX)
Evidence for the UK Innovation Strategy (BEIS)
UK government outlines strengths and weaknesses in innovation (Computer Weekly)
Providing practical data protection guidance to the media sector (ICO)
The ICO audit of the Department for Education: one year on (Defend Digital Me)
Information commissioner Elizabeth Denham: How to be a pro-active regulator (BBC News)
Profile: Nadine Dorries, Johnson loyalist. A splash of colour amidst a grey landscape. And promoted by him for precisely that reason. (ConservativeHome)
Celebrating star analysts (Government Analysis Function)
Open for the best
Open Standards for Data (ODI)
State of Open: The UK in 2021 (OpenUK)
Open data in the water industry (Ofwat)
S08E05: what value my words? (Jonathan Kerr)
Archivists Create a Searchable Index of 107 Million Science Articles (Vice)
The UK Parliament's expenses watchdog accidentally leaked the names and home addresses of an MP's staffers (Insider)
Tech
Facebook and Google’s new plan? Own the internet* (Wired)
We need to talk about how Apple is normalising surveillance* (Wired)
Technology champions don’t drive global economies, their products do* (The Times)
REVEALED: FACEBOOK’S SECRET BLACKLIST OF “DANGEROUS INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANIZATIONS” (The Intercept)
Facebook's own data is not as conclusive as you think about teens and mental health (NPR)
Disclosure: Who's watching the kids? (BBC iPlayer)
Digital
How to build digital public infrastructure: 7 lessons from Estonia (World Economic Forum)
All digital skills are not all created equal, and teaching technical skills alone is problematic (ySkills)
I wrote about why digital government means that the UK might no longer need local government (Tom Forth)
Data
Professional footballers threaten data firms with GDPR legal action (BBC News)
Why the Department of Energy Is Spending Millions to Get Rid of Scientific Data (Slate)
The Data Manipulation Scandal That Could Topple the Heads of the World Bank and IMF, Explained (Center for Global Development)
Data Stewardship Re-Imagined — Capacities and Competencies (Data Stewards Network)
Neighbour wins privacy row over smart doorbell and cameras (BBC News)
Using data to understand the impact of the pandemic on London’s high streets (Smart Data)
Tech solutionism
Lots of outrage on my TL today about the “tracking women with GPS” proposals, and it’s worth saying - this is how technodeterminism works (Rachel Coldicutt)
BT’s ‘Walk me home’: tech solutionism at its worst (Paul Bernal)
India funded a starving kids' app, but not food (Cory Doctorow)
Misinformation
It’s Not Misinformation. It’s Amplified Propaganda.* (The Atlantic)
Our disinformation detection tech won the US-Paris Tech challenge! (Carl Miller)
Everything else
The Nobel Prize economists turned statistics into insight* (FT)
The dark side of Strava: What happens when users lose control* (New Statesman)
We need to talk about transhumanism* (The Spectator)
The hidden costs of cost-benefit analysis* (FT)
You are the user (Welsh Local Government Digital)
The tips and ‘cheat codes’ I’ve discovered leading a Policy Lab. (Amanda)
Why you should develop a Rules as Code-enabled future* (Apolitical)
David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want to Hear* (New York Times)
#AdaLovelaceDay
Opportunities
EVENT: Ethical standards in government one-day conference (IfG)
EVENT: The 2021 spending review: the pressures on public services after the pandemic - launch of Performance Tracker 2021 (IfG)
EVENT: Lessons from the First Internet Ages Symposium (Knight Foundation)
EVENT: The cost of data: making sense in digital society (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities)
EVENT: ODI Canalside Chats: The role of data in tackling climate change – Jo-Jo Hubbard and Volker Buscher (ODI)
INQUIRY: Digital regulation: Have your say as Lords committee launches new inquiry (House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee)
CONSULTATION: ICO call for views: Anonymisation, pseudonymisation and privacy enhancing technologies guidance (ICO)
JOB: Head of Service: Open Data and Publications (NHS Digital)
JOB: Deputy Director of Analysis for Culture, Sport & Civil Society (DCMS)
JOB: Lead Data Scientist (HM Land Registry)
JOB: Engagement Manager (CDDO)
JOB: Senior Researcher (Public Sector Algorithms) (Ada Lovelace Institute)
And finally...
Black history Tube map (TfL)
For pete’s sake: the slow decline of British swearing* (Prospect)
‘Cutting edge’ or a ‘security nightmare’? Government anti-espionage unit on the tech behind Bond gadgets (Public Technology)
Traffic light men of Europe (via Ben Judah)
Better Images of AI
Which organisation is a bigger donor to the @WHO than almost every country on earth, including China, France, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Italy...? (via Steve Bowbrick)
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8 October 2021
Event horizon
Ada Next week, the Ada Lovelace Institute kicks off a series of five public events exploring the government's data protection consultation, 'Taking back control of data: scrutinising the UK’s plans to reform the GDPR'.
The first, on Monday, looks at the theme of 'responsible innovation'; the second, on Thursday, at lessons we can learn from data use during the pandemic. I really hope you can join us - and that they prove useful for anyone responding to the consultation.
IfG I hoped at the start of a Bond-laden introduction to this week's Data Bites that it would be another All Time High in terms of quality, and it certainly proved a sweet distraction for an hour or two.
Watch the event as live here before the edited version appears on the IfG website (excellent Twitter thread here). We'll be back on Wednesday 3 November with another great selection of speakers.
ODI And a reminder that this year's Open Data Institute Summit, Data <> People, exploring what it means to be human in a world of data, will be taking place on Tuesday 2 November. If you'd like 30% off your ticket, go here and use the code GF-30.
Two final shout-outs before I leave you to the links:
Pro Bono Economics are looking for volunteers to help charities and civil society groups with their work on data and economics. You can join the scheme here.
The excellent Campaign for Freedom of Information are looking to cover a shortfall in their funding. We wouldn't have the Freedom of Information Act without them and they do a lot of work to support people using it, as well as continuing to campaign. Donate here.
