1 April 2022

Bits and Bites

BREAKING: You may remember my rant about the government not releasing basic information about Cabinet Committees in response to a Freedom of Information request a couple of weeks ago. I’m pleased (and slightly astonished) to say I’ve just had an incredibly comprehensive, open and helpful reply back from Cabinet Office — you can read it here.

The countdown to next week’s Data Bites (it’s a bit more than eight minutes from this point, admittedly).

As for everything else:

• We have a brilliant line-up for Data Bites this Wednesday. You can sign up to watch online, or join us in the building with a drinks reception afterwards — email the IfG if you’d like to attend in person.
• Last week, I hosted the latest of mySociety’s TICTeC Labs Civic Tech Surgeries — on the challenges of accessing quality information and data. You can watch the whole thing here, along with various supporting resources. We’ll soon be advertising for members of the follow-up Action Lab (aka working group) who’ll commission some work solving some of the problems identified — sign up to the mailing list if you’d like to know more.
• A big thank you to The Alan Turing Institute for playing host to the second episode of The Data Game — and my new gold jacket. A huge thank you too to our brilliant contestants and co-host — you’ll be able to watch that episode in due course, but in the meantime you can catch up on the first episode from the Open Data Institute Summit.
• I’ve written in the past about an apparent aversion to 100% bar charts, not least from my friends at Peston (please don’t take away my Geek of the Week badges). Again, I think that may have been a better option here than having the same colour mean ‘yes’ and ‘no’, despite the obvious attraction in using political party colours.
• A piece I wrote for last summer’s edition of Signals (from Public Digital), on communicating Covid data, is now available online.

There’s a decent chance there’ll be no Warning: Graphic Content again next week — busy week! — but have a good week or weeks in the meantime.

Have a great weekend
Gavin

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Today’s links:

Graphic content

Ukraine

• How Russia’s mistakes and Ukrainian resistance altered Putin’s war* (FT)
• Hospitals Bombed and Apartments Destroyed: Mapping Incidents of Civilian Harm in Ukraine (Bellingcat)
• Ukraine war — UK Defence Intelligence daily maps (OSINT Editor)
• Russia’s Attacks on Civilian Targets Have Obliterated Everyday Life in Ukraine* (New York Times)
• Ukraine war: Mobile networks being weaponised to target troops on both sides of conflict (Sky News)
• Why Russia’s military is bogged down by logistics in Ukraine* (Washington Post)
• Outnumbered: why are so many Russian troops being killed in Ukraine?* (The Times)
• Why Russia’s troop losses in Ukraine are remarkable* (New Statesman)
• Ukraine war: The deadliest attacks and atrocities so far* (Telegraph)
• In Russia’s war in Ukraine, both sides have attacked water supplies* (The Economist)

Refugees

• How the war in Ukraine compares to other refugee crises* (The Economist)
• Fleeing Ukraine (Reuters)
• Americans are more willing to welcome Ukrainians than others fleeing violence* (The Economist)
• Support For Ukrainian Refugees Is High In Europe. That May Not Last. (FiveThirtyEight)

Reverberations

• How Russia’s War in Ukraine Is Choking the World’s Supply of Natural Resources* (Bloomberg)
• How war in Ukraine could spark unrest in the Middle East* (New Statesman)
• More than 15,000 Russians have been arrested in anti-war protests* (The Economist)
• Our polling reveals a striking generational divide on Ukraine* (The Economist)
• Putin’s aggression has bolstered support for NATO* (The Economist)

Sanctions and economy

• Half of Russia’s 20 Richest Billionaires Are Not Sanctioned* (Bloomberg)
• Ships avoiding Russia as sanctions impact revealed (Sky News)
• The ‘deglobalization’ of Moscow* (Washington Post)
• Why is the rouble so resilient?* (The Economist)
• How the Russian rouble has surged back to pre-war levels* (New Statesman)
• Russian consumers are already feeling the cost of war* (The Economist)
• Visualizing the $13.6 Billion in U.S. Spending on Ukraine* (The Upshot)

Spring forward

• Inflation Nation: Putting Spring Statement 2022 in context (Resolution Foundation — Top of the Charts special)
• Giving up on growth (Duncan Weldon)
• Spring Statement 2022 (The IFS)
• Six things we learned from the 2022 spring statement (IfG)
• 10 mini-Budget graphs that expose just how horrifying the cost of living crisis is (Mirror)
• Petrol prices: How much a 5p cut in fuel duty saves on filling your tank and what makes up the cost of petrol (Sky News)

Living standards fall back

• How is inflation affecting your household costs? (ONS)
• Personal inflation calculator: how do you compare to the rest of Britain?* (New Statesman)
• Recent drivers of UK consumer price inflation: March 2022 (ONS)
• How house prices have surged ahead of wages* (New Statesman)
• How inflation is surging ahead of benefits* (New Statesman)
• UK credit card borrowing has surged* (New Statesman)
• Energy bills rebate: Average council tax bill will fall this year after Rishi Sunak stepped in to ease cost of living crisis (Sky News)
• Cost of living crisis: How the war in Ukraine is eroding living standards in the UK (Sky News)
• Fuel poverty: Worst hit areas revealed as two in five households set to be affected (Sky News)
• The Insecurity Index (Autonomy, Class)

