Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

This just exposes 'safe harbour' for the mockery it is.

I've been attempting to have a dispute with the uk government over this and failed. In a nutshell - revamped uk government website gov.uk launched recently, using google analytics. When I questioned why as US company was being informed about my interactions with my government a ticket was opened at a helpdesk service and I was told that it was ok because google were not allowed to use the data. The helpdesk service are based in San Francisco.

View on HN

I think at present that citizens interacting with government services online is still relatively new, and they obviously havn't fully thought through the potential national security implications of using things such as Google Analytics and outsourced helpdesks.

I've been using UK government services online for several years now. I'm not sure if it's always been the way it is now, I never bothered to look at the loaded artifacts and page source for the older sites, but I get the impression that it wasn't like this before.

There was a big fanfare a few months back about how gov.uk was modern, useful, using industry best practices, open source tech and was just generally awesome and cool. I think what's happened is that they've either outsourced to or hired in a bunch of hip, trendy web developers s who had no real comprehension of data protection.

As someone with an interest in computer security, and who has in the past lived with data protection consultants, this disturbs me.

Anyone know which minister or ministry in the UK government is ultimately responsible for the UK government electronic data presence? Or who I might approach about these Data Protection concerns?

I would contact the ICO in the first instance. It would be the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that would deal with internet-related issues generally, then there is of course your local MP.

I must admit to being a little surprised that they are using Google Analytics plus the site doesn't have a privacy policy either. It seems a little bizarre to have a cookie policy but not one detailing usage of user information generally.

Ah yes, the ICO. I'll get in touch with them first, if only because they're the most likely to actually respond to communication!

I wouldn't hold your breath. They've never replied to me on any of the times I've filled in a complaint form.

Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, to whom the Government Digital Service in-part report (the team responsible for gov.uk). See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Digital_Service

Cool, thanks, found the GDS page but hadn't managed to trace it up the chain.

Someone on the UKCrypto mailing list; and if it's not them they'll know who it is.

They may have already spoken about it. I guess they have a searchable archive somewhere.

(http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/ukcrypto)

European governments especially should be moving towards using open source software.

Yes they should, and a lot of the gov.uk stuff is open source and seems to me to be a very positive development.

BUT they've really dropped the ball by feeding analytics data about UK citizens to a bunch of US firms. IMHO. And not because I think the US is the worst place in the world ever, but simply because it demonstrably does not respect private data in the same way the EU does, especially when it comes to people who are non-citizens.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com