Podcasts about digital economy act

    In this episode Miles is joined by the National Statistician, Sir Ian Diamond, to reflect on what has been a busy and transformative year at the Office for National Statistics.    Transcript    MILES FLETCHER  This is “Statistically Speaking”, the official podcast of the UK Office for National Statistics, I'm Miles Fletcher. This is our 20th episode, in fact, a milestone of sorts, though not a statistically significant one. What is significant is that we're joined, once again, to look back at the highlights from another 12 months here at the ONS by none other than the National Statistician himself, Professor Sir Ian Diamond. Ian, thanks for joining us again. The year started for you with being reappointed as the national statistician. As 2023 developed, how glad did you feel to be back?   SIR IAN DIAMOND  Of course, you know, I was hugely privileged to be invited to continue. It's one of the most exciting things you could ever do and I will continue to do everything in my power to bring great statistics to the service of our nation.   MF  To business then, and this time last year, we sat in this very room talking about the results of Census 2021, which were coming in quite fresh then. And we've seen the fastest growth of the population, you told us, since the baby boom of the early 1960s. Over the course of the year much more data has become available from that census and this time, we've been able to make it available for people in much richer ways, including interactive maps, create your own data set tools. What does that say about the population data generally and the way that people can access and use it now? How significant is that there's that sort of development?   SID  Well I think we need to recognise that the sorts of things that we can do now, with the use of brilliant technology, brilliant data science and brilliant computing is enabling us to understand our population more, to be able to make our data more accessible. 50, 60, 70 years ago, 150 years ago, we would have just produced in about six or seven years after the census, a report with many, many tables and people would have just been able to look at those tables. Now, we're able to produce data which enables people to build their own tables, to ask questions of data. It's too easy to say, tell me something interesting, you know, the population of Dorset is this. Okay, that's fine, but actually he wants to know much more about whether that's high or low. You want to know much more about the structure of the population, what its needs for services are, I could go on and on. And each individual will have different questions to ask of the data, and enabling each individual to ask those questions which are important to them, and therefore for the census to be more used, is I think, an incredibly beautiful thing.   MF  And you can go onto the website there and create a picture...   SID  Anyone can go onto the website, anyone can start to ask whatever questions they want of the data. And to get very clearly, properly statistically disclosed answers which enable them to use those data in whatever way they wish to.   MF  And it's a demonstration of obviously the richness of data that's available now from all kinds of sources, and behind that has been a discussion of, that's gone on here in the ONS and beyond this year, about what the future holds for population statistics and how we can develop those and bring those on. There's been a big consultation going on at the moment. What's the engagement with that consultation been like?   SID  Well the engagement's been great, we've had around 700 responses, and it addresses some fundamental questions. So the census is a really beautiful thing. But at the same time, the census, the last one done the 21st of March 2021, was out of date by the 22nd of March 2021, and more and more out of date as you go on and many of our users say to us, that they want more timely data. Also by its very nature a census is a pretty constrained data set. We in our country have never been prepared to ask for example, income on the census yet this is one of the most demanded questions. We don't ask it because it is believed that it is too sensitive. And so there are many, many, many questions that we simply can't ask because of space. There are many more questions that we simply cannot ask in the granularity that we want to. We've been doing some work recently to reconcile the differences between estimates in the number of Welsh speakers from surveys with estimates on the number of people in the census who report they speak Welsh. Frankly, it would be better if we were able to ask them to get information in a more granular way. And so while the census is an incredibly beautiful thing, we also need to recognise that as time goes on, the technology and the availability of data allowing us to link data becomes much more of a great opportunity that we have been undertaking a lot of research, a lot of research which was asked for by the government in 2013, following the report by Chris Skinner, the late Chris Skinner, Joe Hollis, and Mike Murphy, which is a brilliant report. We said at the moment we need to do another census in 2021. That's what we have done and I believe it to be one of the best coverages there has ever been. And yet we need to assess whether administrative data could be used in future to provide more timely, more flexible and more accessible data and that's what the consultation is about. I will be making a recommendation to the UKSA (UK Statistics Authority) board in the future. In the near future we have to say, and I think it is worth saying that what the consultation says to us is that people are very, very, very much in favour of the direction of travel but at the same time as yet accepting our prototype, unconvinced about the data flows and the sustainability of those data flows to enable us to do it and so, we are looking at how to respond to other very important analyses and we will do so in the near future.   