Disruptive Proactivity

Several sectors, including Government, are putting significant effort into investigating “authoritative registers you can trust”, or what are sometimes called “distributed ledgers” – the main implementation technology for which are blockchains. Even the BBC has made a radio programme about them.

While widespread awareness of blockchains is relatively new, they are a mature design, building on a well-established theoretical underpinning. The main reason for the variety of terms currently in use to describe blockchains is that officials and high-ups are somewhat nervous about referring to the most famous example to date: the digital currency bitcoin.

The general adoption of blockchains promises to fundamentally transform how data is stored and used. The UK model for encouraging and promoting such transformations is the “Catapult” network. It is puzzling therefore that, despite their clear applicability in a number of areas of national interest and a growing acknowledgement of the need to regain the missing trust in data, blockchains do not appear to have been deemed a priority. Read more…

“The public generally do not understand the difference between operational and statistical uses of personal data” say ONS. They are right. Unfortunately, neither do other people who probably should.

The ODI has recently published a draft data spectrum which recognises that there are a variety of areas of tradeoff and differences.

The Chief Data Officer is not about statistical uses of data – it is serving very different user needs (user needs, not departmental needs) – it is/was about using data to improve operations. Why do you think Whitehall was so terrified?

Read more…