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A further acronym has been added to the growing list of government departments and agencies involved in the management of public information. The new Office of Public Sector Information states that it ‘is at the heart of information policy, setting standards, providing a practical framework of best practice for opening up and encouraging the re-use of public sector information’. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) has been incorporated into OPSI, itself a signifier that the new department is a big hitter.
The differences in remit of OPSI and the Department for Constitutional Affairs (which handles the Freedom of Information Act on its web site) are, on first inspection of each department’s site, unclear. I found this ironic considering the respective departments’ aim to be transparent and understandable to the lay person (in this case, myself). To my untutored eye, the Department for Constitutional Affairs is charged with the responsibility of judging what information can be released under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. Meanwhile, OPSI focuses on the implementation of safe processes for the dissemination and trading of general public information.
A third department, the e-Government unit, is charged with ‘delivering citizen-centred online services’. It appears that this particular department is responsible for infrastructure. Three departments performing variations on a similar theme, then. Public information may now be more freely available, but should citizens have to perform circus tricks to actually obtain it?
It’s always pleasing to see a project you’ve reported on during embryonic stages finally take off. BBC Backstage, which we covered when it was first mooted, has now gone live (albeit, like almost anything of interest on the web these days, in a “beta” form).
Backstage is best summarised by its tagline:”use our stuff to build your stuff“. It allows public developers to build their own applications and sites which make use of BBC data (in the form of data feeds or APIs). Ideas for applications, and actual working prototypes, can be submitted to the site in order to promote them - and to allow others to build on top of them.
Backstage is an unprecedented project. Yes, there are limitations on how the data can be used: it cannot, for instance, be used for commercial gain, and any product supported by Backstage must display a public attribution. But it’s rare for a company (much less a media one) to open up so much of its primary business material for free - especially when that material is raw content, as opposed to say, search results. In many ways, the Backstage initiative is very similar to the Creative Archive: that sharing with your audience won’t necessarily lead to a loss of profit, but instead a profitable (in every sense of the word) relationship. It’s a noble cause to champion, and in some ways the BBC is uniquely positioned in its ability to do so. Personally, I can’t wait to see what emerges from this new approach.
If you’re interested in seeing what people have done with the service so far, take a look at the Backstage site’s list of prototypes. A particular favourite of mine is Yoz Graeme’s search engine for the Today programme archive.
Government IT advisor Socitim in conjunction with the Financial Times has published a survey to measure the current and future use of open source software by local authorities and other local public services. The questionnaire was answered by 99 councils and public sector organisations throughout the country.
Findings show that more than a half of the organisations interviewed are currently using open source software and that 79% out of the 99 councils believed that the use of such devices will increase in the future.
The use of open source software has several benefits such as lower cost and more flexibility. However as the report shows the drawbacks of using this kind of software are lack of technical support and few people with the skills and training to manage them.
American website Zabasearch.com, a personal-data search engine, faces continuing criticism concerning information privacy. Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the US against which the government has been unable to provide effective ways to control the traffic of personal information.
Stefek Zaba from Bristol, who has no connection what so ever with the site, has been annoyed with hundreds of emails and requests from people who are after Zabasearch. Mr. Zaba has set up his own website criticising the search engine. He argues that ”their operation is a gross and flagrant violation of US residents’ reasonable expectations of privacy, and of the internationally endorsed principles on privacy and fair information handling.”
Launched earlier this year, the site embodies everything that is frightening and great about the internet. The website allows users to find out personal details of citizens in the US such as phone numbers and addresses. In addition, for a tiny fee you can get a satellite picture of the person’s home, directions on how to get there, background checks and criminal history.
ZabaSearch founders believe that their service is a step towards data democratisation. Robert Zakari, president of Zabasearch, said that “Personal information in the U.S. is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. People realising that right now as a result of stumbling on ZabaSearch may find that shocking, but the data has been out there for years. It’s just a question of who has access.”