MF  When can the people who contributed to that consultation, roughly when should they expect to hear from us? SID  I think the expectation is we'll publish something by the end of quarter one in 2024.   MF  Surveys have continued to be a very important part of what the ONS does, these very large national surveys, and yet one of the biggest challenges of the has been maintaining coverage and particularly response rates and obviously, particularly with the Labour Force Survey recently that has been a particular issue for the ONS hasn't it. Where do things stand now as we move into modernising the traditional Labour Force Survey and moving to a new model because it's an issue statistics bodies around the world have been dealing with, it's harder to get people to complete surveys like they used to.     SID  I think it's a fair point that response rates globally are a challenge and response rates globally, not only in national statistics issues, but in the private sector organisations that also collect data, are a challenge. So we need to recognise that. A part of that is that historically, one could find people at home, knock on doors, have that conversation with people, and perhaps post pandemic people are less willing to have a conversation at the house. Also, people are very busy. They work in multiple occupations. They are not always in, they live in housing accommodation which is more and more difficult to access. This there is no kind of single magic bullet here that we could press all we would have. The first thing to say Miles is that we recognise that and that's why we worked with our colleagues at His Majesty's Treasury to provide a project to go to what we call a transformed Labour Force Survey. And I think that that's a hugely exciting project for a number of reasons. One, the labour force survey which has been around for a long time, the questionnaire had become a little bit unwieldy. And also we wanted to enable people to have much more flexibility at the time of which they answered the question. We are in the field with the pilots for that service. We've been pretty good. There are good response rates. There are also some challenges around getting the questions right. These aren't challenges that stress me, that's why you do a pilot, but at the end of the day we're hoping to be able to transform into that new Labour Force Survey early in 2024, in the first half of 2024. We're working very closely in doing that with our major stakeholders and the Bank of England, His Majesty's Treasury and the Office for Budgetry Responsibility (OBR), is you take a joint decision on when people feel comfortable that we have had enough dual running to enable us to move forward. The other question that I'd have to raise around surveys more generally, is on inflation, which we have all been subjected to in many, many areas in the last couple of years, inflation in survey collection has increased massively and so in the last year we've had to make real judgments about how we maintain quality. And in the next few years, we will really be needing to think through exactly how we conduct our surveys and the cost of doing so.   MF  Yes. Of all the people who should be aware of inflation are the people who report it, and certainly the impacts of those relatively high rates of inflation have impacted us as much as anybody else. The challenges not withstanding of running surveys, the interest of government bodies in getting that information directly from people does continue to underline the unique value of surveys. Some people say Oh, well, they surely they can get this information from other sources I've even seen it suggested that social media could provide the answers, but there is a unique value isn't there and actually getting a statistically representative sample of people and speaking to them directly.   SID  It depends Miles, I think it absolutely depends on what the question is you're trying to answer. If you're trying to get some answers to a question where the answer can be obtained through administrative data sources, then you don't need a survey. Surveys are difficult to conduct and difficult to pilot and plan and extremely expensive to undertake. So you should only do a survey if you can't get the information from somewhere else. Therefore, you know, I do think that we need to be very, very careful in thinking through when we need to do surveys. Does that mean to say we don't need to do surveys? Absolutely not. There are reasons why you need to do surveys. It may be that you need to really spend some time identifying whether someone really is eligible for hte questions you're going to ask or you may want attitudes. I don't know how to get someone's attitude without asking them. And so there are reasons why you would want to do a survey, but I would argue that you should only do a survey when you cannot get the data from elsewhere. And you also mentioned social media. Social media is an incredibly interesting and important source of data. Now, I wouldn't necessarily say it was statistically representative, but we absolutely have to be flexible in what we call data. We have to be sure of the quality of those data and we have to be sure that we are really aware of what the population is that are represented by those data. So we are using many, many, many types of data now that we would not have used 50 years ago, we simply couldn't have used things like telephony data, things like card data, things like data from satellites to address questions which those data are the best way of providing answers.    MF  And there are some fantastic examples of that around the ONS. If you look at how we've changed prices over the last couple of years, again, the measurement of inflation, bringing in new data sources most recently from the US car industry, from the rail industry as well and it all means that the estimates of inflation are now based on many hundreds of thousands of price points, where it used to be just a few things.   