In his latest awe-inspiring ... feat, Kim Jong Un has ... scaled North Korea’s highest mountain, tackling the snow-clad peak in brogues, warmed only by his revolutionary fervour.
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| AFP/Getty Images |
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Kim Jong Un scales North Korea’s highest mountain in brogues
From the Times newspaper, 19 April 2015:
What do we call that?
Monday, 20 April 2015
RIP IDA – Verizon assure you: "Your answers help verify you are undefined undefined"
No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but,
just in case it isn't obvious to all,
IDA is dead.
IDA, now known as "GOV.UK Verify (RIP)",
is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme.
And it's dead.
Here's a selection of GDS posts and a film in the week leading up to purdah:
24-03-2015 | Janet Hughes | |
25-03-2015 | Chris Mitchell | |
25-03-2015 | Janet Hughes | |
25-03-2015 | Janet Hughes | |
26-03-2015 | Janet Hughes and Stephen Dunn | |
26-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
27-03-2015 | David Rennie | |
27-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
27-03-2015 | Mike Beavan | |
28-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
28-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
29-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
29-03-2015 | Liam Maxwell | |
30-03-2015 | Martha Lane Fox |
If there's a tricky job facing the Government Digital Service (GDS), we were saying, or indeed an impossible job, what do they do? Call for Janet Hughes. Let's take a look at her in action, on film on 24 March 2015, Introducing GOV.UK Verify (RIP).
Ms Hughes's film is 8'05" long. Between about 5'55" and 6'13" we see these three screens:
 |
| First Verizon ask you to confirm your bank account details ... |
 |
| ... then Verizon ask you to confirm your gas supplier ... |
 |
| ... and finally Verizon ask you to confirm some electoral roll information. |
In each case, the Verizon screen says:
This is nonsense. It's not Janet Hughes's fault. It's Verizon's. That's the best they could come up with. Their lamentable inattention to detail is supposed somehow to inspire confidence in 60 million Brits – come to Verizon, the people you can trust with your personal information.
Your answers help verify you are undefined undefined.
The illusion of choice 1
On each screen, Verizon tell us that:
Strange. Verizon is not a UK credit referencing company. How do they know anything about your credit record? Verizon must have got the information from Experian or one of the other UK credit referencing agencies.
This information is from your credit record.
What's the point of having Verizon there if the real registration work is being done by Experian or whoever? None.
It gives the illusion of choice. You could choose Verizon as your so-called "identity provider" or Digidentity or Experian. That looks like a choice but it's an illusion. Whichever company you choose, it's really Experian doing the work because it's Experian that has the information, not the US Verizon or the Dutch Digidentity.
Consent 1
Who gave Experian or whoever permission to give that information to Verizon? Arguably you did. It's probably in the fine print of the terms and conditions behind one of the earlier screens in Ms Hughes's presentation. But that is not made clear. I.e. it's not informed consent.
Consent 2
Nor is it willing consent. If you want to renew your driving licence, which is the scenario in Ms Hughes's presentation, you have to use GOV.UK Verify (RIP). Your choice is either get yourself an on-line ID or stop driving. No real choice.
Is that true? You may say "no". Once at about 2'45" and once at about 6'45" Ms Hughes says that nobody will be excluded if they can't register through GOV.UK Verify (RIP). There will be other ways for them to renew their driving licence.
What other ways?
Ask the farmers who are trying to claim their Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) money from the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). Many of them have a problem registering. The proferred solution is "assisted digital" – get someone else to help them register.
One way and another, the farmers have to register through GOV.UK Verify (RIP), whether they do it themselves or with the help of an agent. If they don't register, they don't get paid. Simples.
Even though GDS's failed Basic Payment Scheme has been discontinued and farmers are now using paper instead, they still have to get themselves a GOV.UK Verify (RIP) account first. Otherwise, no money.
We know that. The National Farmers Union have told us, on 20 March 2015:
Mandatory
RPA abandons online-only BPS application system
Apart from registering, farmers will not be asked to enter any further data online now ...