UK

• Public attitudes to data and AI: Tracker survey (CDEI — thread)
• State of the Nation: Britain in numbers* (New Statesman)
• Has Rishi Sunak’s bubble burst?* (New Statesman)
• Will the levelling up missions help reduce regional inequality? (IfG)
• Brexit blamed as UK misses out on global trade rebound* (FT)
• Health in England: 2015 to 2019 (ONS)
• King David and the death of Karen: Scotland’s baby name trends for past 50 years (The Courier)
• From Angus to Isla-Skye: Baby names inspired by Scottish places (The Courier)

US

• Changing a Life: Exploring how barriers and social interventions influence mobility and inequality (Urban Institute)
• Cities Lost Population in 2021, Leading to the Slowest Year of Growth in U.S. History* (New York Times)
• Are Americans Unhappy? (FiveThirtyEight)
• Where Is the Anti-Biden Tea Party?* (The Upshot)
• The House Map’s Republican Bias Will Plummet In 2022 — Because Of Gerrymandering (FiveThirtyEight)
• How Ketanji Brown Jackson’s path to the Supreme Court differs from the current justices* (Washington Post)
• Tracking new action on abortion legislation across the states* (Washington Post)

Everywhere else

• French Election Polls (Reuters)
• A wild gerrymander makes Hungary’s Fidesz party hard to dislodge* (The Economist)
• The plunge from 29,000 feet (Reuters)

Viral content

• The pandemic has been deadlier in red states (Axios)
• Health experts warn end of mass Covid testing in UK may be premature* (FT)
• UK Covid infections jump by a million in a week* (FT)
• COVID-19: The fullest data to date has dropped on coronavirus deaths in England and Wales — here’s what it tells us (Sky News)
• The U.S. Still Doesn’t Know How To Track A Pandemic (FiveThirtyEight)
• European wave of Omicron sub-variant BA.2 foreshadows US surge* (FT)
• China’s patchy vaccine campaign leaves elderly at risk* (FT)
• Hong Kong is now the centre of the pandemic* (The Economist)
• The cursed Morgan Stanley Covid-19 visualization (Tristan Mahr)

Environment and energy

• How the World’s Richest People Are Driving Global Warming* (Bloomberg)
• Climate graphic of the week: Renewable energy pushes ahead of coal for the first time* (FT)
• Climate graphic of the week: Saharan dust storm swirls across Europe* (FT)
• Parts of Antarctica have been 40°C warmer than their March average* (The Economist)
• Record-high temperatures in Antarctica leave scientists worried* (New Statesman)
• Clean Power Isn’t Reaching Those Who Need It Most* (Bloomberg)
• London’s Housing and Climate Crises Are on a Collision Course* (Bloomberg)
• Why the Global Oil Market Hinges on Five U.S. Counties* (Bloomberg)

Meta data

Ukraine

• The Weapon the West Used Against Putin* (The Atlantic)
• Russia is risking the creation of a “splinternet” — and it could be irreversible* (MIT Technology Review)
• State of Resilience: How Ukraine’s Digital Government Is Supporting Its Citizens During the War (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change)
• How access to satellite images shifts the view of war (BBC News)
• Social media wasn’t ready for this war. It needs a plan for the next one.* (Washington Post)

AI got ‘rithm

• How to kill an algorithm (Protocol)
• That smiling LinkedIn profile face might be a computer-generated fake (NPR)
• Will AI turbocharge the hunt for new drugs?* (FT)
• How Google hopes to build more efficient, multi-capability AI systems (The Register)
• ‘No-Code’ Brings the Power of A.I. to the Masses* (New York Times)

‘Rithm is going to get EU

• Expert opinion: Regulating AI in Europe (Ada Lovelace Institute)
• People, risk and the unique requirements of AI (Ada Lovelace Institute)
• EU ushers in brave new world of Big Tech regulation (Politico)
• The EU tries to loosen Big Tech’s grip* (FT)

A farewell to harms

• Mapping the Online Safety Bill (Cyberleagle)
• The Online Safety Bill: Our initial analysis (Carnegie UK)
• Parliament must step in to ensure Online Safety Bill protects citizens from harm (Full Fact)
• A quick take on three pretty terrifying changes to the Online Safety Bill (Heather Burns)
• If the Government wants British tech to thrive, it must kill this bill (CapX)
• I sat down with @MrPeterAndre, @AmberRoseGill, @CarolVorders, @RosieDuffield1 and others across sport, fashion, TV and music to discuss the good, the bad and downright ugly world of social media (Nadine Dorries)

Tales from the crypto

• The Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto* (New York Times)
• The (edited) Latecomer’s Guide to Crypto (Molly White and others)
• The Future for Dispute Resolution: Horizon Scanning — Sir Brian Neill Lecture 2022 (The Society of Computers and Law)