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
How COVID deaths compare with other deaths in the UK – latest numbers (The Conversation)
Covid fight hinges on swaying older vaccine-hesitant people* (FT)
What we know about COVID-19 in children (Reuters)
Vax populi
Covid-19 vaccine Australia rollout tracker by state: total number of people and per cent vaccinated, daily vaccine doses and rate of progress (The Guardian)
Vaccinating the world. How it started, how it's going (David Bauer)
Vaxillology
Side effects
Covid recovery tracker (Sky News)
Do pandemics normally lead to rising inflation?* (The Economist)
COVID-19: Worst affected areas in UK revealed as furlough comes to an end (Sky News)
Opening the box
Almost a million Bibles of data: the Pandora papers in numbers (The Guardian)
Revealed: Pandora papers unmask owners of offshore-held UK property worth £4bn (The Guardian)
BILLIONS HIDDEN BEYOND REACH* (Washington Post)
Pandora papers: biggest ever leak of offshore data exposes financial secrets of rich and powerful (The Guardian)
These are the changes the UK must make after the Pandora Papers (openDemocracy)
Climate and environment
The Cheap and Easy Climate Fix That Can Cool the Planet Fast* (Bloomberg)
Hole in the ozone layer widens as recovery remains in the distance* (FT)
How green is your electric vehicle? (FT)
Electric vehicles: the revolution is finally here (FT)
Pick-up trucks and climate politics: will American drivers go electric?* (FT)
European sales of electric vehicles have nosed ahead of diesels* (The Economist)
Gender agenda
UK gender pay gap widens despite pressure on business to improve* (FT)
Here’s the Gender Pay Gap at 10,000 U.K. Employers* (Bloomberg)
UK
Keir Starmer’s conference speech polled better than Boris Johnson’s – but does it matter?* (New Statesman)
Boris Johnson claims wages are on the up - but what does the data say? (Sky News)
The Universal Credit reduction is the biggest overnight benefit cut in history* (New Statesman)
It is time to lop off the dead hand of the Treasury* (FT)
Petrol crisis: How an extra five litres of petrol helped cause the country to grind to a halt (Sky News)
Fuel supply crisis: Why is Europe short of lorry drivers and how bad is the crisis? (Sky News)
Life with LEO – summer 2021 release (Wonkhe)
One in five shortlisted authors for top UK literary prizes in 2020 were black (The Guardian)
New YouGov MRP model shows Conservatives losing up to 32 seats in the Red Wall (YouGov)
US
For a change, America grows more equal* (The Economist)
Why Biden’s Approval Rating Isn’t Bouncing Back (FiveThirtyEight)
Republicans Have a Redistricting Problem as Suburbs Shift Toward Democrats* (Bloomberg)
How Texas Plans to Make Its House Districts Even Redder* (New York Times)
The government is on track to default for the first time ever. Here are the payments at risk.* (Washington Post)
Everywhere else
France: where 2017 voters are now (Mathieu Gallard via Cas Mudde)
Vincent Bolloré, Éric Zemmour and the rise of ‘France’s Fox News'* (FT)
Limiting access to abortions won’t solve China’s population woes (The Economist)
Un punto caliente bajo Canarias alimenta el volcán de La Palma y creará nuevas islas (El Pais)
Youthquake will drive millions of Africans on trek towards Europe* (The Times)
Should we abolish daylight saving time – or apply it across Australia? (The Guardian)
How Hong Kong’s National Security Law Is Changing Everything* (Bloomberg)
Everything else
Categories for #30DayMapChallenge 2021 (Topi Tjukanov)
Malofiej on pause (Malofiej)
TikTok’s rapid growth shows the potency of video* (The Economist)
The best way to win a Nobel is to get nominated by another laureate* (The Economist)
Meta data
Data consultation
Here's an open (editable) list of links about the UK's new direction for data consultation (Peter Wells)
Response to Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport consultation: "Data: a new direction" (ICO)
Viral content
Covid in Scotland: Vaccine passport app launch hit by problems (BBC News)
Covid pass plans agreed in knife-edge Senedd vote (BBC News)
Covid passes: Conservative who missed vote was at party conference (BBC News)
How many people have died as a result of a COVID-19 vaccine? (ONS)
Improving health and social care statistics: lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic (Office for Statistics Regulation)
Next slide please: How Covid made data literacy a public skill (DataIQ)
UK government
MPs and civil servants called to account for misleading use of statistics (The Observer)
Launch of new cross-government Integrated Data Service (BETA): net zero and regional growth top the agenda (ONS)
Hacking the Future (Civil Service)
Crumbs! Understanding Data: a Dstl biscuit book (DSTL)
Data-driven innovation: why confidentiality and transparency must underpin the nation’s bright vision for the future of health and care (National Data Guardian)
Data is not just about numbers but opportunities (NAO)
UK Government single sign-in since 2001: A (very) brief recap (Jerry Fishenden)
Quick off the mark: How the ONS is speeding up estimates of regional GDP (ONS)
Real-time data to measure the economy: insights from the ONS (ODI)
An introduction to standards and interoperability at NHSX (NHSX)
Roadmap (GOV.UK Design System)
Demonstrating trustworthiness and maximising public benefit: ADR UK Public Engagement Strategy 2021 - 2026 (ADR UK)
AI got 'rithm
AI Skunkworks projects (NHSX)
An Inconvenient Truth About AI: AI won't surpass human intelligence anytime soon (IEEE Spectrum)
Google’s AI unit DeepMind makes first-ever profit* (FT)
AI filmmaking is the future. And it’s already coming for the past…* (Tortoise)
The truth about artificial intelligence? It isn’t that honest (The Observer)
Clearview AI Has New Tools to Identify You in Photos* (Wired)
EU votes to restrict AI use in law enforcement while UK rolls it out* (New Scientist)
Losing Facebook
More details about the October 4 outage (Facebook)
Understanding How Facebook Disappeared from the Internet (Cloudflare)
Facebook outage: what went wrong and why did it take so long to fix after social platform went down? (The Guardian)
The Great Facebook Outage of 2021: Why WhatsApp and Instagram were down for six hours* (New Statesman)
How the Facebook outage crippled businesses and communication around the world (Rest of World)
Much of the world relies on WhatsApp. Its outage ground their virtual lives to a halt.* (Washington Post)
Digital government
It's so interesting to trace back the roots of *why* government digital work is so hard (James Plunkett)
The state of digital affairs in Europe (NumeriCitéFM podcast)
Written evidence: Challenges in implementing digital change (Public Accounts Committee)
Internet and information
On the Internet, We’re Always Famous* (The New Yorker)
Garbage, Human Beings: Social Media as the “False Representative Class” (Justin E. H. Smith)
A good example of how the way we teach infolit does harm (Mike Caulfield)
I call him the "rogue archivist."... For decades, Carl's cause has been open access: universal access to all knowledge (Cory Doctorow)
Big tech
Whistleblower: Facebook is misleading the public on progress against hate speech, violence, misinformation (60 Minutes)
I Designed Algorithms at Facebook. Here’s How to Regulate Them.* (New York Times)
Clearly, Facebook Is Very Flawed. What Will We Do About It?* (New York Times)
Why this Facebook scandal is different (Recode)
Facebook Hearing Strengthens Calls for Regulation in Europe* (New York Times)
Facebook Political Problems (Stratechery)
APPLE’S FORTRESS OF SECRECY IS CRUMBLING FROM THE INSIDE (The Verge)
Google Maps to show the lowest carbon route for car journeys (The Guardian)
Open for the best
Fight secrecy! (Campaign for Freedom of Information on Crowdfunder)
In plain sight, Boris Johnson is rigging the system to stay in power (The Guardian)