Farmers still need to register using the online Rural Payments service to begin the process of making their claim. So far over 80% of farmer businesses have successfully done this. It remains the only way that farmers and their agents can register to make a claim.
GDS are serious about GOV.UK Verify (RIP). They intend it to be mandatory. Don't come away from Ms Hughes's cuddly presentation thinking that it's optional and that it'll never affect you.
If GDS have their way, either your answers will help verify you are undefined undefined or you won't be able to renew your driving licence, it's one or the other. And if you're a farmer, you won't be able to drive legally and you won't be able to farm either.
The illusion of choice 2
Even GDS realise that not everyone can jump through GOV.UK Verify (RIP)'s hoops just at the moment. Success relies on having a credit history. And a passport. And a driving licence. And a telephone number. Not everyone has.
GDS need other ways to verify people's identity. That's why additional "identity providers" are being recruited. GDS can't rely on Experian alone.
That's what Ms Hughes tells us in her presentation. Twice. Once at about 1'15" and once at about 6'00". But it's not true.
It's another illusion. What do we see? We see Verizon relying on credit history. They bring no new information with them to verify your identity. We have noted a GDS propensity to flout their own rules against misleading and deceiving people. This looks prima facie like another instance.
RIP IDA
GDS may have a strategy to increase choice but they can't carry it out. RIP IDA.
RIP IDA – Verizon assure you: "Your answers help verify you are undefined undefined"
No need to say it, it goes without saying, it should be obvious to all but,
just in case it isn't obvious to all,
IDA is dead.
IDA, now known as "GOV.UK Verify (RIP)",
is the Cabinet Office Identity Assurance programme.
And it's dead.
Here's a selection of GDS posts and a film in the week leading up to purdah:
24-03-2015
|
Janet Hughes
| |
25-03-2015
|
Chris Mitchell
| |
25-03-2015
|
Janet Hughes
| |
25-03-2015
|
Janet Hughes
| |
26-03-2015
|
Janet Hughes and Stephen Dunn
| |
26-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
27-03-2015
|
David Rennie
| |
27-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
27-03-2015
|
Mike Beavan
| |
28-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
28-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
29-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
29-03-2015
|
Liam Maxwell
| |
30-03-2015
|
Martha Lane Fox
|
If there's a tricky job facing the Government Digital Service (GDS), we were saying, or indeed an impossible job, what do they do? Call for Janet Hughes. Let's take a look at her in action, on film on 24 March 2015, Introducing GOV.UK Verify (RIP).
@gdsteam, the first casualty of war
Here's a selection of GDS posts and a film in the week leading up to purdah:
Six-fourteenths of our way through the review of the pre-purdah posts, and a surprising theme is developing.
Misleading
We noted in our review of Chris Mitchell's 25 March 2015 offering, Ready for Live: Digital Self-Assessment, that the Government Digital Service (GDS) were potentially misleading the public.
They claimed that their work, in connection with UK tax returns, "will make self-assessment fully digital for about 10 million people". In fact, digital self-assessment has been available from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) since at least 31 January 2008, long before GDS existed.
Far from creating the digital self-assessment service – which is the impression given – all that GDS did was to add an email facility which cuts out some of the letters which have previously been sent.
"Perhaps GDS simply didn't notice the ambiguity", you may say.
But they did. We know that from the Service Assessment which was conducted by GDS and published on their blog on 21 March 2014, over a year ago:
Deceptive
We noted in our review of Mike Beavan's 27 March 2015 offering, Looking back at the exemplars, that there is some deception when it comes to how many of GDS's 25 exemplar services are live. Figures vary between 8 and 20. Which is it?
"It's only DMossEsq who finds this deceptive", you may say.
Not so. Look at the comments on Mr Beavan's post:
Social media house rules
GDS say:
And now, on with the review – eight more items to go.