SID  It doesn't matter what the numbers are, frankly, it matters that you've got a good coverage it matters that you have the most appropriate method and that your data are as accurate as possible. And I do think it is incredibly important. We use a wider range of data sources. I think it's incredibly exciting what those data sources are, but we should only do so being unbelievably careful about what the metadata are that go with them, what the coverage is, why we are using them and whether or not they represent an improvement over what we could do before.   MF  Okay, so we've seen in the area of prices, the measurement of inflation, there's new innovative data sources coming from outside, coming from industry. What sort of an improvement does that represent in how we measure inflation, when it's such an important time for cost of living?    SID  Well, I think it helps because we have more accurate data. We have more timely data, we have data that are real. So on rail prices, we know what people pay as opposed to what the price as advertised necessarily is and I think that is important. And so being able to properly understand what the consumer is doing, therefore, what inflation is, is to me, incredibly important. I would say that all this effort that we're putting in would not necessarily just be about prices. Here it is about do we understand more about what is going on in the economy, and there are many more questions that we can ask from those data when you've got them, and simply from some of the fixed price point data that we have previously.   MF  Now one massive change we've seen lately, and this is another area we've managed to improve coverage, is of course the private rental sector. It's become much more important as we've seen house prices coming under pressure and mortgages under pressure by high interest rates and so forth. It's revealed a very interesting picture of long-term change, and also in more contemporary terms, what's actually going on with the economy right now.    SID  Oh 100%   MF  Talking about areas where we've been able to form a new view of what's really been going on. An area that attracts a particular commentary during the course of the year is expenditure on research and development. Regarded as a very important area of activity if you're talking about productivity, future economic growth...we substantially upgraded our estimates of R&D. What was the story behind that? Why was that necessary?    SID  Well it was incredibly important because we looked very carefully at our data, we look very carefully at our samples, we looked at our coverage and we decided that we needed properly to to bring in a much wider range of business. And we were reflecting very much those businesses from a very wide range of areas who were able and available to claim R&D tax credits, and therefore to be able to get a decent sample, and the critical thing here is not only were we making good estimates, but we were able to understand much more about what, particularly for smaller tech and creative industry companies, was R&D. And I think that is something that we need to recognise particularly in those smaller companies where there's a much greater flexibility about what people would call R&D.   MF  It's a reflection perhaps that startups are the sort of firms that do R&D these days, and less so the sort of industrial behemoths with huge R&D departments. But there was an interesting change nonetheless, and obviously considerable improvement in measuring that very important area. This all I guess comes under the umbrella of future proofing practices and systems and this all came under a refreshed data strategy that we launched during the course of the year. One of the fundamental principles underlying that, where is it taking us?   SID  I think, I mean, just where I've been coming from, are to do a much more holistic view of what data are and how we really use data which are most appropriate to answer the questions that we have, and we recognise that the economy and indeed society are changing very quickly, and therefore we need appropriate data to be able to answer those questions. For example, if you look at employment, there are many, many people in our society who have three, four, even five jobs, we need data which enable us to find out what the distribution of the number of jobs people have is, what they're spending their time doing, and how that impacts on our understanding of the labour force.   MF  Worth perhaps recognising some of the particular areas where new data has also been able to shed new light and particularly think of the payments industry which obviously digital payments happen very quickly. They provide almost a daily update on the state of consumer spending. With it obviously the state of the of the of the wider economy. We've managed to strike up partnerships with a huge cross section of the payments sector. What is the particular value of that? And what do we say to perhaps other data providers who might wish to enter into similar arrangements?   SID  Well I think we'd say we do everything ethically, and with complete privacy, but at the same time in the public good. And that is, to me, incredibly important. And so understanding what the consumer is spending money on understanding what the consumer is not spending money on, and the transitions, is incredibly important to enable policy which impacts very positively on all of our fellow citizens. So we are very proud of those partnerships. We value them greatly. We don't take them for granted. And those data, entirely ethically provided, with great security but at the same time enabling us to understand what is going on at an early stage in the economy is incredibly important.   MF  And of course it's worth restating, as mentioned already, that of course all of these data are anonymized and aggregated, and no individual would ever be able to identify themselves or be identified from that fast payments data which of course is helping to inform economics policy.   