Data
Why leaders should care how their organisation collects, accesses, uses and shares data (ODI)
UN calls for ‘urgent’ co-operation on cross-border data flows (Tech Monitor)
A Curation of Tools for Promoting Effective Data Re-Use for Addressing Public Challenges (The GovLab)
Build Back Better: the data behind UK’s net zero transition (ODI)
Just a reminder that @ICOnews' new #DataSharing #CodeOfPractice comes into force today (via Phil Booth)
There’s a Multibillion-Dollar Market for Your Phone’s Location Data (The Markup)
Data Organization in Spreadsheets (The American Statistician - 2018 but doing the rounds online)
Everything else
#LibrariesWeek
moving from the what to the how – language in service design (Iterate)
Events
EVENTS: Ada Lovelace Institute hosts ‘Taking back control of data: scrutinising the UK’s plans to reform the GDPR’ (Ada Lovelace Institute)
EVENT: Data vs Climate Change Hackathon (DataJam NE in partnership with NICD and NEECCo)
EVENT: In conversation with Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham (IfG)
EVENT: #PlanetData4 (ODI Leeds)
Opportunities
APPOINTMENT: Expert Member of the ICO Technology Advisory Panel (ICO)
VOLUNTEERING: Volunteer opportunities (Pro Bono Economics)
JOB: Deputy Director, Analysis Function Strategy and Delivery (ONS)
JOB: Deputy Director, Strategy, Synthesis and Coordination (ONS)
JOB: Head of AI and Machine Learning (Innovate UK)
JOBS: Lead Data Engineer, Data & Analytical Services Directorate (3 posts available) (MoJ)
JOB: Senior Data Scientist - Fraud and Error (DWP)
JOB: Data science lead (House of Commons Library)
JOB: Open Data Technical Lead (House of Commons)
JOB: Head of Digital and Technology Standards (Defra)
JOB: Head of Data as a Service (DWP)
JOB: Lead Data Engineer (MI5)
JOB: We’re hiring a trainee data journalist (The Economist)
INTERNSHIPS: Intern with Bloomberg Graphics (Bloomberg)
JOB: Policy Manager (Full Fact)
JOB: Policy and Parliamentary Relations Manager (Full Fact)
JOB: Communications Manager (External Relations and Content) (Ada Lovelace Institute)
JOBS: Head of Comms (interim); #OpenActive Engagement Consultant; Consultant (ODI)
JOB: Head of Standards (Centre for Digital Public Services)
And finally...
This is quite a pair of charts (via Alex Selby-Boothroyd)
Sankey diagram showing the proportion of episodes each main character from Grey's Anatomy appears in (Flourish)
Trick OR Treat - Venn diagrams halloween edition (Mariam Antar)
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1 October 2021
Summit going on
I’m looking forward to chairing a panel at this year’s Open Data Institute Summit. This year’s theme is Data <> People, exploring what it means to be human in a world of data, and it’s taking place virtually on Tuesday 2 November. (No, I can't believe November's only a month away, either.)
Hosted by the ODI’s co-founders – Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt – there’ll be 100 tech, digital and data leaders from a range of fields speaking; more than 40 panels, talks and roundtables; films, interactive art and games; and chats and networking opportunities.
The programme is here with more details to follow. As a small reward for sticking with Warning: Graphic Content through the overwhelming number of links (and often overwhelming puns), I’m delighted to be able to offer you 30% off a ticket – just use the code GF-30 (and do so before 12:00 on Monday 4 October if you’d like an extra early bird saving).
Hopefully see you there!
In other news:
It's been a busy week for events. On Tuesday I was in Brighton for the superspreader event that was Labour Party conference, chairing an IfG event on what we can learn from the use of data during the pandemic with BEIS select committee chair, Darren Jones MP, and a great panel - you can listen to the event here. (Probably a good job I hadn't spotted this rather more troubling contribution to the debate at the time.) IfG will be in Manchester for the Conservative conference, too.
On Wednesday I took part in a couple of DataConnect21 events. In the morning, I was discussing our ODI project to map data-related organisations and initiatives in government - everything you need to know about that is here. In the afternoon, I chaired an Epimorphics event on data catalogues. Notes to follow, but here's a blogpost by Defra and a Data Bites talk from Hackney to give you a flavour of some of the issues.
Next week is Data Bites week! Join me on Wednesday for a great line-up, of sponsors Bright Data, the newly-minted UK Health Security Agency on novel data sources (think wastewater), DCMS on monitoring the National Data Strategy, and BEIS on their net zero carbon calculator. Come! (There won't be any singing. Promise.)
Last time I noted that every data/digital minister had just been reshuffled. Phil's turned his attention to those ministers responsible for health data/digital (you'll never guess, etc).
I'd be interested in views on this tweet from Stian about government consultations. In the meantime, the data protection consultation remains open (more links in Meta data, below), with DCMS publishing some more detail about the activity happening around it.
And with the new Bond film *finally* released, here's my data-driven view of its predecessor, Spectre.
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Graphic content
'Stag parties*
Election day is #dataviz day (Lisa Charlotte Muth)
The German election (Reuters)
Germany’s election results in charts and maps* (FT)
Germany’s election result 2021* (The Economist)
German Election Results* (Bloomberg)
German election 2021: full results and analysis (The Guardian)
German election 2021: which coalitions can govern?* (New Statesman)
The climate has overtaken covid-19 as German voters’ top concern* (The Economist)
Allemagne : combien Angela Merkel a-t-elle côtoyé de dirigeants français, britanniques, américains… au cours de ses mandats ? (Le Monde, via Marcus)
*Not mine, sadly.
You Canuck be serious
Canadian Election Results: Trudeau Wins Third Mandate—With Another Minority* (Bloomberg)
Your regular reminder that Canadian election maps are great but also not great (Jens von Bergmann)
Viral content
America’s pandemic is now an outlier in the rich world* (The Economist)
Red Covid: Covid’s partisan pattern is growing more extreme* (New York Times)
US Covid death toll surpasses that of 1918 flu pandemic* (FT)
UK Covid tracker: the latest data by local authority* (New Statesman)
Covid cases among England’s schoolchildren hit record peak* (FT)
COVID-19: Why nations are urged to send vaccines abroad, with fears over 'dangerous variants' (Sky News)
Side effects
I recently did a talk about the gendered impact of the pandemic using @IpsosMORI data and wanted to share some key findings here (Kelly Beaver)
In many rich countries covid-19 has slashed life expectancy to below 2015 levels* (The Economist)
Eurozone consumer activity returns to pre-pandemic levels* (FT)
Hotels fear hard winter without the business traveller* (FT)
Travellers are eager to fly to America again* (The Economist)
Job well done: 18 months of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Resolution Foundation)
The furlough scheme ends today... (Eleanor for IfG)
Hostile environment
Amazon Alert: Crime and destruction in the rainforest (Sky News)
Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions* (The Economist)
World’s biggest cities fail on tougher WHO air pollution standards* (FT)
Children born today are likely to face seven times more extreme weather events than their grandparents* (The Economist)
There’s a Fortune to Be Made in the Obscure Metals Behind Clean Power* (Bloomberg)
More Americans Are Moving Into Fire-Risky Areas* (Bloomberg)
Are national climate commitments enough to protect our health? (The Global Climate & Health Alliance)
Crises, what crises?
