More like these here: http://principles.adactio.com/
Government Digital Service Design Principles
51–60 of 84 posts
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which part is unacceptable - the fobbing off part, or the some data gets sent to a country that tortures people, spies on all its citizens indiscriminately and has not signed up to common international treaties. I think that before Snowden most people, myself included, would have thought not using google analytics for the above reasons was paranoia. Now, I think that all digital data should be treated as public and u…
>> Which part is unacceptable Pretending it's a non-issue and not addressing concerns AND then using an overseas helpdesk service, such that now not only are analytics being sent to the US, but actual communication between a UK citizen and the UK government. But particularly the latter half. >> I think that before Snowden most people, myself included, would have thought not using google analytics for the above reason…
This just sounds like a paranoid rant. If you have a problem with it, either don't visit the site or block the analytics. The reason they are using it is pretty obvious, like everyone else that builds digital services, they want to look at how it gets used. It is a non issue, that's not pretending, it's just putting on a rational hat and taking off the silly rhetoric of paranoia.
Personally, as someone who left the UK in the 90's for silicon valley, I'm blown away that the UK government has even heard of the internet, let alone built a decent digital service.
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is unacceptable. Before you start the lynch mob, ask yourself this: what on earth can one do with non-person-identifiable data stored on a server? "Next on BBC - Terrorist organisation finds out too many British people forget to update their MOTs" That's not what I want from my government. Be very very fortunate you can even get a somewhat usable site, much less a very user friendly site. There are citizens of t…
Of course it's personally identifiable. AOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak and more recently Netflix http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak08netflix.pdf tried to anonymize datasets and failed. With a website, you can geo-locate the IP, cross-reference with timestamps, and probably ID more than half the users. Someone tested how hard it is: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/de-anonymize-cellpho…
But if they identify that "Jim English" has visited the MOT description website 10 times in the last month...so what?
Google analytics for a publicly facing government website is akin to someone watching you walk physically into a public municipality.
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Which part is unacceptable Pretending it's a non-issue and not addressing concerns AND then using an overseas helpdesk service, such that now not only are analytics being sent to the US, but actual communication between a UK citizen and the UK government. But particularly the latter half. >> I think that before Snowden most people, myself included, would have thought not using google analytics for the above reason…
This just sounds like a paranoid rant. If you have a problem with it, either don't visit the site or block the analytics. The reason they are using it is pretty obvious, like everyone else that builds digital services, they want to look at how it gets used. It is a non issue, that's not pretending, it's just putting on a rational hat and taking off the silly rhetoric of paranoia. Personally, as someone who left the U…
>> It is a non issue, that's not pretending, it's just putting on a rational hat and taking off the silly rhetoric of paranoia.
I'm glad you're happy to publish all the details of your interactions with government services to an advertising company in another country with far less in the way of data protection law.
I'm not.
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course it's personally identifiable. AOL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_leak and more recently Netflix http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~shmat/shmat_oak08netflix.pdf tried to anonymize datasets and failed. With a website, you can geo-locate the IP, cross-reference with timestamps, and probably ID more than half the users. Someone tested how hard it is: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/de-anonymize-cellpho…
But if they identify that "Jim English" has visited the MOT description website 10 times in the last month...so what? Google analytics for a publicly facing government website is akin to someone watching you walk physically into a public municipality.
Someone in another country, not subject to the same laws about how that sort of data is collected and used.
Actually it's not even equivalent then. It's more like them recording the conversation you have with the public services folk. And you haven't actually gone there, just called on the phone.
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately it's attitudes like this that usually end up making Government projects so eye-wateringly expensive. Assuming they listen to your suggestion and act on it as you suggest, it seems the only option open to them is to design their own in-house (In UK for that matter) version of Google Analytics to do their own analysis. Regardless of the cost and time this would add to the project, it's unlikely that it wo…
I'm sorry what? F*ck privacy, this way is more expedient? Is that what you're saying in effect? That's not what I want from my government. --edit-- I also didn't make any suggestions, I would have accepted a reasonable explanation of the legal and technological measures that were in place to protect my data from rampant proliferation through US corporate and government systems. Instead I got (and this is a direct quo…
No, what they're saying is, "How much more in taxes do you want to pay to get them to stop using Google Analytics?"
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry what? F*ck privacy, this way is more expedient? Is that what you're saying in effect? That's not what I want from my government. --edit-- I also didn't make any suggestions, I would have accepted a reasonable explanation of the legal and technological measures that were in place to protect my data from rampant proliferation through US corporate and government systems. Instead I got (and this is a direct quo…
No, what they're saying is, "How much more in taxes do you want to pay to get them to stop using Google Analytics?"
And the answer is "some".
As a proportion of the whole development cost, using either an EU based analytics service or in-house server shouldn't really be significant.
But even before that I'd like to have some indication that someone has actually thought about what they're doing, rather than just stuffed in GA because that's what you do in the private sector.
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#58If anyone from gov.uk is reading this, do you fancy answering the question I posed when the site was launched but never received an adequate answer to? Why does gov.uk, a site all about allowing the British public to interact with the British government, use google analytics? You are shipping all the data about all my interactions with my government off to a third party in another country. Another country that we kno…
gov.uk uses _anonymizeIp[1] so you do get some privacy there.
[1] https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection...
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#59Having worked close to the department for education in the past it's refreshing to see a strategy that was implemented by employing smart people and giving them enough rope to actually do what was needed, rather than outsourcing to one of big suppliers (the DfE has been far too close to Capita over the last decade or so) and letting them bleed the pot dry with project management and consultancy fees (at one Capita ru…
I've been part of a large consulting bid for work, and part of the team that executed it. It was horrible. We were bought in because we knew how to do something, but we won the bid because we simply could do it cheaper than anyone else. Where it went wrong though, was that even though we knew what to do, once engaged the client insisted on how it would be done and meddled with every part of it. And the next big failu…
It's agonizing to me that some of these government bids (my experience is in the US state of California) are required to take the lowest bid that meets the requirements unless they can clearly justify using a more expensive one. Of course, if they put out a general request they would end up with a terrible product, so they tailor their request to the company they want to hire.
Even then, the companies aren't really rewarded for doing a good job. They're rewarded for doing a minimal job that barely meets the requirements and using as much money as they can.
Re: Government Digital Service Design Principles
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been part of a large consulting bid for work, and part of the team that executed it. It was horrible. We were bought in because we knew how to do something, but we won the bid because we simply could do it cheaper than anyone else. Where it went wrong though, was that even though we knew what to do, once engaged the client insisted on how it would be done and meddled with every part of it. And the next big failu…
It's agonizing to me that some of these government bids (my experience is in the US state of California) are required to take the lowest bid that meets the requirements unless they can clearly justify using a more expensive one. Of course, if they put out a general request they would end up with a terrible product, so they tailor their request to the company they want to hire. Even then, the companies aren't really r…
In my experience in the State of California -- mostly from the government side -- the rule is that there are, for each contract put to bid, rating factors and criteria established upfront and you must hire the contractor that scores the highest on those rating factors. That's not usually equivalent to taking the lowest bid.
That being said, this:
> Even then, the companies aren't really rewarded for doing a good job. They're rewarded for doing a minimal job that barely meets the requirements and using as much money as they can.
...is certainly an issue, especially, as is often the case, where reimbursement is based on hours and the contract amount is a limit, so that the incentive is to assure that as many hours are consumed as possible up to the limit.