MF  Providing data to the people who do make policy and around government and to make sure that policies are really informed by evidence of course that is the major purpose behind the new Integrated Data Service, which was accredited this year under the Digital Economy Act. And that's enabling data to be shared around government in a way that simply wasn't possible before.   SID  80 datasets available now and indeed, that number going up more or less by the day. And one of the most important things here is that there are very few challenges which government face which simply can be addressed by data from one department. Therefore, what we need to be able to do is to link data from different sources to enable us in a very granular way to be able to answer questions about topics for which the answer requires data from many sources. And the Integrated Data Service allows us to do that. It allows us to do at a pace and allows us to do it in a way which brings a wide variety of analysts to the party. And I think that, you know, this year major milestone in getting Digital Economy Act accreditation. And we will be looking to streamline the process of using it over the next year, as well as seeing more and more and more projects on it having successful results.   MF  And sharing between departments at the national level is important, but also it's been a long-term aim of the ONS to improve its coverage at local levels. And again, there's another important initiative kicked off this year, and that's the launch of ONS Local.   SID  Yes and I'd say that the two are linked. It doesn't matter whether you are at a national level or whether you are at a regional level, linked data are important, but we are very pleased working with funding from our colleagues at the Department of Housing, Levelling Up and Communities to have been able to place ONS staff in regions. So we're not talking about teams of people in Manchester or teams of people in Exeter, but we are talking about interlocuters in the southwest, northwest for example, who can really work with the leaders there to ensure that we've got local data for local leaders to make local decisions and that's incredibly important because the questions that people wish to ask are different in different parts of the country and therefore we need to recognise that so it is a good initiative, which I hope will bear fruit in 2024.   MF  And the importance of data in government has been underlined by a big initiative, which takes in everybody, not just statisticians and analysts, but everybody in the civil service, has been engaged in what's called the One Big Thing campaign to spend time learning about data that's important to the use of data. How has that initiative been going? The ONS has been a central part of that. How's it been going? How important is it?   SID  It is critical. We do not need every public servant to be able to be a brilliant statistician, but we need every public servant to be data literate. We need every public servant to be able to understand data and the best policy comes about when analysts and policymakers and potential beneficiaries work together. And that requires that you can have that data literate conversation. And so I think One Big Thing is a great thing.   MF  In fact that the need for people to better understand data became evident early this year, of course, when our GDP revisions were quite dramatically revised in the early part of the autumn as the estimates for the big peak pandemic years, 2021 and 22. There was quite a reaction from some parts of the media and beyond, who reported that our original figures were, because they had revised so dramatically, were simply wrong. I mean, that's not the case. revisions of course have always been integral part of the process. Indeed the OSR, the statistics regulator, found as part of its review our approach to be, and their words were appropriate and well managed, however, it also found the ONS could communicate better the uncertainty in those early estimates of GDP and that's a learning point for the future.   MF  We saw particular attention recently for the natural capital outputs, measures of the natural environment, and they attracted a degree of media interest we haven't seen so far, helped by the fact we're able to bring it to life with an analysis of time spent in nature and so forth, and you spoke to BBC Countryfile about that particular work. What's your overriding thoughts on that release?  Are we moving to the point where these kinds of measures are getting more exposure? Are they being recognised for their value?   SID  I thought the national Natural Capital stuff was brilliant. I've always thought, as I said last year, that we should put alongside GDP measures of the environment and measures of well-being, but you need a concise picture and that's where we're moving in the future.    MF  As we speak, we're heading into the bleak midwinter of 2023. The nation is doing all it can to avoid a seasonal bout of flu and the other viruses that traditionally do the rounds at this time of year. And that's seen a revival of our surveillance effort. The Winter Coronavirus Infection Study (WCIS). Tell us about that. What's the purpose of it and what's happening?   SID  Yeah, working very much for our colleagues at the UK Health Security Agency who asked us whether we would be prepared to stand back up some of the work we do on surveillance of winter flus, COVID and other issues. and we're of course pleased and proud to be asked. We're using a different strategy to the one we were using in the past, this is very much simply a mail out of tests enabling people to take a test and then to make estimates, and at the moment the good news is that the estimates of positivity are relatively low, but the bottom line is we need to recognise that without some good hard data on those levels it's pretty impossible for government to plan, and so I think it's a really exciting initiative. It's a smaller survey than one in the past. It's a survey which will make national estimates rather than many regional estimates, but it's one that we think is extremely exciting, and builds on some of the work we've done in the past.   