All of Europe is desperate for more lorry drivers* (The Economist)
How Brexit and Covid-19 caused the number of HGV drivers in the UK to plummet* (New Statesman)
High food prices are here to stay* (The Economist)
What is behind rocketing natural-gas prices?* (The Economist)
Record migrants cross Channel but numbers are dwarfed by unauthorised people in UK (Sky News)
BORDER REFUGEES (Reuters)
State(s) of the parties
Texas’s New Congressional Map Could Give A Huge Boost To GOP Incumbents (FiveThirtyEight)
What Redistricting Looks Like In Every State (FiveThirtyEight)
Map proposals show how parties hope to gain from new congressional boundaries* (Washington Post)
Texas GOP lawmakers’ redistricting map protects congressional incumbents while avoiding a new Latino-majority seat* (Washington Post)
Why Texas's laws are moving right while its population shifts left* (Washington Post)
Why Bipartisanship In The Senate Is Dying (FiveThirtyEight)
White, Evangelical And … Progressive (FiveThirtyEight)
UK
UK CIVIL SOCIETY ALMANAC 2021 (NCVO)
Government transparency - Departmental releases: ministers and officials (IfG)
How bad is Labour’s electoral plight?* (New Statesman)
NHS waits: More people feeling forced into private healthcare (BBC News)
The experience (time since first elected to the Commons) of newly appointed Cabinet ministers since Wilson in 1970 (Andrew Gray)
New IFS student finance calculator shows: no easy choices for student finance reform (IFS)
As pubs pack out, drinks companies worry about an abstemious youth* (FT)
Can Boris Johnson turn Britain into a scientific leader?* (FT)
USA
Biden wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Here's why that's going to be hard* (FT)
Jobless Rates From 15 U.S. Cities Show Racial Gap Is Widening* (Bloomberg)
George Floyd’s murder discouraged Americans from calling the police* (The Economist)
Why the Empire State Building, and New York, May Never Be The Same* (New York Times)
How Men and Women Spend Their Days (Flowing Data)
How abortion laws in the U.S. compare to those in other countries* (Washington Post)
Everywhere else
Genes reveal how and when humans reached remote corners of Pacific* (The Economist)
The gig workers index: Mixed emotions, dim prospects (Rest of World)
Sport
Sadio Mané Never Went Away (FiveThirtyEight)
Real Madrid 1-2 Sheriff Tiraspol (The Analyst)
#dataviz
The best data design of 2021 (Fast Company)
So you want a CEO Cockpit for your data? Here's some inspiration (Andy Cotgreave)
The importance of comparable data: what our two new dashboards enable us to do (Social Investment Business)
Graphic Design History Resources (we made this)
Behind the scenes: How the Sky News Data team exposed global inequality in the vaccination program (Sky)
Meta data
AI got 'rithm
National AI Strategy (DCMS, BEIS)
New ten-year plan to make the UK a global AI superpower (DCMS)
National AI Strategy promotional material (Office for Artificial Intelligence)
Machine Learning’s Crumbling Foundations (Cory Doctorow)
Living With Artificial Intelligence: Stuart Russell is the BBC Radio 4 Reith Lecturer for 2021 (BBC)
Amazon's algorithms taken to task in landmark bill (BBC News)
Public Trust in Artificial Intelligence Starts With Institutional Reform (ACLU)
DeepMind and UK’s Met Office use AI to improve weather forecasts* (FT)
Refugees help power machine learning advances at Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon (Rest of World)
Can this man save the world from artificial intelligence?* (The Times)
Big Tech is replacing human artists with AI (The Intrinsic Perspective)
How Artificial Intelligence Completed Beethoven’s Unfinished Tenth Symphony (Smithsonian Magazine)
Heading in the right direction?
‘Data: a new direction’ – the UK government’s new data protection regime (ODI)
Mapping the UK Data Protection reform proposals (ODI)
Pleased to share my slides on UK #GDPR: What New Direction? (David Erdos)
Communique: "Data Free Flow with Trust" (Roundtable of G7 data protection and privacy authorities)
International Transfers under the UK GDPR: What next? (Act Now Training)
Open for the best
10 Years of OGP (Open Government Partnership)
The Open Internet on the Brink: A Model to Save Its Future (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
Greensill review calls for lobbying transparency and new code of conduct (The Guardian)
UK government spent half a million pounds on lawyers to fight FOI disclosures (openDemocracy)
70% of public concerned by UK government secrecy (openDemocracy)
Health information
Confidential medical records at the centre of a new claim against Google (Mishcon de Reya)
What the Tories want to do with our health data, and why we need to stop them (openDemocracy)
The UK government has ended Palantir’s NHS data deal. But the fight isn’t over (openDemocracy)
'Bots' could come to the rescue of overworked nurses and tackle the Covid backlog* (Telegraph)
How data can help prepare us for the next pandemic* (Sally Davies for FT)
COVID-19: QCovid tool's new algorithm identifies those most at-risk from coronavirus after vaccination (Sky News)
Judge refuses to delay Scots vaccine passport scheme (BBC News)
The Story of the Covid-19 in Favelas Unified Dashboard, As It Marks One Year (Catalytic Communities)
Information health
Misinformation Is About to Get So Much Worse* (The Atlantic)
In a world of information overload, the challenge is to avoid being driven mad* (New Statesman)
The strange case of WhatsApp and the child-kidnappers: On India’s misinformation front line, a policewoman fights a tech giant (1843)
UK government
Inclusive Data Taskforce recommendations report: Leaving no one behind – How can we be more inclusive in our data? (UK Statistics Authority)
Ensuring everyone is counted in UK data and evidence (ONS)
Data strategy for Defence (MoD)
Government is a ‘tough environment for digital projects’, admit top officials (Civil Service World)
Whitehall chief pegs annual government digital spending at £20bn (Public Technology)
GDS chief outlines alternative approaches in future government log-in (UKAuthority)
At @GDSTeam we are committed to working in the open (Tom Read)
Podcast: Collecting information from users (GDS)
Digital Secretary Nadine Dorries' London Tech Week keynote speech (DCMS)
#LTW (London Tech Week)
Celebrating Libraries Week with the Defra library team (Defra Digital)
BEIS plans digital service for buildings’ energy ratings (UKAuthority)
Trading places
Digital trade objectives (DIT)
UK government announces digital trade strategy* (Computer Weekly)
US & EU senior officials meet today in Pittsburgh to talk tech & trade (Mark Scott)
Silicon blip
A Detroit community college professor is fighting Silicon Valley’s surveillance machine. People are listening.* (Washington Post)
Beeban Kidron v Silicon Valley: one woman’s fight to protect children online (The Observer)
The last days of Silicon Roundabout* (New Statesman)
Facebook’s Documents About Instagram and Teens, Published* (Wall Street Journal)
Slides
What the Wall Street Journal Got Wrong (Facebook)
What Our Research Really Says About Teen Well-Being and Instagram (Facebook)
Facebook Downplays Internal Research Released on Eve of Hearing* (New York Times)
Building the Metaverse Responsibly (Facebook)
Shrink Facebook to Save the World* (New York Times)
Facebook Rolls Out News Feed Change That Blocks Watchdogs from Gathering Data (The Markup)
Apple and Google drop Navalny app after Kremlin piles on pressure* (FT)
Instagram insiders reveal its growing TikTok turmoil* (Wired)
China
Document Number Nine (John Lanchester for the LRB)
China demands internet companies create governance system for algorithms (The Register)
Government and politics
Old Dog, New Tricks: Retraining and the Road to Government Reform (Democracy)
Roadmap for data policy, algorithms and source code (data.gouv.fr)
THE POLITICAL COST OF LEGACY SYSTEMS (Jerry Fishenden)
Data
Afghanistan: MoD shared more than 250 Afghan interpreters' details on email (BBC News)
The Words We Use in Data Policy: Putting People Back in the Picture (defenddigitalme)
De-identify, re-identify: Anonymised data's dirty little secret (The Register)
Personal data stores: building and trialling trusted data services (BBC Research & Development)
Help us build collaborative leadership on social sector data (Data Collective)
Just a heads up for anyone setting out on data journalism courses this month, we have more than 65 public interest datasets here to play around with (Pete Sherlock, BBC Shared Data Unit)
Everything else
The Digital Sandbox (FCA, City of London Corporation)
What’s the EdTech story that all should know? One Laptop Per Child (Gaurav Singh)
Our stories (Who Writes The Rules?)
