13 May 2022

Gavin Freeguard

Published in

Warning: Graphic Content

9 min readMay 13, 2022

Speech therapy

As expected, the Queen’s Speech heralded a new Data Reform Bill.

Here we go: the purpose of the proposed Data Reform Bill, from the Queen’s Speech briefing document

We’re still waiting for most of the detail, though it sticks closely to the contents of the Data: A New Direction consultation. It seems the response to that consultation will be published shortly, followed by bill text before the summer. As well as what’s in the briefing pack (go here for the Data Reform bit), other briefing suggests we can probably expect something on cookie consent banners (although that’s not under GDPR, the likely focus of many of the reforms).

Let’s hope that spinning this under the heading of ‘Brexit opportunities’ doesn’t lead to the government trying to do anything too stupid: there’s lots of language around cutting red tape and reducing burdens, when the opposite could happen if organisations have to adjust to something new so soon after the introduction of GDPR. And that’s before we get to the possibility of the UK’s rules diverging so much that it loses data adequacy status with the EU. And forgetting that if you want innovation you need high standards and trust. Etc.

While we wait for more detail on that, what else is there for data, digital and open government types in the Speech? There are promises on economic crime — check out Transparency International UK and Politico’s London Influence for more. DCMS is busy with several other bills, including putting electronic trade documents on the same footing as physical ones, a Bill on product security and telecoms infrastructure, a Bill with BEIS on digital markets (which TechCrunch interprets as a delay), and of course the continuing journey of the Online Safety Bill. (One wonders if the government’s desire to give researchers better access to data through the Data Reform Bill will extend to amending the OSB, as per this campaign.)

(I’ll spare you my full, lapsed-media-policy-wonk-full-disclosure-was-involved-in-getting-this-on-the-statute-book-in-the-first-place rant about why the pledge to repeal section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 as part of the Media Bill is yet more evidence of the government giving its friends in the press everything they want. It never even came into effect after the government bowed to press pressure, as it always does. I would note how a lot of government’s posturing on regulating big tech — and exempting the press from Online Safety Bill provisions, despite their huge influence on our information ecosystem — is very much in the interests of some large news publishers. It’s been an interesting week on the politics/press entanglement front, to put it mildly.)

The Campaign for Freedom of Information have concerns about restrictions on access to information — although it perhaps could have been worse. A CTRL+F of the Queen’s Speech briefing brings up a few other things — like the new Great British Railways body having some responsibility for open data. But perhaps the biggest one to watch will be reform to human rights: Amberhawk notes that the ICO is concerned about this and perhaps we should be, too.

And in other news:

The second episode of The Data Game, the world’s best/first/only data gameshow, has somehow been released into the wild on the Alan Turing Institute YouTube channel. I’ll try and post the questions from the first round on Twitter at some point today if you want to play along. The first episode, from the ODI Summit, is here.
I thoroughly enjoyed chairing mySociety’s fourth civic tech surgery as part of the TICTeC Labs programme, on storytelling and reach, yesterday — a 101 in the challenges and opportunities of civil society comms. A recording and minutes will appear here in due course — and sign up to the mailing list for the latest information, including how to apply to be part of the Action Lab that will commission some work.
Obligatory reminder to buy tickets to the New Tottenham Singers’ 10th anniversary concert on 18 June — and please do donate to help us keep going if you can’t make it.
A good example of how something as simple as changing colours (and potentially reordering to correct-don’t know-wrong) could make a big difference, spotted by my former colleague, Marcus.
And a big thank you to Alastair Otter for including Warning: Graphic Content in his list of data journalism tools and resources. There’s my list of data-related podcasts, newsletters etc if his excellent collection still isn’t enough for you.