I'm seeing a few posts indicating UK Labour has sent emails to ex-members, and possibly also people on their mailing list who have never been members, with unique links inviting them to Vote Now in the election for Deputy Leader 🤦

When the AI bubble bursts as is bound to happen very soon all the slop-generating technology will evaporate and everybody will get their copyrights back

Germany rejects EU's 'Chat Control' law, likely killing it www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/le... fightchatcontrol.eu 'Upload Prevention': IWF's last-ditch attempt to bamboozle member states www.iwf.org.uk/news-media/n... EU Council will vote on 14 October #CSAR #e2ee #masssurveillance #techpolicy

We're so relieved to see Germany reaffirm its opposition to the dangerous Chat Control proposal--the one that would mandate mass scanning of communications. Germany's long been a solid champion of privacy, and the news that it was considering backing mass surveillance was alarming. 1/

Amid Steam and Itch adult game forced censorship concerns, UK Government have "no plans to intervene" with payment processors www.rockpapershotgun.com/amid-steam-a... Petition petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73... Campaign stop-paypros.neocities.org #videogames #censorship #openweb #savespeech

A new model of England's motorways and A roads will lead to safer and more efficient journeys www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/news/new-mot... press from OS National Highways Network Model opendata.nationalhighways.co.uk/maps/4b64217... Released in February but they're promoting it now I guess #opendata

New York City sues social media giants over "addictive features" avn.com/news/legal/n... Complaint courthousenews.com/wp-content/u... Anything to distract from the idea that children's mental health might be related to material conditions #screentime #pseudoscience #openweb

Local authority Green Belt statistics for England: 2024 to 2025 www.gov.uk/government/s... annual release from MHCLG The boundary dataset will be published here at some point www.data.gov.uk/dataset/ccb5... #greenbelt #greenspace #localgov #opendata

Keir Starmer plans to 'expand' #digitalID to public services www.thenational.scot/news/2552905... Keir Starmer to look at India's digital ID system during visit to Mumbai www.theguardian.com/politics/202... #techpolicy #databasestate (Are Starmer's kids going to school in the previous century?)

The IDF are problematic for a number of reasons – mass murder, other war crimes – but I'm disappointed to see they are also poisoning the digital commons: The Israel Defense Forces used a Scottish museum's 3D models in propaganda videos theferret.scot/idf-scottish... #opendata #dataforevil

Online Safety Act: 'Protect the kids' is pretext for rights erosions www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-tr... by Marin Scarlett #censorship #openweb #techpolicy

'Done right, digital ID could restore trust in the state' labourlist.org/2025/10/digi... The UK state is currently abetting a genocide. As far as public trust goes, I'm not sure successful implementation of a tech programme will balance the ledger. But maybe I'm just bad at compartmentalisation.

Cabinet Office update on the UK National Action Plan for Open Government questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques... Context www.gov.uk/government/c... + www.opengovpartnership.org Sounds like they're planning to gut the framework?

John Green has doubts about the efficacy of the Freedom of Information Act, once trumpeted by Tony Blair morningstaronline.co.uk/article/free... Whole piece is about how the Met failed to respond to the author's subject access request – nothing to do with FOI. Doesn't the Morning Star have editors?

Accidentally read a Center for Data Innovation blog because I confused it with Connected by Data, my bad

I don't understand people who use social media to parade their ignorance in specialisms where they are trying to sell themselves as experts. If you're not going to build your body of knowledge, just work the grift offline and post about sports or something

Reminder to renew your domain registrations: Spy Dog children's books pulled from shelves over web link that directs children to porn website www.lbc.co.uk/article/spy-... The URL: spydog451.co.uk (NSFW, pay attention horrified parents) + archive web.archive.org/web/20200801...

Mapping the Future: Scotland's LiDAR Revolution blogs.gov.scot/digital/2025... This Digital Scotland post indicates the new programme will produce #opendata outputs, so good news – but I don't understand why it's making out that LiDAR mapping is a new invention remotesensingdata.gov.scot/data#/list

UK Government proposes requirement on sellers and estate agents to provide buyers with "vital information" about property upfront localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/property/404... MHCLG press release with links to consultations (scroll down) www.gov.uk/government/n... #UKhousing #proptech #datasharing

UK Government spend data, transactions over £25,000, April 2010 - August 2025: ● Cabinet Office drive.google.com/uc?export=do... (3.4 MB XLSX) ● Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) drive.google.com/uc?export=do... (1.4 MB XLSX) #publicspending #opengov #opendata

The Welsh Government's Statistical Services function has refreshed its #opendata site digitalanddata.blog.gov.wales/2025/09/29/s... stats.gov.wales (beta) vs old version statswales.gov.wales (available until January)

Framing opposition to #digitalID as ill-informed and based on conspiracy theories makes it easier for Labour to gloss over principled arguments against the policy, from parties and experts across the political spectrum File under nobody trusts the Government and whose fault is that

UK Government blocks transparency on public data sale lobbying www.thenational.scot/news/2551686... Last year's consultation on Labour's industrial strategy – outcome still unpublished www.gov.uk/government/c... #FOI #opengov #datasharing

Discord customer service data breach leaks user info and scanned photo IDs www.theverge.com/news/792032/... Online Safety Act angle: "The unauthorized party also gained access to a small number of government‑ID images … from users who had appealed an age determination." #dataprotection #techpolicy

Finally finished processing (well begun finishing processing) a fantastic OpenDataCamp in Edinburgh #ODCamp @odcamp.uk I ran a session on the value of (open) data, my reflections here -> medium.com/@mikeerose/a...