Launch of London’s Emerging Tech Charter (Smart London)
Digital Transformation 2021 (Raconteur)
Computer Weekly announces the 2021 Most Influential Women in UK Tech* (Computer Weekly)
Computer Weekly’s 2021 women in tech Rising Stars (Computer Weekly)
Tributes from across the spectrum
Thanks, Sir Clive Sinclair, from Reg readers whose careers you created and lives you shaped (The Register)
Legal drafting and computer programming – a post in memory of Sir Clive Sinclair (David Allen Green)
Opportunities
EVENT: A new direction? A community response (Open Data Manchester)
EVENT: ODI Canalside Chats: Big questions about big tech | Susannah Storey and Dr Mahlet Zimeta (ODI)
EVENT: Annual Digital Lecture: Data Feminism and the Archive (The National Archives)
EVENT: Is there an exponential gap? Azeem Azhar interviewed by John Thornhill (Ada Lovelace Institute)
EVENT: EU DataViz 2021 (European Union)
EVENT: Meet the UK statistics watchdog (Office for Statistics Regulation)
CONSULTATION: Proposal for mandatory COVID certification in a Plan B scenario (DHSC)
INQUIRY: Open Justice: Court reporting in the digital age (Justice Select Committee)
FUNDING OPPORTUNITY: Global Partnerships in Advancing Data Justice (Advancing Data Justice)
JOB: Director of Analytics and Data Sciences (UKHSA)
JOB: Director of Data Operations (UKHSA)
Public health agency offers £110k for analytics and data science leader (Public Technology)
JOB: Head of Tech Sector Policy Co-ordination (DCMS)
JOB: G6 Analysis Function Strategy and Engagement (ONS)
JOB: Head of Data Innovation (Food Standards Agency)
JOB: Head of Research and Data Insight (Good Things Foundation)
And finally...
Tech
Amazon Astro is ‘terrible’ and will ‘throw itself down’ stairs, developers reportedly claim (The Verge)
The smart toilet era is here! Are you ready to share your analprint with big tech? (The Guardian)
The new Roomba uses AI to avoid smearing dog poop all over your house (CNN)
I wish they had also created a diverse dataset of rugs (Dmitry Krotov)
Place
Which is the most recognisable country?* (The Economist)
Contagious Cartography: A Panorama of Pandemics and Plagues (Daniel Crouch Rare Books)
I’ve just been sent this most useful cheat sheet to understand British measurements (via Simon Kuestenmacher)
TV
The ten most-watched Netflix series* (New Statesman)
Animation for the nation: how the COI used cartoons to present the voice of authority (BFI)
Everything else
THE PASSIONATE STATISTICIAN TO HIS LOVE (PUNCH Magazine c. 1885, via RJ Andrews - I've actually sung a version of the original with the New Tottenham Singers)
Mandate that the value of π should equal exactly three. (UK Government and Parliament Petitions - via Matt)
UK probe into the government official who spent a huge sum of taxpayers' money on luxury chocolate right before Christmas has cost four times the amount wasted on candy (Business Insider)
The Journey to Define Dimension (Quanta Magazine)
0 notes
Text
17 September 2021
Every data minister I'm shuffling
It was strange not to be frantically live-blogging a government reshuffle or formation for the first time since 2014. But my former colleagues at the IfG did an excellent job.
I'm not sure the same can be said about everyone else, from basic factual mistakes that should have been headed off in advance and certainly corrected by day 2 (Margaret Beckett, not Liz Truss, was the UK's first female foreign secretary, Today programme), to senior political journalists thinking nothing of tweeting wild speculation and generally inane and uninformed horserace commentary. (If this was a 'brutal' reshuffle - compared to what? And if this was *another* brutal Boris reshuffle, what does that say about the appointments in the first place?)
Every minister responsible for data appears to have been moved. DCMS welcomes Nadine Dorries as its new secretary of state (with responsibility for cyber security as part of the brief), its tenth since 2010 at a time when the department has quite a lot to get on with (see below). The minister for data, John Whittingdale, has gone - as has Caroline Dinenage (minister for digital and culture, whose brief included the Online Safety Bill) and Matt Warman (minister for digital infrastructure). Perhaps some of those subjects will be picked up by Julia Lopez, who has moved to DCMS from the Cabinet Office where her brief included open government (and the ongoing open government national action plan process). Her boss, Michael Gove, has also moved (to MoHoCoLoGove - one for the long-term subscribers , there), replaced by Steve Barclay, who seems to have an interest in data (and inspired this headline) but was also a few weeks away from delivering a fairly important spending review setting government budgets for the next few years.
All of that means we have a new team of ministers to deal with the glut of government action around data. That includes the mega consultation on data protection that government launched last Friday. (Which you can find more details of and reactions to in Meta data, below. Yes, I've read it; yes, Office 365 managed to lose most of my notes. Which may be a blessing for you in being spared my opinions on it.)
What could possibly go wrong?
Elsewhere:
There's ONE DAY LEFT to add to and amend our ODI document, crowdsourcing the data-related organisations and initiatives happening in government. Last Friday I unexpectedly got to discuss my song about the project on Times Radio (around 6:45), and Matt Chorley helpfully crowdsourced titles for tracks on my Christmas album.
There's still time to get involved in the aforementioned open government national action plan process. We're concerned that the process hasn't involved as diverse a group as it needs to, as per this blogpost by Mor (and this discussion kicked off by Ruchir).