Anti-virus and spam experts at Sophos are warning computer users not to click on links claiming that the British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s email account has been hacked. The virus-infected email was sent out during elections night to British email addresses.
Sophos warns that users who click on the link contained in the email can be infected by a series of Trojan horses that aim to steal confidential information from infected PCs, for instance, server passwords, and sensitive online banking account details. The email arrives with the subject line: “BBC: Tony Blair email account hacked!”
Hackers have attempted to spam government’s email accounts and websites in several occasions in search of confidential information or as part of anti-war protest. In 2003 UK government website 10 Downing Street was briefly rendered inaccessible after a co-ordinated protest against the Prime Minster’s role in the conflict.
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos said: “Clicking on the link takes users to a web site which invisibly installs a Trojan horse on the victim’s computer. This Trojan horse then attempts to install other malicious code onto the infected computer and install password stealers which can be used by hackers for grabbing information.
Curiously it appears that the people behind this election night hack attack may have made a small error. It appears that the email messages were supposed to display a photograph of Tony Blair from the BBC web site to lend it credence, but an elementary mistake in their HTML coding has meant only the text of the message is displayed rather than a picture of the Prime Minister.”
Bill Thompson has written an interesting overview today on the influence of the internet on the UK general election. He highlights, among other matters, how voters showed a serious desire to engage with politics and how they prefered sites which gave them quality information, rather than online games such as the Tory’s ‘Bash Blair’.
Worth a read.
The chaps at MySociety have been busy during the night. Not satisfied with simply having us make our mark in the ballot booth they have launched a site to enable voters to let their new MPs know what they expect from them, called I Voted For You Because. Simple.
Just in case you are still undecided about your vote, here are some links that might help you to make up your mind on Thursday’s general election.
New research shows that text message and internet voting could encourage greater voter turn out. According to a survey carried out by Populus and the mobile phone marketing company i-movo, more than a third of the British electorate would be more likely to vote in an election if they could do so using their mobile phone. More than half of those aged 25 to 34 would be more likely to vote if they could send text messages.
Other research carried out by HI Europe Harris revealed that, of the 2,000 adults interviewed, two-thirds of adults would be willing to use the internet to vote in the general election. The survey found that one in four people would vote online if they could.
New media voting raises questions of credibility and fraud. Research by Mori for the IT consultancy Detica, people believed that introducing even more methods of voting, such as text messaging, e-mail, interactive TV or internet would make election fraud easier to commit and would not encourage more people to vote. Mori interviewed 963 adults across Britain, half of whom believed that new voting methods would make electoral fraud easier to commit.
In contrast, Consult Hyperion maintains that digital voting methods could save a lot of money and that the chances of fraud would be actually minimal. According to Hyperion by 2009 phones will be much more secure than the current models, and that voting websites will have more sophisticated security systems such as ID cards and PIN verification systems.
An online survey to find out where people stand on political issues revealed its latest results yesterday. The survey showed that, of the 19,000 people who took part in the online poll on, a majority shared the views of the Labour and Lib Dem parties.
Participants answered a questionaire at politicalsurvey2005.com and the results were then compared with the rest of the participants and the data obtained from the YouGov survey. The survey summarises people’s political views based on two different axis. The first axis, describes people’s views on crime and punishment, Europe, immigration and international law. The second axis, is mainly about economics and related issues: free markets, Iraq and the model of government. These two axis determine where you stand in the political debate; left, centre or right wing.
The survey also measured the extent to which the electorate is informed on political issues. It showed that supporters of the three major parties are relatively well and equally informed as the election day gets closer.
On taking the test today I was surprised to be positioned in the free-market pro-war category, when in reality I am strongly opposed to the war. My overall result, however, described me as a person in the centre. This led me to believe that the survey might have some weak points. How can one axis measure my views on public and private involvement in the economy, international trade, taxation and Iraq? It does not make sense.
If you wish to take the test to find out your political tendencies go to: politicalsurvey2005.com
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