Highlights of a few random articles that caught my eye this week … Apple and ID As expected, Apple’s letting users store their driving licences
Category: policy making
The policymaking / DDaT divide
I’m making steady progress with my new book. It explores the gap between politics, policymaking, and digital, data and technology (DDaT). More importantly, it looks
‘Fracture’ — politics and technology in the digital age
I’ve finally got back to working on my book ‘Fracture’ (working title). It’s about the intersection of politics, policymaking and technology — subjects I’ve worked
“Dysfunctional, damaging and sometimes dangerous”
“Dysfunctional, damaging and sometimes dangerous” That’s how the Public Accounts Committee describes government technology in the press release that accompanies their latest report, “Challenges in
Back to the past with government identity
The Government Digital Service (GDS) has a generous £400m budget to develop “One Login”, a single sign-on and digital identity system for government services. But it comes
What can politicians learn from Universal Credit?
The unfortunate saga of Universal Credit is a powerful reminder of the repeated failure to successfully integrate policy making with technology. A failure that comes
The political cost of legacy systems
Passengers arriving at airports across the UK recently encountered irritating delays because of problems with the automatic eGates. One likely cause is the Home Office’s
Digital Government — stuck in a groove?
For the past ~27 years, UK digital government efforts have largely focused on the left column of this table, occasionally drifting into ‘Rationalisation’ — and
social media, free speech and abuse
Social media is back in the news for all the usual negative reasons: hateful, racist, sexist, fraudulent and otherwise abusive users. None of which is
community networks: Reloaded
Amazon is in the news, yet again (when isn’t it?). This time it’s for ‘Amazon Sidewalk‘: it aims to connect together every Echo speaker and
‘Tales of the Riverbank’—a novel
My new novel, ‘Tales of the Riverbank’, has been published. It’s a first, tentative step back into creative writing for me—a return to the days
Integrating technology and policymaking
I’ve written before about the need to better integrate technology and policymaking — in 360-degree policy making, policy making in the digital age, and many
new tech observations from the UK (ntouk) 