There'll be no Warning: Graphic Content next week (which marks roughly 7 years - seven! - since the newsletter started), so some advance notice:
On Tuesday 28 September, I'll be in Brighton for Labour conference, chairing an IfG event on what we can learn from the use of data during the pandemic. The IfG also has a full programme at Conservative conference.
At 10am on Wednesday 29 September, I'll be taking part in an event with the ODI as part of DataConnect21. We'll be discussing our exercise mapping data-related organisations and initiatives in government.
And at 2pm that same day (Wednesday 29 September), I'll be taking part in a DataConnect21 event with Epimorphics, where we'll be discussing data catalogues.
And... the next Data Bites (our 23rd) will be taking place on Wednesday 6 October at 6pm. An invitation will appear here soon, where you can also watch the previous 22 events.
Have a great weekend, and week, and weekend again, and week again
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
UK politics
Government reshuffle - September 2021 (IfG)
Mini-reshuffle (Jack for IfG)
Boomer v broke: why the young should be more angry with older generations* (Sunday Times)
Housing market tracker: How much is the average rent and home prices in your area? (Includes the Irn Bru scale) (The Courier)
Viral content
Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England: deaths occurring between 2 January and 2 July 2021 (ONS)
Why are Covid vaccine boosters needed and who in the UK will receive them?* (FT)
A study has now landed from Public Health England on how vaccines are faring against *severe disease & death* (John Burn-Murdoch)
New wave of Covid predicted as UK’s return to school and social mixing hit* (FT)
COVID-19: Why has the UK vaccine rollout slowed and which countries have overtaken it? (Sky News)
Despite Delta, severe covid-19 is much rarer among vaccinated Britons* (The Economist)
Covid-19 cases in American children are at an all-time high* (The Economist)
Covid Hospitalizations Hit Crisis Levels in Southern I.C.U.s* (New York Times)
The pandemic marks another grim milestone: 1 in 500 Americans have died of Covid-19* (Washington Post)
Side effects
Weekly household spending fell by more than £100 on average during the coronavirus pandemic (ONS)
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (IfG)
Broadway’s Back as New York Pins Covid Comeback Hopes on Culture* (Bloomberg)
Delta’s Force Hits Economies From U.S. to China in Real-Time* (Bloomberg)
Tech
The geography of AI: Which cities will drive the artificial intelligence revolution? (Brookings)
How digital-currency investors differ from the general population* (The Economist)
American tech firms are repatriating billions in offshore profits* (The Economist)
Justin the lead
Poll Tracker (CBC News)
Canada’s snap election (Reuters)
Canadian election 2021: Will Justin Trudeau’s Liberals be defeated?* (New Statesman)
Canada federal election: A look at the key numbers driving the campaign (BBC News)
Deutsch marks
Marking Merkel (Reuters)
So haben Sie Merkels Kanzlerschaft noch nie gesehen (Spiegel)
US
Do Voters Want Democrats Or Republicans In Congress? (FiveThirtyEight)
Our Best Tool For Predicting Midterm Elections Doesn’t Show A Republican Wave — But History Is On The GOP’s Side (FiveThirtyEight)
Economists predict US interest rate rise in 2022* (FT)
20 Years After 9/11, the Twin Towers Are Everywhere (Bloomberg CityLab)
20 years of turmoil: How 9/11 shaped our world today* (Telegraph)
Environment etc
Climate change: World now sees twice as many days over 50C (BBC News)
Endemic species (Federica Fragapane for Corriere della Sera)
Scientists scramble to harvest ice cores as glaciers melt (Reuters)
Mount Shasta is nearly snowless, a rare event that is helping melt the mountain’s glaciers* (Washington Post)
Zeroing in: Net Zero disruption and opportunity at a local level (Social Market Foundation)
#dataviz
‘Numbers you can tell stories with’: a decade of Guardian data journalism (The Guardian)
Meta data
Action
UK launches data reform to boost innovation, economic growth and protect the public (DCMS)
Data: a new direction (DCMS)
Call for evidence: National Data Strategy monitoring and evaluation framework (DCMS)
National Data Strategy Forum (DCMS)
Enabling trustworthy innovation to thrive in the UK (CDEI)
Advisory board of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI)
Continuing to improve Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) at the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI)
Reaction
The UK’s risky rush to cut Brussels rules* (FT)
In reforming data regulator, UK eyes innovation over privacy (Politico)
Thread (Vincent Manancourt)
UK dials up the spin on data reform claiming simplified rules will drive responsible data sharing* (TechCrunch)
What a new data regime could mean for public services (UKAuthority)
Reactions (compiled by Phil Booth)
UK GDPR and Privacy Law: 74 Reforms the Government is Considering (GRC World Forums)
Government publishes consultation on post-Brexit data reforms (DLA Piper)
WHY ON EARTH IS THE GOVERNMENT MUCKING ABOUT WITH OUR PRIVACY LAWS? (Open Rights Group)
The UK Government published their plans to water down GDPR. It is bad, incredibly bad (Mariano delli Santi)
You may not be surprised that I think the criticism of the date proposals is alarmist (Daniel Korski)
Re the new DCMS GDPR reform consultation (Lilian Edwards)
TL:DR (Lilian Edwards)
Many UK organisations will take the proposals in the Accountability Framework section of the Government's #dataprotection consultation as an invitation to abandon governance measures put in place under #GDPR (Owen Boswarva)
Wouldn't this mean a party in a state with no adequacy decision could process #personaldata via a UK-based data centre without safeguards? (Owen Boswarva)
Quick comments on the UK Government GDPR consultation, "Data: A new direction". (Omer Tene)
Relight my FOIA?