24-03-2015 | Janet Hughes | |
25-03-2015 | Chris Mitchell | |
25-03-2015 | Janet Hughes | |
25-03-2015 | Janet Hughes | |
26-03-2015 | Janet Hughes and Stephen Dunn | |
26-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
27-03-2015 | David Rennie | |
27-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
27-03-2015 | Mike Beavan | |
28-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
28-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
29-03-2015 | Mike Bracken | |
29-03-2015 | Liam Maxwell | |
30-03-2015 | Martha Lane Fox |
Six-fourteenths of our way through the review of the pre-purdah posts, and a surprising theme is developing.
Misleading
We noted in our review of Chris Mitchell's 25 March 2015 offering, Ready for Live: Digital Self-Assessment, that the Government Digital Service (GDS) were potentially misleading the public.
They claimed that their work, in connection with UK tax returns, "will make self-assessment fully digital for about 10 million people". In fact, digital self-assessment has been available from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) since at least 31 January 2008, long before GDS existed.
Far from creating the digital self-assessment service – which is the impression given – all that GDS did was to add an email facility which cuts out some of the letters which have previously been sent.
"Perhaps GDS simply didn't notice the ambiguity", you may say.
But they did. We know that from the Service Assessment which was conducted by GDS and published on their blog on 21 March 2014, over a year ago:
It looks as though GDS have knowingly allowed their potentially misleading reports to persist for over a year.
... the assessment team did agree that the service in its current form is a feature of “Your tax account”, rather than a service in its own right.
Deceptive
We noted in our review of Mike Beavan's 27 March 2015 offering, Looking back at the exemplars, that there is some deception when it comes to how many of GDS's 25 exemplar services are live. Figures vary between 8 and 20. Which is it?
"It's only DMossEsq who finds this deceptive", you may say.
Not so. Look at the comments on Mr Beavan's post:
There follows 10 days of deceitful-looking prevarication in the comments section of the blog about the meaning of "live" and a questionable claim that GDS's hands are tied during purdah ... but no satisfactory answer to Peter's question.
Peter — 02/04/2015
Hi Mike [Beavan],
this blog says:
"Of the 25 services, 20 are publicly accessible. Fifteen of those are fully live and the rest are in beta "
I've clicked through the services and of the 15 that are stated as "fully live". 5 seem to be in public Beta whilst one, digital self-assessment, appears to only be a redirect page. List below:
+ Visas
+ Make a claim to an Employment Tribunal
+ Find an apprenticeship
+ Digital self-assessment
+ PAYE
+ Your tax account
Could you clarify what is meant by "fully live"?
Thanks
Social media house rules
GDS say:
Presumably what applies to Twitter applies just as much to GDS blogs. And presumably what applies to users applies just as much to GDS themselves. Including rule #2 above, about being "deceptive or misleading".
We will block and/or report users on Twitter who direct tweets at us which we believe are:
- Abusive or obscene
- Deceptive or misleading
- In violation of any intellectual property rights
- In violation of any law or regulation
- Spam (persistent negative and/or abusive tweeting in which the aim is to provoke a response)
And now, on with the review – eight more items to go.
@gdsteam, the first casualty of war
Here's a selection of GDS posts and a film in the week leading up to purdah:
Six-fourteenths of our way through the review of the pre-purdah posts, and a surprising theme is developing.
24-03-2015
|
Janet Hughes
| |
25-03-2015
|
Chris Mitchell
| |
25-03-2015
|
Janet Hughes
| |
25-03-2015
|
Janet Hughes
| |
26-03-2015
|
Janet Hughes and Stephen Dunn
| |
26-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
27-03-2015
|
David Rennie
| |
27-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
27-03-2015
|
Mike Beavan
| |
28-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
28-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
29-03-2015
|
Mike Bracken
| |
29-03-2015
|
Liam Maxwell
| |
30-03-2015
|
Martha Lane Fox
|
Six-fourteenths of our way through the review of the pre-purdah posts, and a surprising theme is developing.