MF  And now of course everyone knows how to self-administer a COVID test and that ability makes it much easier to run these big.   SID  Oh 100%. I do think we need to recognise the way in which the world moves on. And certainly, when we first set up the COVID infection survey in 2020. We were not aware of the extent to which people could self-administer, we learned pretty quickly that's why we were able to transition to self-testing, but I think we are in a world where we can do this at pace and provide estimates very, very quickly.   MF  Well, thank you very much for joining us. Great to have you with us again at the end of the year. You could choose just three words to sum up your 2023   SID  Exciting, full of change and high-quality statistics.   MF  And looking ahead to 2024, which pieces of work are you looking forward to most?    SID  The economy is changing quickly, society is changing quickly. We will continue to change and to be ever more effective. We've talked about some of the things we're bringing on board and looking forward to a brand-new website to improve our communication. And I think it's going to be a very exciting time.   MF  Professor Sir Ian Diamond, thanks very much for joining us.   That's it for another episode of Statistically Speaking, you can subscribe to future episodes of this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts and all the other major podcast platforms and also follow us on X, previously known as Twitter, via the @ONSFocus feed. I'm Miles Fletcher, and from myself, our producer Steve Milne, and everyone here at the ONS, we wish you seasonally adjusted greetings, goodbye.   ENDS 

Miles explores how data linking can help tackle cross-cutting issues in an increasingly uncertain world, and how the ONS' new Integrated Data Service will provide a step-change transformation in how researchers will be able to access public data.  Joining him are ONS colleagues Bill South, Deputy Director of Research Services and Data Access; Jason Yaxley, Director of the Integrated Data Programme; and award-winning researcher Dr Becky Arnold, from the University of Keele.    TRANSCRIPT  MILES FLETCHER  Welcome again to Statistically Speaking - the Office for National Statistics Podcast. I'm Miles Fletcher and in this episode, we're going to step back from the big news making numbers and take a detailed look at an aspect of the ONS which is, less well known, but arguably just as important.   The ONS gather an awful lot of data of course, and much of it remains valuable long after it's been turned into published statistics. It is used by analysts and government, universities and the wider research community. So we're going to explain how that's done and look at some really interesting and valuable examples of how successful that has been to date. And we're also going to hear about a step-change transformation that's now underway in how public data is made available to researchers, and the future potential of that really important, exciting process. Our guides through this subject are Jason Yaxley, Director of the ONS's integrated data programme, Bill South who is Deputy Director of the Research Services and Data Access Division here at the ONS, and later in the podcast we'll hear from Dr. Becky Arnold who is an award-winning researcher from Keele University.   Right Bill, set the scene for us to start with then, we are talking here about the ONS Secure Research Service, take it from the top please. What is it? What's it all about? What does it do? What do we get from it?     BILL SOUTH   Hi Miles, thank you. Yes, the Secure Research Service, or the SRS, is the ONS' trusted research environment. We've been running now for about 15 years, and we provide secure access to unpublished de-identified micro data for research that's in the public good. So in terms of numbers, we hold over 130 datasets, we've got about 5000 Researchers accredited to use the service and about 1500 of those would be working in the system at any given time on about 600 live projects.    MF  So what sort of data, what is stored and what's made available? Is this survey responses?    BS  Traditionally the SRS has held most of our ONS surveys. So that's the labour market, business...all of our surveys really. In the last four years, thanks to funding we've received from Administrative Data Research UK (ADRUK), we've been able to grow the amount of data we hold, so now we've increasingly got data coming from other government departments. And we've got more linked datasets that enable us to offer new insights into the data.    MF  And so these are people's responses to survey questions and people's records, as well as data that are held by other departments?    BS  Indeed, yes, the data coming from other departments is often administrative data, so not from surveys but more admin data.    MF  And a lot of the value in that is in being able to compare and to link this data to achieve different research insights?    BS  Absolutely. I mean, a good example of that is a dataset that's been added in the last year or so where our ONS census data from 2011 was linked to educational attainment data from the Department for Education into a research dataset called Growing up in England (GUiE). And it's hugely important because we have a lot of rich information from the census but you know, linking that with the educational attainment data offers new insights about how kids do at school, and how they're linked to the characteristics of their background.    MF  So you use the underpinning of census to provide a really universal picture of what's going on across that particular population, and therefore gain some insight into how people have achieved educationally in a way that we wouldn't have done before. Of course, all this and the power of it is clear in that example, but a lot of people might think, oh my gosh, they must know an awful lot about me that in that case, tell us about how privacy and anonymity are protected in those circumstances.    