Pre-appointment hearing for Information Commissioner (DCMS Select Committee)
You can 'go your own way' over GDPR, says UK's new Information Commissioner (The Register)
UK government could charge fees for requesting official information (openDemocracy)
To defend FOI rights, we need a separate FOI Commissioner (mySociety)
Threatened with judicial review, DCMS concedes that the Information Commissioner’s July to October re-appointment was “unlawful” (Rich Greenhill)
Parliamentary Question: Independent Adviser On Ministers' Interests: Freedom of Information (Angela Rayner, Chloe Smith)
'Lord Lansley...criticised the Government’s approach to dealing with FOI requests' (PR Week, via Jenna Corderoy)
UK government(s)
NHS app storing facial verification data via contract with firm linked to Tory donors (The Guardian)
U.K. Health Department to End Data Contract With Palantir* (Bloomberg Quint)
Thread (The Citizens)
UK digital identity & attributes trust framework: updated version (DCMS)
Interview: Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak on supporting the UK tech sector (Computer Weekly)
Study finds government using personal data to target messages (Civil Service World)
Home Office law enforcement data failures 'putting public safety at risk' (Civil Service World)
MoJ leads programme to link vulnerability data (UKAuthority)
You're so geospatial
The secret to great geospatial data portals: start with the user (Geospatial Commission)
Why are we still building portals? (Leigh Dodds)
Making Better Use of Data for Land-Use and the Environment (Scottish Government)
Harms race
Secretary of State’s powers and the draft Online Safety Bill (Carnegie UK)
Online media literacy resources (DCMS)
Europe’s Wild West: damning new stats on Big Tech in Ireland (Irish Council for Civil Liberties)
Ireland fails to enforce EU law against Big Tech* (FT)
We can’t tame big tech (Institute of Art and Ideas)
Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show* (Wall Street Journal)
UK.gov is launching an anti-Facebook encryption push. Don't think of the children: Think of the nuances and edge cases instead (The Register)
Facebook sent flawed data to misinformation researchers.* (New York Times)
AI got 'rithm
"Everyone wants to do the model work, not the data work": Data Cascades in High-Stakes AI (Google Research)
What policy-makers think about AI (Digital Creativity Labs)
Artificial intelligence risks to privacy demand urgent action – Bachelet (UN OHCHR)
Data foundations
Oxford announces the founding of the new Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science (University of Oxford)
Wellcome and The Rockefeller Foundation fund new data.org initiative, Epiverse, Analyzing Emergence and Spread of Pandemics (data.org)
How might the Global Data Barometer promote critical engagements with data infrastructures? (Global Data Barometer)
LOTI Data Skills and Capacity Survey: Summary Report and Analysis (LOTI)
Fraud
Investigation of data irregularities in Doing Business 2018 and Doing Business 2020 (submitted to the World Bank)
China uses anti-fraud app to track access to overseas financial news sites* (FT)
Everything else
Fact checking works: results from a new international study (Full Fact)
Citizens Advice Data Science team month-notes #2 (August 2021) (Dan Barrett)
Possession Is The Puzzle Of Soccer Analytics. These Models Are Trying To Solve It. (FiveThirtyEight)
In the event of a pandemic — READ ME. (Open Data Charter)
DEMOCRACY IN FLUX: REFLECTIONS ON A DECADE AT INVOLVE (Tim Hughes)
Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair dies aged 81 (The Guardian)
If you're unfamiliar with Sir Clive Sinclair and his history, I URGE you to watch the fantastic BBC film Micro Men (via Chris Scullion)
Opportunities
EVENT: DataConnect21 (UK Government)
EVENT: People, Data & the Pandemic (OMDDAC)
JOB: Data Scientist - with Zoom Q&A (BBC News)
JOB: Head of Data Innovation (Food Standards Agency)
JOB: Head of Data Management (DVSA)
JOB: Senior Manager - Data policy and Regulation (Ofgem)
JOBS: As our Technology department expands we have a number of new roles available (ICO)
JOB: Early Career Research Fellow in Ethics in AI - Moral/Political Philosophy (Corpus Christi, University of Oxford)
And finally...
Graphic
For close followers of the hybrid Commons (2020-21), please enjoy this very serious and important chart that somehow didn’t make it into the latest Parliamentary Monitor (Alice for IfG)
Spent part of today arguing with a messy axis so this made me feel better (Lesley-Anne Kelly)
Serial parallels: A whirlwind tour of Hong Kong’s high-rises is an awesome meditation on urbanity (Aeon)
Content
When news writes itself (via David)
The new Roomba uses AI to avoid smearing dog poop all over your house (CNN)
Now Houseparty is dead, I've got permission to share something insane that an insider told me last March... (Joe Tidy)
0 notes
Text
10 September 2021
It is the very model of a modern data doggerel
Following February's National Data Strategy sea shanty, it was inevitable that I'd attempt the difficult second album at some point.
The confluence of the latest IfG Data Bites and our ODI project to map data-related organisations and initiatives in government provided the perfect opportunity for an idea I had *ages* ago: a parody of Tom Lehrer's 'Elements' parody of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'I am the very model of a modern Major-General' about government data.
So here it is.
You should of course watch Data Bites for the excellent presentations (join us on 6 October for the next one). And we've extended the deadline on our mapping project to next Friday, 17 September, so give us your amendments and additions here. We've also published the sixth and last of our blogposts focusing on a particular theme from the ODI manifesto if you need inspiration - this one's on engagement (the rest of them are threaded here).
And in brief:
Overnight, DCMS have published details of the promised consultation on data protection (though I'm getting a 404 for the consultation link itself) and the new CDEI board (though they're still looking for a chair). Details here.
Join ODI Leeds for further adventures in government/data classification
The Open Government National Action Plan process continues, with a working group on Disinformation about to kick off - sign up for everything here
IfG published a more-thoughtful-than-you-might-have-expected report on reforming government communications by Downing Street's former head of comms, Lee Cain. Responses here from Alex and Jill. I tweeted about one paragraph in particular, which focused on the lack of data visualisation expertise, and yielded some great replies.
I made it to an actual, real life, public event - the first of the ODI's Canalside Chats. The next one looks good, too.
Are you working somewhere in the intersection of tech and policy? Would you like to meet and network with similar? Sign up for Andrew's excellent initiative here.
And to come full circle and return to singing: if you're near north London tomorrow (Saturday) and tempted to give singing a go, my choir - the New Tottenham Singers - are holding a 'Come and Sing Day' where you can try us out. Come! And Sing!
