So, some digital informationhas leaked from its home. Its been played with by an excel monkeyand plottedon maps. It shouldn’t have happened, but it has. Doh! doesn’t quite cover it when I think of the stupidity of some people. While there are many political uses of the information, the lists of names of membership of any organisation should be kept private. Lists of names, as Tom Steinberg (MySociety) said, start us down a path best not begun....
It’s been a busy fortnight for open-information projects and campaigns. Widely announced and re-announced were the winners of the Show Us A Better Way (SUABW) competition, sponsored by the Government, which sought new solutions to perhaps unknown problems. SUABW asked people what web-based tools they would build from public data-sources that would improve the way public information is shared and presented. The winners are: Can I Recycle It? UK Cycling Catchment Areas Location of Postboxes Loofinder The BBC PM report referred to a court case being thrown out because a piece of law that the case was built on had been taken off the statute book....
Today I’ve accessed three different MySociety websites: TheyWorkForYou, WriteToThem and WhatDoTheyKnow. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without these powerful tools: MySociety are indespensible and we’d all miss them if they weren’t here. I was using WriteToThem to contact Sarah Teather to urge her to support Early Day Motion (EDM) 2141 that her parliamentary colleague Jo Swinson has tabled. FREE OUR BILLS CAMPAIGN, 22.07.2008, Swinson, Jo That this House believes it has a duty to publish Bills in such a fashion that they can be accessed as easily and as early as possible by the public; notes that the non-partisan Free Our Bills campaign is urging the House to publish bill texts in a new electronic format to improve accessibility and public scrutiny of legislation; further notes that the changes requested would have no impact on the content of Bills, nor upon the process by which they are currently made; considers that the new format could be delivered cheaply and quickly; acknowledges that the Leader of the House’s office did not accept a prior request for new formatting from mySociety, nor provide an explanation of why the changes could be made; and calls on the Leader of House to ask House of Commons Clerks to work with Free Our Bills campaign staff to commence publication of Bills in the new format....
UK Citizens Online Democracy’s (UKCOD) main activity is running the mySocietyproject, building websites which “give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives.” MySociety are the people behind the great web tools TheyWorkForYou, WriteToThem, PledgeBank, HearFromYourMP and FixMyStreet(a project similar to one comwifinet were hackingup in the distant past…)I’ve just been emailed about [UK Citizens Online Democracy’s (UKCOD) main activity is running the mySocietyproject, building websites which “give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives....
After reading (and posting) Shahrar’s email I got thinking about what other information about parking and PCNs issued I could request from Brent Council under FoI. How many of us have been issued a ticket because of a simple honest mistake, like, say, scratching off the wrong day on a parking voucher in error, or perhaps forgetting to note your registration on a temporary residents permit? Well that’s me on both counts....