WRITTEN ON September 8th, 2008 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Foundation of Trust, Identity, What do we want?
I see the excellent Harry Metcalfe of Tellthemwhatyouthink (whose presentation at Tower08 Sir Bonar found “most unimpressive” and “frankly disrespectful towards DirectGov”) has used MySociety’s excellent FoI service Whatdotheyknow to try to establish the cost of the IPS’s curiously disapppointing MyLifeMyID web site.
mylifemyid Research Programme
Research Objectives
The key research objectives of the website are to:-
• Provide in-depth understanding of how identity issues affect young people’s lives [[hint: more online than offline, so the Benighted ID System is not much help]]
• Establish how best to ensure the identity card helps make their lives easier, to inform the on-going development of the young people’s propositions for the identity card [[Wrong question. Right question five years ago, would have been to ask whether it does]]
Participation is open to all UK residents aged 16-25 years.
Duration of the research
The website is scheduled to be live for 3 months from 9 July to 15 Oct 2008.
Costs
All costs quoted exc. VAT
Website (including creation, hosting, administrating, moderating, analysing, and reporting); attendance at Shooters Hill launch on 9 July 2008; COI procurement fee
£47,855
Advertising, inc. Virtual Surveys management fee £25,750
Additional costs: IPS staff costs in setting up and maintaining the site across the life of the website
£2,644.85
Contract
A contract for this work exists between Home Office and the Central Office of Information (COI). The contract was awarded by means of a purchase order by Identity and Passport Service to the Central Office of Information (COI). This is for the establishment of the research website mylifemyid.org. COI hold a contract with the firm Virtual Surveys Ltd, information on the framework used by COI to place this contract can be found at http://www.coi.gov.uk/suppliers.php?page=40.
This contract is for a target number of 2,000 users over a 12 week period, and for Virtual Surveys directors to attend the launch event at Shooters Hill on 9 July 2008.
Promoting the website
Advertising was undertaken for two weeks at the start of the research. advertising.com, one of the UK’s leading online media companies, was commissioned by Virtual Surveys to place banners on a wide portfolio of website targeted at 16-25 year olds. The sites were targeted specifically to access as broad a sample as possible, in terms of social demographic and region.
Additional links to the website are currently placed on the websites of:
• IPS
• Home Office
• Directgov
• Connexions [[Hey! We had a link from here too! And we didnt charge anything!]]
Outputs
The results of the research will be reported to IPS in a face to face debrief, accompanied by a written report, following completion of the research.
The written report will be published on the IPS website.
Website Statistics
Statistics quoted are up to and including w/c 28 July 2008
Statistics current as at 5 August 2008
Number of absolute unique visitors to date 17,543
Total visitors to date 50,358
Total number of members 1,003
Number of community posts to date 2,720
So, basically, £75k for a bunch of No2ID supporters to point out the bleedin’ obvious. My money. Your money. That’s a 75 quid per member, or 25 quid per post. Probably a good £100k for the one single photo-opp.
Wibbi they had just donated that money direct to No2ID?
See below for sample of comments on the Shooter’s Hill launch event which cost so much to attend…
Tanon
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Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoolWell, I hope all the money spent on this website and the one hour discussion was worth the one and a half minutes you got on the news Jacqui
—
Fri, 11/07/2008 – 14:29
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The Englishman
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Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoolDid Jacquiiii Smith have to prove her Identity to gain access to the school, and if not why not?
Fri, 11/07/2008 – 14:35
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mingxing
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Re: Re: Home SecretaryMore to the point, had she had her CRB check done before working with vulnerable young people?
Fri, 11/07/2008 – 14:39
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Winston Smith882
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Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoolI hope Jaqui in her wisdom gives more credence to the hundreds of people expressing comments through this site, rather than the puny 25 she met that day.
Just surprised they didnt put her in a baseball cap, give her an iPod and get her to breakdance into the meeting.
Tue, 15/07/2008 – 16:13
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AMB
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Re: Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoYou mean it was sponsored by Apple??
—Tue, 15/07/2008 – 16:48
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Common Sense
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Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoolLook at the projection on the screen in the bottom picture…
It shows two featureless faces with a massive barcode imprinted on each forehead.
I guess even the Home Secretary’s pro-ID card propaganda paints the scheme as dystopian.
Wed, 16/07/2008 – 20:48
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Anon_1984
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Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoolLOL, I completely missed that, well spotted.
Can anyone read what it says underneth the head?
It looks to me like“What do YOU object”
“Join the Debate 666″
—Wed, 16/07/2008 – 20:54
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AMB
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Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoolIt actually says
What do YOU think?
Join the debate >>>but I prefer your version.
—Wed, 16/07/2008 – 22:32
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Biff933
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Re: Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoAMB wrote:
It actually says
What do YOU think?My personal response to their question….
I think, if you want my finger print…iris scan….DNA….and my money to pay for it…..your going to have a fight on your hands.