Have a great weekend
Gavin
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Today's links:
Graphic content
Viral content
The pandemic’s true death toll: Our daily estimate of excess deaths around the world* (The Economist)
Real-world evidence shows face masks reduce covid-19’s spread* (The Economist)
Delta surge is test for US schools as classrooms reopen* (FT)
Do You Need To Wear A Mask Indoors Where You Live? Check This Map (NPR)
America has remained unusually vaccine sceptical* (The Economist)
COVID-19: Are we back to normal? What the UK travel data shows (Sky News)
Climate of fear
Atlas of the Invisible: using data to map the climate crisis (The Guardian)
Economic losses from extreme weather hit $3.6tn over five decades* (FT)
Poorly devised regulation lets firms pollute with abandon* (The Economist)
Bitcoin Uses More Electricity Than Many Countries. How Is That Possible?* (New York Times)
Money, money, money
In Wake of 9/11, Wall Street Is More of a Notion Than an Address* (Bloomberg)
States Dole Out Cash to College Kids, Theaters in $200 Billion ‘Experiment’* (Bloomberg)
Warren, Sanders Target Firms That Pay CEOs Way More Than Workers* (Bloomberg)
The Jobs Numbers: Who’s Hiring in America—and Who’s Not* (Bloomberg)
UK
Parliamentary Monitor 2021 (IfG)
Government has been avoiding parliamentary scrutiny for far too long* (The Times)
What we can learn from the hybrid Parliament (Politics Home)
A preview of historical UK Gallup polls from our @ESRC project with @RoperCenter (Will Jennings)
Huge discrepancy in NHS England waiting times for common procedures (The Guardian)
"NHS North East London has 14 times more people waiting for a new hip or knee than Knowsley" .... yes but its population is also 13.5 times the size! (Dave West)
Who are the winners and losers of Boris Johnson’s social care reforms?* (New Statesman)
More: NI rise, social care crisis, NHS and public spending* (New Statesman)
Tech
Technological Progress (Our World in Data - originally 2013, but doing the rounds)
Amazon ‘roll-up’ businesses raise billions in fight for ascendancy* (FT)
Maps
Neighbours fear that Afghan refugees could spark civil conflict* (The Economist)
‘Cultural genocide’: the shameful history of Canada’s residential schools – mapped (The Guardian)
More 10km x 10km city squares, this time a simple blue-green-grey approach to displaying the urban fabric, including parks and water (Alasdair Rae)
Everything else
Universities Say They Want More Diverse Faculties. So Why Is Academia Still So White? (FiveThirtyEight)
End of Merkel era puts Europe in flux (Axios)
Pressure-driven meltdowns are surprisingly common in elite tennis* (The Economist)
Baby #dataviz choices: appreciation thread (Alli Torban)
Meta data
Unleashed
UK launches data reform to boost innovation, economic growth and protect the public (DCMS)
UK suggests removing EU’s human review of AI decisions* (FT)
UK GDPR faces changes under planned reforms (Computer Weekly)
ORG WARNS OVER GOVERNMENT’S PLAN TO PURSUE LOBBYISTS’ AGENDA ON DATA RIGHTS (Open Rights Group)
Cookie banners: G7 urged to consider solution to pop-up notices (BBC News)
Are UK government plans to roll back GDPR good news for adland? (Campaign)
GDPR: Welsh government breached data laws 300 times since 2019 (BBC News)
WhatsApp issued second-largest GDPR fine of €225m (BBC News)
Information health
COPI notice for sharing of patient info by NHS Digital for Covid-19 purposes has been extended (via Owen Boswarva)
How did a proprietary AI get into hundreds of hospitals - without extensive peer reviews? The concerning story of Epic's Deterioration Index (diginomica)
National Data Guardian feedback on DHSC's draft data strategy: 'Data Saves Lives: Reshaping health and social care with data' (National Data Guardian)
Data all the way down (Health informatics and information technology)
Scottish parliament approves plans for vaccine passports (The Guardian)
Promises Made to Be Broken: Performance and Performativity in Digital Vaccine and Immunity Certification (European Journal of Risk Regulation)
ICO baby
VIDEO: Pre-appointment hearing for Information Commissioner (DCMS Select Committee)
Pre-appointment hearing for Information Commissioner (Robert Bateman)
British lawmakers will be quizzing the new pick as Information Commissioner, John Edwards, shortly (Vincent Manancourt)
Here's a thread of the @CommonsDCMS Committee questions I asked John Edwards (Kevin Brennan MP)
Thread (Campaign for Freedom of Information)
Facts and free speech
The rise of the factcheckers: slaying COVID-19 myths one rumour at a time (The Optimist, Evening Standard)
Big local lies: how misinformation is wrecking community politics* (Tortoise)
Extreme views and conspiracism rising among England’s pupils, research finds (The Guardian)
NEW: The State of Free Speech Online Report (Big Brother Watch)
New inquiry into digital regulation launched (House of Lords)
UK government
Hacking 23 years of government history: An example from The UK Government Web Archive - How algorithms can reveal trends when searching historical documents (The Alan Turing Institute)
ADR UK secures £90m funding extension as Government plans better use of data (ADR UK)
Next phase of government project to map the UK’s underground pipes and cables launched (Geospatial Commission)
Platforms and services: the GOV.UK architecture strategy (Inside GOV.UK)
Waste not, want not: How Digital is playing a key role in waste reforms (Defra Digital)
techUK sets out recommendations to support adoption and scaling of Intelligent Automation in Central Government (techUK)
Public engagement and net zero: How government should involve citizens in climate policy making (Institute for Government, Involve)
How to reset CDEI (and why the right answer is to split it up) (medConfidential)
Identity parade
6 questions you should ask on a digital identity project (Public Digital)
How will the new single sign-on and a GOV.UK Account work together? (Government Digital Service)
Official figures and the findings of its own research, commissioned this year, suggest over 4.2 MILLION potential #voters don't have valid #photoID? (Phil Booth)
Descartes was wrong: ‘a person is a person through other persons’ (Aeon - old but doing the rounds)
Big tech
Sharing learnings from the first algorithmic bias bounty challenge (Twitter)
Facebook Apologizes After its AI Mislabels Video of Black Men as “Primates” (Slate)
How Facebook Undermines Privacy Protections for Its 2 Billion WhatsApp Users (ProPublica)
This ProPublica article on WhatsApp is terrible (Alex Stamos)
WhatsApp “end-to-end encrypted” messages aren’t that private after all (Ars Technica)
Everything else
Participatory data stewardship (Ada Lovelace Institute)
Exploring participatory mechanisms for data stewardship – report launch event (Ada Lovelace Institute)
Reflections on “Participatory data stewardship: A framework for involving people in the use of data” (Tim Davies)
Is anyone aware of a list/repository of AI and algorithmic auditing tools and services? (Seb Krier)
ODI Fellow Report: Digital planning and its implications (ODI)
The what & why of trusted research environments (Understanding Patient Data)
Digital Transformation at Scale (second edition) (Public Digital)
Evolution of ODI Leeds (ODI Leeds)
This is a map of half a billion connections in a tiny bit of mouse brain* (MIT Technology Review)
Built to Last (Logic)
Opportunities
NETWORK: Tech & policy are the two most important variables for shaping the future, but there's nothing at this intersection for junior/mid-level folk to meet new people, collab & learn about both worlds. So we're creating it! (Andrew Bennett)
EVENT: Information+ Conference 2021
EVENT: Inclusive Data Taskforce | Recommendations Report Launch (ONS)
EVENT: CONTEMPORARY FIGURES OF PERSONALISATION (People Like You)
FUNDING OPPORTUNITY: ADR UK welcomes applications for GRading and Admissions Data for England (GRADE) Research Fellowships (ADR UK)
JOB: Senior Data Analyst (Parliamentary Digital Service)
JOB: Senior Data Scientists (3 posts available), Data Science Hub (Ministry of Justice)
JOB: Deputy Director, Head of Data Capability Centre (Home Office)
JOB: Statistics and Data Intelligence Lead (DCMS)
JOB: Head of User Centred Policy Design (MHCLG)
JOB: Policy and Engagement Manager (360Giving)
JOB: Software Engineer (Data Scientist) Data Journalism - News Content (BBC News)
JOB: Senior economist (IfG)
And finally...
Film
No Time to Die: Daniel Craig has a view to box office killing* (The Times, via Renate)
Shang-Chi and the fight against yellow peril* (Washington Post)
Design
Revolutionary type: Meet the designer decolonizing Chinese fonts (Rest of World)
I'm looking for pictures of A4 signs stuck to walls to correct bad design in physical spaces (Ben Terrett and others)
Everything else
Software (SMBC, via David)
Swale council seeks to quash planning decisions issued in error by junior staff member with one application rejected as 'whack' (KentOnline)
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