ThePickards
standards, accessibility, and ranting and general stuff by the web chemist

Apparently, the UK Government want to use the ridiculous quantity of data it collects in new and innovative ways to benefit everyone.

The UK government has launched a competition to find innovative ways of using the masses of data it collects…includes mapping information from the Ordnance Survey, medical information from the NHS , neighbourhood statistics from the Office for National Statistics and a carbon calculator from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsBBC News

Well, my initial suggestions for an innovative way for the Government to handle data would be:

• Please don’t send my bank details unencrypted through the post
• Please don’t leave sensitive data on unencrypted laptops on the train

…but apparently they have stressed that this data that they will be sharing will not contain any personal information. Well, at least, no personal information will be deliberately included.

Joking aside, I think this is a good thing. Corporates and Government have traditionally been very reluctant to embrace Web 2.0 technology and ‘mashups’, with things such as Fix My Street and Rate Your Prison (yes, really) working not so much with the help of government but frequently in spite of it. A cultural shift to share public data, collected using public money, with erm … the public … can only be a good thing.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 12:41 am and is filed under Public Sector, Web. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your site.