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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Access to justice and advice sector issues  →  Thread

Gov.uk gathering ‘targeted and personalised’ info

shawn mach
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Reports that the PM has secretly ordered the Cabinet Office to turn Gov.UK into a platform for ‘targeted and personalised’ information to be gathered in the run-up to Brexit

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexspence/boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-voter-data

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/10/no-10-request-user-data-government-website-sparks-alarm

Mike Hughes
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Senior welfare rights officer - Salford City Council Welfare Rights Service

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Ooh now this is right up my street. Whilst my immediate colleagues obsess on the minutiae of Brexit I think we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society beyond anything imaginable and Brexit is a specific distraction to far too much on that front. I could read about this stuff for hours (and do).

shawn mach
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Via @lampfrey

Wondering if there’s a link between @alexGspence’s report on pre-election government data mining and @Derek_duPreez article on parts of the GOVUK codebase quietly being made private a few days ago?

https://twitter.com/lampfrey/status/1171720039910846464
https://diginomica.com/gds-takes-govuk-open-source-code-and-makes-it-privatebut-why

 

shawn mach
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The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office is questioning the UK government about the collection of personal data on its Gov.uk platform ....

... the ICO said: “We have contacted government regarding the collection of personal data on Gov.uk in order to fully understand its approach to compliance with data protection law and whether any further action is necessary.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49682833

shawn mach
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Few people in Whitehall would deny that many aspects of government could benefit from modernisation. However, there are plenty of legitimate civil liberties concerns about transforming GOV.UK into a conventional tech platform, and it appears that this is exactly what Johnson and Cummings have set out to do.

https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/privacy/2019/09/what-govuk-data-plot-tells-us-about-boris-johnsons-digital-strategy

The Government Digital Service has drafted in teams of consultants from Deloitte, Cognizant and PA Consulting to deliver projects relating to “urgent EU Exit requirements” ... The three deals, struck over the course of the last four months, are worth £1m each and have been designed to provide additional assistance to Whitehall departments struggling to roll out essential digital services ahead of the 31 October Brexit deadline.

https://tech.newstatesman.com/public-sector/gds-consultancies-digital-services