Viral content

• QCovid® case study: Lessons in commanding public confidence in models (OSR)
• The Covid communicators (Significance)
• TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL UK WELCOMES INCLUSION OF PPE PROCUREMENT IN THE COVID-19 INQUIRY TERMS OF REFERENCE (Transparency International UK)
• Director’s Update — why Covid-19 has shown the FOI Act has never been more important to UK society (ICO)

Stats the way (uh-huh uh-huh) I like it (uh-huh uh-huh)

• Sir Robert Chote announced as preferred candidate for Chair of the UK Statistics Authority (UK Statistics Authority — my IfG interview with his predecessor)
• Time for a change: amending the Code of Practice to allow alternative release times for official statistics (OSR)
• Guest blog: Improving reporting and reducing misuse of ethnicity statistics (OSR)
• Shrewsbury maternity scandal: How data could have given early warning of baby death rate 31% above average (the i)

UK government

• Inducting Mr Edwards (Martin Rosenbaum)
• DHSC extracts patient data to support policymaking on NHS-funded social care (Public Technology)
• The Digital, Data and Technology Playbook (DDaT)
• Departmental plans to include transformation commitments (Public Technology)
• Technology used in the justice system is outpacing scrutiny and regulation (Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee)
• Exploring how to create mock patient data (synthetic data) from real patient data (NHS Transformation)

WhatsApp with that?

• Boris Johnson gets summaries of sensitive government material via WhatsApp (BBC News)
• WhatsApp in government (IfG)
• [Public Guide] How to turn 🔒 Private Conversations into 🌳 Public Resources through 🤝 Community Consent (OpenNews)

Making the Grade?

• Government picks Tory peer Michael Grade to chair Ofcom (The Guardian)
• Government’s choice for Ofcom chair says he does not use social media (The Guardian)

Information

• Resources from Civic Tech Surgery #3: Accessing quality information for civic tech success: how can we overcome barriers to accessing good data and documentation? (mySociety)
• After 25 years, Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive are still working to democratize knowledge (Nieman Lab)

Data

• Data strategy in progress (Dan Barrett)
• How can the UK government and other policymakers support ‘bottom-up data institutions’? (ODI)
• ODI sets up institute to promote public data sharing (Computer Weekly)
• Open Referral becoming the norm for sharing open information on services (Mike Thacker)
• Lawsuit Highlights How Little Control Brokers Have Over Location Data (The Markup)
• Eating your own dog food (Open Innovations)
• New collaboration promises to enrich data on 60,000 historical maps (The Alan Turing Institute)
• 92% of domestic Energy Performance Certificates have been matched to UPRNs (Owen Boswarva)
• FILLING THE GAP: BOOSTING DATA SKILLS (Research Live)
• EU, US strike preliminary deal to unlock transatlantic data flows (Politico)
• Doing a lot of reading around models of data stewardship, governance, etc at the moment. Lots of reports that are using incompatible and, in some cases even internally inconsistent definitions. (Leigh Dodds)
• Data Ethics Maturity Model: benchmarking your approach to data ethics (ODI)

Everything else

• DeepMind accused of mishandling sexual misconduct allegations* (FT)
• In defence of being weird and embarrassing in public (Dazed)

Opportunities

• EVENT: Data Bites #28: Getting things done with data in government (IfG)
• EVENT: Government Data Science Festival (Government Data Science Partnership)
• JOB: Data Scientist (GDS)
• JOB: Senior Data Scientist (DWP)
• JOB: Chief Data Officer — Data and Digital (Portfolio Manager) (Ofgem)
• JOB: Data Project Manager for Healthwatch England (Care Quality Commission)
• JOB: Data Integration Lead (House of Commons)
• JOBS: Visiting Senior Researcher (Climate and AI); Visiting Senior Researcher (Gender and AI); Senior Researcher (Public sector use of data and algorithms) (Ada Lovelace Institute)
• JOB: Director of Digital (Greater London Authority)
• JOB: Reopened: We’re still looking for a Research manager to join the team! (Open Data Charter)
• JOB: Senior Analyst (Engage Britain)

And finally…

Culture

• The Godfather at 50 (Reuters)
• Chalamet Coughs, Dune Wins: Predicting Best Picture Winners Using Coughs and Sneezes (The Pudding)
• Rocket Man is Britain’s favourite Elton John song of all time, as the legendary singer turns 75 (YouGov)
• Will Smith slap seizes conversation in America (Axios)

Everything else

• How a deluge of lockdown volunteers rescued UK’s hidden weather history (The Conversation)
• The crosswordese chart I didn’t know I always wanted (Philip Bump via Ariel Edwards-Levy)
• How Colorblind NHL Players See The Game (FiveThirtyEight)
• This is a fun chart (via Alex)

United in g(r)i(e)f, divided in pronunciation

• ‘He helped shape the modern world’: gif inventor Stephen Wilhite dies after getting Covid (The Guardian)
• Stephen Wilhite, creator of the GIF, has died (The Verge)
• The animated history of the GIF, the internet’s favorite format (Daily Dot)
• How do you pronounce “GIF”?* (The Economist)