Injection of fresh blood is just what DirectGov needs. Obviously we need wonderful, clear, well designed online services. DirectGov, the “flagship” has fallen into a dark place of editorialising in a broadcasting PR monotone, backed with a self-referential and hilariously inept search service.

But soft...who are the new appointments? Is it the MySociety posse? Stef from Moo? Sam of DirectionlessGov? The founders of Headshift? Are they bloggers and creatures of the contempory Internet, who can help DirectGov see the error of its ways?

No! It’s Channe 4-man, whose last post was chief operating officer at ITN. But...but....but that’s about running a broadcaster! We dont want DirectGov to broadcast at us!

And it’s big consumer brand-man, fresh from British Airways, Scottish Widows and Barclaycard. But....but......but we dont want “the world’s favourite web site” with sexy women dressed in mourning chargings us 18.7% APR and sharing our personal details with TfL! We want good, honest contempory internet services! We want APIs. And we dont want you to waste oceanic quantities of our hard-earned tax money!

And finally, it’s the former IT director for insurance intermediary the BGL group, whose brands include Fusion. ACMulr and the little-known comparethemarket.com. But....but....but......we dont want public services to be flogged to us like financial services! We want to co-create them ourselves, to participate and to care.

Gentlemen, it’s a fair cop and you all have wonderful experience in your own fields. But this has to me the feel of a “risk avoidance” set of appointments which maximises the risk that DirectGov will continue to be expensive, overbearing, centralising and editorialising, not light on its feet at all in the spirit which the contempory Internet requires. Please prove me wrong.

Final thought: when you go to DirectGov and search for “new directors” the first search result is called “Arranging a funeral”. But they can’t be dead yet! They’ve only just been appointed! (The second is about measures to tackle hospital bugs.) Hey!

If however you go to Google (for which taxpayers have not forked out £50m and counting) and search for DirectGov new directors you get a COI press release about new directors. But the COI web site appears to be down.

So, there are some things to fix for 2009. 

The public would not want a society in which the security service monitors them all the time, Evans said.

Well spoken sir. Be aware, with your ANPR cameras everywhere and total intercept plans, you’re already way past the point of diminishing returns on this one.

He also robustly defended the government’s plans to allow MI5 and the other security and intelligence agencies to intercept emails and other communications which may have been sent, or posted on websites.

But....but....but.......Isn’t this what is called Doublethink? The ability to hold two completely incompatible views at the same time, without any apparent sense of contradiction? Remember we’re talking here about plans to retain ALL comms data: all the email and web addresses, phone numbers and mobile phone location data that everyone uses. Total monitoring the whole time, in fact. The very thing the public would not want.

My site is worth
$7,249

I’ve repeatedly seen NGO human-rights experts ridiculed and isolated for putting this to people in Whitehall. But there’s no point in dismissing this out of hand and shooting the messenger. We’re bound by the law, and we’ll need to take it on board.

Now hear the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg (in today’s Indy - cheers HJ) on Britain’s benighted IMP plans:

It is therefore worrying that new legislation proposals intend to expand the authorities’ power to allow personal data collection and sharing. Although safety measures are foreseen, the adoption of these measures would increase the risk of violation of individuals’ privacy. The retention and storing of data is delicate and must be highly protected from risk of abuse. We have already seen what a devastating and stigmatising effect losing files or publishing lists of names on the internet can have on the persons concerned. This is particularly relevant to the UK, where important private data has been lost and ended up in the public domain… Following the judgment of the Strasbourg Court [the Marper & S. DNA case] the UK will have to review whether keeping details of all these individuals breaches their right to respect for privacy.

So is this “benighted and loathsome IMP” (Blimp) consultation to be a serious engagement, or just a way of smoking out the oppo so they can get on with it anyway but know what kind of objections they’re likely to face and from whom? Really, if the people in charge can’t see why this is a bad idea I now think they’re beyond educating; we simply need new people in charge.

“The tendency of the state to seek ever more powers of surveillance over its citizens may be driven by protective zeal. But the notion of total security is a paranoid fantasy which would destroy everything that makes living worthwhile. We must avoid surrendering our freedom as autonomous human beings to such an ugly future. We should make judgments that are compatible with our status as free people.” Maintaining the capacity to intercept suspicious communications was critical in an increasingly complex world, he said. “It is a process which can save lives and bring criminals to justice. But no other country is considering such a drastic step. This database would be an unimaginable hell-house of personal private information. It would be a complete readout of every citizen’s life in the most intimate and demeaning detail. No government of any colour is to be trusted with such a roadmap to our souls.”

To look on the bright side, perhaps police sensitivity about their own privacy is a starting point from which we can agree that it matters for everyone.

Your complaints can help us improve our service. Please feed them back bah blah blah....

This is wonderful! Has Lin Homer brought about a change in culture at the BIA?? In my excitement, this Ideal Gov correspondent tried to take a quick snapshot of the sign to share with IG readers, a gesture to which the BIA staff responded urgently (and with paranoia?)… “Madam, c’est interdit de prendre des photos”.

I was however, sad to find that there were no equivalent signs on arrival in the BIA area at St Pancras (just equally assertive notices about not assaulting staff). Indeed, the BIA website complaints section fails to invite service-improving commentary from punters. Perhaps I have simply picked up on a small revolution starting quietly with the team which happens to be situated at the UK border at Gare du Nord....

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We know it better, it’s our data, and we care more about having the right data in the right place and right time. It’s the easy and respectful way to achieve a proper healthy ecosystem of personalisaton and choice. And it supports the sort of data minimisation and privacy by design that would reduce data nitwittery and start to restore trust.

Now Doc Searls has drafted some “founding principles” for the VRM wiki:

VRM Principles

1. Relationships are voluntary.
2. Customers are born free and independent of vendors.
3. Customers control their own data. They can share data selectively and control the terms of its use.
4. Customers are points of integration and origination for their own data.
5. Customers can assert their own terms of engagement and service.
6. Customers are free to express their demands and intentions outside any company’s control.

These can all be summed up in the statement Free customers are more valuable than captive ones.

In a broader way, the same should be true of individuals relating to organizations. With VRM, however, our primary focus is on customer relationships with vendors, or sellers.

I think that, just like Kim’s seven laws of identity all those years ago, this early draft needs some feedback so that the principles of VRM are broadened to address the CRM-like problems of Transformational Government. I think that means a small broadening of principles, and a revision of the language. What do you think?

The public is our best weapon in fighting crime

Look luv. We’re not your weapon. We’re the whole point. We’re the master, not the servant, remember? A weapon, it seems to me, is an inanimate tool which does your violent bidding. So this is entirely the wrong language.

WIBBI the Home Secretary understood the public to be thoughtful, generally non-violent, and increasingly concerned about what she’s doing? I think it’s more a case of

Sorry if our honest attempts to protect the public from crime have become so crude and authoritarian that they’re pissing you off. We now realise that would be profoundly counterproductive, and will desist.