28 October 2022

Gavin Freeguard

Published in

Warning: Graphic Content

6 min readOct 28, 2022

Event horizon

I’ll keep this mercifully short after Monday’s bumper edition…

It feels like Data Bites comes round more quickly every month (actually, this month it has…) [GIF of Data Bites countdown clock]

Two fast-approaching events to tell you about:

The next Data Bites is taking place on Tuesday 1 November
(rather than our usual Wednesday), supported by Meta, with a resilience/emerging risks theme. Join us in person or online
The latest edition of The Data Game (previous episodes here and here) will close the ODI Summit on Tuesday 8 November. I’ll be announcing the contestants shortly — and you, the audience, can play along too.

Other bits and pieces:

The first commissioned work to come out of our mySociety TICTeC Labs project has been published! There’s still time to respond to the latest call for proposals or join our Action Lab on civic tech in hostile environments
A good question, this, from my former colleague, Leah — I’ve suggested a few things but very interested in others’ answers
I’ll be co-hosting and speaking at Think Data for Government 2022 on 29 November
And this rather blew up…

Have a great weekend
Gavin

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Today’s links:

Graphic content

This month’s PM

Rishi Sunak appointed prime minister — October 2022 reshuffle live-blog (IfG)
Rishi Sunak’s first cabinet (IfG)
Is Sunak’s cabinet representative of the nation it governs? (The Guardian)
PRIVATE EDUCATION IN THE NEW CABINET (The Sutton Trust)

Cost of living

Energy and the environment

World Energy Outlook 2022 (International Energy Agency)
Europe’s Energy Crunch* (Bloomberg)
Energy efficiency of housing in England and Wales: 2022 (ONS)
Why the Price of Gas Has Such Power Over Us* (New York Times)
What it looks like as drought strangles the mighty Mississippi (Washington Post)

Viral content

Long Covid: ‘fraction’ of sufferers getting NHS help in England (The Guardian)
The pandemic’s true death toll* (The Economist)

Britain and America’s electoral geographies are broken* (FT)
Gender pay gap in the UK: 2022 (ONS)
Employee earnings in the UK: 2022 (ONS)
Exclusive: government healthy food scheme has shrunk by £90m in a decade* (New Statesman)
What do children think of EdTech or know of its data sharing? Read our survey findings (5Rights Foundation)

What more than 1,000 political ads are arguing right before the midterms (Washington Post)
The Polls Are Getting Better For Republicans (FiveThirtyEight)
Who Are The People Who Don’t Respond To Polls? (FiveThirtyEight — see also)
Wall Street Traders or Washington Officials? Sometimes It’s Hard to Tell.* (Wall Street Journal)
American-born women had more babies during the pandemic* (The Economist)
Policing Doesn’t End Homelessness. Supportive Housing Does. (Urban Institute)
More Americans are getting news on TikTok, bucking the trend on other social media sites (Pew, via David)

Everywhere else

How Xi’s Shakeup Shattered Decades of Succession Rules in China* (Bloomberg)
China’s GDP is flagging. Where might growth come from?* (The Economist)
Russian Oligarchs Obscure Their Wealth Through Secretive Isle of Man Network* (Wall Street Journal)
The EU is strengthening democracy in eastern Europe* (The Economist)
How much does cocaine cost around the world?* (The Economist)

Meta data

Bills bills bills

Flagship Online Safety Bill Delayed For Second Time In Four Months (PoliticsHome)
DPDIB Keeling Schedules (Jen Persson/Owen Boswarva)

This time it’s personal

Majority of public don’t want use of their personal data to result in harm or corporate profit (Living With Data)
Civil liberties group threatens Tesco over data collection* (FT)
BMA warns NHS app records rollout may be illegal (Pulse)
Your genetic data is my genetic data: Unveiling another enforcement issue of the GDPR (Computer Law & Security Review)

UK government

Calls for inquiry into Suella Braverman’s return as home secretary after security breach* (The Times — quote, previous ICO report)
The DEA data capability framework is changing (UKSA)
Helping people understand cladding and building safety costs (Inside GOV.UK)
Open letter to the new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak from Rashik Parmer, BCS CEO (BCS)
Ensuring the Resettling and Safeguarding of Refugees Fleeing the War in Ukraine (Palantir)
Government Office for Technology Transfer launches with events in London and Manchester (GOTT)
Statement on population of the UK by country of birth and nationality series (ONS)
Information commissioner warns firms over ‘emotional analysis’ technologies (The Guardian)
Agile training courses: our first iteration of Campws Digidol (Centre for Digital Public Services)
Why we need more women in cyber-security (Ofcom)
From a security perspective, I am relieved there won’t be an online vote at this very short notice (Ciaran Martin)
So long and thanks for all the bits (NCSC)

Ceci n’est pas un artiste.

AI-generated selfies could be the next Snapchat filters (The Verge)
Shutterstock will start selling AI-generated stock imagery with help from OpenAI (The Verge)
The golden age of AI-generated art is here. It’s going to get weird* (FT)
AI Art Is Soft Propaganda for the Global North (Hyperallergic)
I’ve never seen VCs make a bigger mistake than generative AI (Will Manidis)

Health and care

The care paradox: As capitalism matures, how do we stay human? (James Plunkett)
Sunshine Machines: Towards a feminist future of digital care (Rachel Coldicutt)
Using AI to find optimal placement schedules for nursing students (NHS Transformation)
Data solidarity: a blueprint for governing health futures (The Lancet)

Big tech

Elon Musk completes $44bn Twitter takeover (BBC News)
Google commits to cloud and AI (Computer Weekly)
The Wire Editorial: To Our Readers, an Apology and a Promise (The Wire)
How safe are our online platforms? Let’s open the door for social media researchers (Mozilla)
Zuckerberg’s empire collapses* (The Spectator)

Standard, measures

Developing a Sample Data Service Standard (Public Digital)
What’s the Hardest Part of Metric Design? (Towards Data Science)
Google CEO Sundar Pichai Broke the Rules on OKRs. Why It Worked (Inc)

Everything else

Dr Andrew Garrett confirmed as RSS President Elect (Royal Statistical Society)
The Data Poverty APPG’s State of the Nation Report (Data Poverty APPG)
The Hunt for Wikipedia’s Disinformation Moles* (Wired)
The Crypto Story* (Bloomberg)
‘A celebrity? Only if you like niche maths videos on the internet’: Hannah Fry on cancer, Covid and the science of love (The Guardian)
Proportionate data protection policies (Connected by Data)
Joe Biden crushes Xi Jinping’s precious semiconductor ambitions* (New Statesman)
Review of Digital Research Infrastructure Requirements for AI (The Alan Turing Institute)
The Pandemic Uncovered Ways to Speed Up Science* (Wired)
We are dangerously reliant on GPS to tell the time* (FT)
How can civic tech work effectively with public and private institutions? (mySociety)
Weaving a digital thread through Wellcome Collection (Wellcome Collection)
Kathleen Booth obituary* (The Times)

Opportunities

SURVEY: Reimagining Accountability (Projects by IF)
EVENT: Data Bites #35 (IfG)
EVENT: Voices in the Code: A Story about People, Their Values, and the Algorithm They Made (Ada Lovelace Institute)
EVENT: Regulating AI at work: What’s next? (APPG Future of Work)
Where to work on AI policy in the UK government (Impactful Government Careers)
JOB: Data Ethics Advisor (CDDO)
JOB: Deputy Head of Information Access — Communications Directorate (Bank of England)

And finally…

Normal distribution (Joe Twyman)
Identifiers… (Dan Brickley/Emperor Palatine)
The former Secretary of State for DCMS (Brendan May)