BS  Yeah, absolutely. It's a central part of their operation, and clearly the word secure in the name is key there. So we follow a five safes principle which underpins everything we do. The five safes are safe people, so that anyone who uses the SRS has to be trained and go through an assessment to be accredited by us to use the environment. Once they're accredited, they then have to apply to have a project that's running in the system, and that gets independently assessed. There are a number of checks around whether it's ethically sound, whether the use of data is appropriate, but the key thing really is around the public good. So all research projects that happen in the SRS have to be in the public good and there's a commitment to be transparent. So every project that happens in the SRS, there's a record which is published on the UK Statistics Authority website. The third safe is around the settings, so it's a very controlled environment where people access the data. The fourth stage is around the data, so although we've said it's record level data it's already identified. Names and addresses, any identifiers are stripped out of the data before researchers can access it. And the final stage, the final part of the of the researcher journey if you like, is around outputs. What that means is we do checks to ensure that when any analysis leaves the environment that no individual or business can be identified for the published results.    MF  So in essence, you must convince the ONS that you are a Bonafide researcher, and you also have to convince them that what you're doing is definitely for the public benefit.    BS  That's right. And the other thing that's worth noting is that the SRS, like a number of other trusted research environments across the country, has been accredited under the Digital Economy Act to be a data processor, which means we go through a rigorous assessment process around the security, the environment, but also our capability to run it. So that's our processes, our procedures, whether our staff are adequately trained to run the service. That's a key part of that accreditation under the Digital Economy Act.    MF  So, on that point then about anonymity, you can drill right down to individual level, but you'll never know who those individuals actually are or be able to identify them?    BS  That's right. Researchers typically will run their code against the record level data, but when they've got the results of the analysis, there are clear rules that say you won't be allowed to take out very low counts. So that means like our published outputs, there's no way of identifying anyone once the research is published.    MF  And the SRS has built up over the years a good reputation for actually doing this effectively and efficiently.    BS  Yes, I think that's fair to say. We have a good reputation, and the service is growing in terms of the number of datasets and the number of projects and the number of people using it. So, I think that speaks for itself.    MF  Okay, let's pull out another I think powerful example of why this facility is so important and that comes from the recent COVID pandemic. Many listeners will be aware that the ONS ran a very, very large survey involving upwards of 100,000 people providing samples, taking COVID tests, and they were sent off to be analysed creating an awful lot of community level data about COVID infections, and we in the ONS then publish our estimates and continue to do so as we record estimates every week of fluctuating infection levels. But behind all that work, there were expert researchers in institutions around the country who were doing far more with that data. And the SRS was fundamental to delivering the data to them. Tell us about how that operated Bill, and some of the results that we got out of it.    BS  Yeah, sure. I mean, the COVID infection survey that you refer to there, that dataset is available for accredited researchers to apply to use, and they have done, but we've also brought in a number of others, about 20 COVID related datasets are in the SRS, so things around vaccination or the schools infection survey, mortality, etc.   So since the start of the pandemic we've had over 50 projects that have either taken place and completed, or are currently underway, in the environment. Some of those are directly using the COVID related dataset. So looking, if you like, at the health impact, but there's also projects that are are looking at, if you like, non COVID data, economic data or education data, that are projects dedicated to understanding the impact of COVID.    MF  What sort of insights have we seen from those?    BS  In terms of those using the COVID related data there's been analysis to highlight the disproportionate impact of the virus on ethnic minorities, that went on to implement a number of government interventions. Another project assessed the role of schools in the in the Coronavirus transmission. We had another project that was run specifically on behalf of local authorities to inform their response to the pandemic that offered insights into the risks between occupation. Also research into footfall in retail centres and how business sectors were affected by the pandemic. So a really huge range of things. There were other research projects looking at the impact and you know, an example there was a project that looked at learning loss. So, kids not being in school for that sort of 20 to 21 academic year. Similarly, the Bank of England ran a project looking at the financial stability of the UK during the pandemic period. So hopefully those examples give you this sense of the range.    