FOI applicant claims Gab has "withdrawn from the UK" due to the Online Safety Act www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cens... Can't confirm – looks accessible to me. Ofcom claims not to know what Gab is. (It's a Christo-fascist social media platform based in the US.) #openweb #censorship #techpolicy

A modern police service should be able to do security theatre on two fronts at once Follow me for more think tank ideas

Green leader Zack Polanski backs legalisation of all drugs www.bbc.com/news/article... 🕶️

Important read on digital ID based on experience in India.

The #TikTok transfer raises worrying questions for allies like the UK www.chathamhouse.org/2025/10/tikt... from @chathamhouse.org #socialmedia #censorship #techpolicy

British colonial officials destroyed countless files before decolonisation. But one colony has been neglected by the literature: Hong Kong. My latest paper in @jich.bsky.social examines the past, present and future of Hong Kong colonial government migrated archives: doi.org/10.1080/0308...

UK Can't Help Itself: Back To Demanding Apple Break Encryption After "Backing Down" Just Months Ago www.techdirt.com/2025/10/02/u... post by @mmasnick.bsky.social Apple can no longer offer Advanced Data Protection in the UK to new users support.apple.com/en-gb/122234 #encryption #e2ee #techpolicy

Do not introduce Digital ID cards petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73... The UK Government has responded to this popular petition and will be ploughing ahead regardless. I know, shocking #digitalID #masssurveillance #techpolicy

Statistical nearest neighbours for English upper tier and lower tier local authorities www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula... ad hoc from ONS Related from February: Clustering similar local authorities and statistical nearest neighbours in the UK, 2025 www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula... #localgov #opendata

Was Max Headroom an "it"? Just saying #genAI #everydaysexism

Are we referring to AI-generated actor Tilly Norwood as "it" then? www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oc... + www.bbc.com/news/article... Norwood is clearly presented as a young woman; presumably journalists would use "she" for a similar character in traditional animation #genAI #techpolicy #pronouns

TIL that Cornwall Council publishes its Council Tax address list, updated twice a year www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-tax/... 👍 No licensing info but the Council has confirmed to me OGL applies. UPRNs will be added later this month; I will produce a geocoded version then. #openaddresses #opendata

Cross-bench peer Lord Freyberg has asked a series of questions about re-use of images of public domain artworks in UK museums and galleries questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques... (with non-answers from DSIT and DCMS ministers) #IPlaw #opendata #openGLAM 1/2

I remember when vibe coding in Office was just called VBA

At the Your Party founding conference Corbyn and Sultana should fight each other in inflatable sumo suits Follow me for more left policy ideas

DSIT's Innovation Clusters Map has been updated www.innovationclusters.dsit.gov.uk + www.gov.uk/government/c... Underlying data is in an ODS workbook with polygons stored as WKT strings, which is a choice #UKIndustrialStrategy #opendata

Why is it always let's copy Estonia on digital policy and never let's copy Portugal on drugs policy

Your Party has been registered with the Electoral Commission search.electoralcommission.org.uk/English/Regi... Corbyn and Hussain are MPs. Roberts is on the executive committee of the anti-zionist org Jewish Voice for Labour (which this week voted to change its name to Jewish Voice for Liberation).

'Reverse Midas touch': Starmer plan prompts collapse in support for digital IDs www.theguardian.com/politics/202... (This should make you sceptical of opinion polls in general; there are many government policies on which the UK public has no principled or well-informed view) #digitalID #techpolicy

UK makes new attempt to access Apple cloud data www.ft.com/content/d101... (£) #encryption #e2ee #masssurveillance

Service Standard report for DESNZ's Fuel Finder alpha assessment www.gov.uk/service-stan... (UK) Rated green on all points – though if GDS thought the work (outsourced to VE3 Global) was going poorly it's unlikely the assessment would've been published at this point #fuelprices #govtech #opendata

❌ censorious = severely critical of others ✅ censorial = relating to a censor or to censorship

Police unit blocking FOI requests U-turns on promised reforms www.bbc.com/news/article... (UK) #FOI #pressfreedom #datasharing

UK housing secretary Steve Reed, talking through his knock-off MAGA hat at Labour conference www.politico.eu/article/uk-n...

I wish people wouldn't let their (often justifiable) anger at the way AI companies behave lead them to embrace copyright maximalism.