I believe that this card is both unnecessary and unwarranted. We are told that the card will help prevent terrorism and help stop Identity theft….how many terrorists will be carrying the new card that by the governments own admission will not be compulsory to carry??? Maybe someone can explain the theory behind that one?
No matter what is said about how secure a computer system is if you are to check details on a database then it has to be accessed from somewhere…if you can access it, then someone will be smart enough to be able to change/steal details from it.
How often will the Data be checked to confirm that it has not been tampered with?? Who will be watching the people who input/check the details??By putting the details of every single member of the UK on one database the Government is creating a treasure trove of information (information is power).
Our Government has proved time and again that it is inept at keeping the information of the British public safe. You may say that these are mistakes made by human error…however it happened, it still happened.This card is nothing more than an infringement on our personal freedom and a tool that can be used to attack and disrupt this country more than any bomb or gun. As well as being a tool that future, possibly “corrupt” Governments can use against it’s people.
My grandfather fought in the second world war so I could live in a free country. I will fight against enemies of this country both foreign and domestic to preserve the freedoms that so many gave their lives for.
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” (Benjamin Franklin)
—Fri, 25/07/2008 – 19:12
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mike2425
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Re: Home Secretary launches MyLifeMyID at Shooters Hill SchoolMaybe the 25 youths she met that day had been drinking more flouridated tap water than normal (the same substance they gave to the poor victims of the concentration camps in Germany…..it stops you thinking to much!!)
……………..Or perhaps there were heavy Chemtrails sprayed from planes in skies above that day!!
Wed, 20/08/2008 – 22:00
8 Responses to “MylifemyID: can we tellyouwhatweREALLYthink?”
Hi, I am one of the Admins on mylifemyid and a Director at Virtual Surveys. It is perfectly fair for people to compare the total cost with the benefits and for them to challenge whether the results respresent value for money. I hope we can illustrate that listening to people has produced value when the report is published.
In terms of costs, I would like to say that most of it relates to people’s time, not to software/hosting. For example the project is running for 15 weeks, and is moderated with at least 2 shifts a day, 7 days a week, over over 210 days of moderation in total. In addition the analysis and report writing are a significant undertaking.
Dear Ray
Good to hear from you, and thanks for the clarifications.
Can I first up commend your exemplary patience as moderator on the site.
Second, we all want IPS to engage respectfully with public opinion. The problem is of too little too late. “How can we make this acceptable to you” is no substitute for “what do you really need”.
And I agree that listening would be really valuable – it could have saved the taxpayer billions, and may yet do so.
Hi Ray,
That’s interesting. The response to my FoI request doesn’t break the figures down enough to give separate amounts for moderation and development.
Perhaps you could provide a little more detail? How much was spent on development vs moderation?
In any event, as has been said: this is too little too late. That’s hardly your fault, though!
Hi Harry, client confidentiallity limits what I can say. This is made of two elements, 1) our client the IPS has the right to decide what is released, 2) We do not want so much information releasing that our competitors can estimate our charge rates, giving them an unfair advantage when we bid against each other for a project.
However, I can tell you that over 90% of time and resources are being spent on the moderation, the management, and the analysis of the project. Given that there will be well over 3000 posts by the time the project finishes, the analysis will be a pretty big job, if we are to do justice to all the comments we have received.
Ray – thanks for responding. I think we are ALL intrigued as to how you will present the views currently voiced on the site, and what the IPS will then do with that. I must say that to me it looks like it’ll be hard work for you to be able to derive something meaningful from what seems to be there – not least in terms of being able to say whether it’s at all representative of young people’s views at large. I have my doubts as to whether this particular mechanism of engagement was the most appropriate for this particular purpose.
The one message that does seem clear is that the IPS faces considerable animosity to its plans. I am interested to know what percentage of posters declare themselves as being linked with No2ID?
From the outset it was recognised that the project would not be representative. If it was going to be representative there would need to have been some sort of random selction process to choose who could join the forum.
I am sure there is other research which is quantitative and representative. But this project was to ensure that the IPS had the chance to listen to a wide range of views – and that has certainly happened.
Our job in reporting the research forum is to ensure that the range of views are reported, and the linkages between them are analysed.
In general, we will not be using percentags to reflect the discussions, since it is what people say that is interesting, rather than how many say the same thing. As such, the % who declare themselves to be linked to No2ID could be misleading in that there may be others who have not publicly linkd themselves, and anyway such a % figure could be misconstrued as an invitation to disregard their views, since they are from a group who has already decided how they feel, or perhaps as an invitation to treat them as only one voice.
I’m in the process of trying to get a full backup of the site because I want to compare the official reports conclusions to the website. As unless they report massive universal dislike of the plan they’ll be doing a lot of fudging.
————–
kimrennin
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It is astonishing, isn’t it… especially when you consider that that site is surely some white-labelled forum that they had anyway: “virtual surveys” are, after all, the name of their game…