MF  An incredibly impressive array of projects, all underpinned by that big survey, the likes of which the ONS has a unique ability to run, that big survey taking part run across the United Kingdom of people providing and answering questionnaires as well as providing survey samples. And don't take our word for it, I mean, it was reported in the Daily Mirror no less. A researcher who benefited from that data described the COVID Infection Survey as, when it came to the pandemic, one of the most valuable resources on the planet. So that's a powerful example of the research value that can be extracted through the secondary uses of data gathered by the ONS.   Anyway, enough of blowing our own trumpet, the service has been running a very successful award scheme that recognises the achievements of external researchers Bill. Tell us about some of the projects that have been recognised in that.    BS  It's worth mentioning I think also that we've got case studies on our website, the Secure Research Service website and the ADRUK website, which show in a little bit more detail the impact some of these research projects have had, but like you say, we also hold an annual Research Excellence Awards, which is great. We have different categories of awards where people can submit their project and explain where their research has been published and had an impact. And like I said, we get a lot of nominations and reviewing the applications, which I did last year, it really emphasises the breadth and quality of the research taking place in the SRS.    MF  Check those out then if you're interested in learning more about those projects, some of the examples that Bill mentions and winners of the Research Excellence Awards, of course, one of whom I'm very pleased to say joins us now and that's Dr. Becky Arnold from the University of Keele, who took home the cross-government analysis award for her team's work on controlling the spread of COVID-19 in vulnerable settings in a project undertaken at the UK health security agency.   Becky I guess that's but another example of the kind of secondary uses of the COVID infection data. Welcome to the podcast. Please tell us all about that.    Dr. Becky Arnold  Yeah, very, very glad to. So first thing I want to talk about essentially is what a vulnerable setting is. And that was really key to the sort of cross governmental aspects of this because vulnerable settings are settings like care homes, hospitals, prisons, schools, where you have a lot of quite often vulnerable people in a really dense environment where COVID can sort of spread and get out of control really quickly. And if we want to define a testing policy for that, so our testing policy being perhaps everybody takes like three LFT tests a week, or maybe one monthly PCR test, but also other factors, like what's your isolation policy? So, if somebody is infected with COVID, how many days do they have to be isolated for? Do they need a negative test to be released? What is your outbreak policy in these institutions, if you know that there's an outbreak going on? It's this really, really complicated thing. And you know, for government policy, you need a testing regime to try and keep COVID under control in these settings. But there's a few difficulties with that. The first thing is that the settings are all really different. So, when I just mentioned about the cross governmental thing, it meant interacting with lots of different departments, lots of different data sources to try and understand these particular settings and their particular characteristics. The really, really critical point I want to make is that the whole project was about trying to understand what that testing policy should be. And the best testing policy in one setting may not be the best testing policy in another setting, because when we're trying to give advice to policymakers and policy departments about what testing strategy you should use in an institution, you don't want to just pull that out of the hat. You don't want to just go oh, I think this many LFT tests a week. We want to give data-driven, informed, evidence-based advice. So essentially, what this project was looking at was all of these different settings in a lot of detail, looking at the demographics within them and their particular vulnerabilities. So, care home residents are particularly vulnerable, as are people in prison. They're more clinically vulnerable than people of the same age that are not in prison and a bunch of different aspects, how people interact in these different settings, how infection spreads in these different settings. And from that, essentially, we created a model where you can simulate the spread of COVID in these different settings under different testing strategies. So, you can answer questions like if we use ‘x' testing strategy versus ‘y' testing strategy, what is the likely impact going to be on the number of people that died, the number of people that need hospitalisation, how many of those people that go to hospital are going to need intensive care, which often comes with long recovery and sometimes permanent impacts on people's lives. So, there are huge things to consider. And it's actually the point of this project was to study these environments and try and make something which can provide that evidence to inform decision making.    MF  This was data being gathered, presumably then in institutional settings up and down the country and then being collected centrally and made available to you at a single point of contact?    BA  It would have been very nice if that was the case. Because we're looking at so many different settings we were kind of scrambling around quite a lot just to try and identify what datasets were available and to sort of gather them together. And also there were so many different types of data that we needed to drive this. So firstly, like you say, the health outcomes data, in some cases, there were specific datasets available for certain institution types, but we weren't always able to get access to those for various reasons. But there were also considerations like the sort of data that was published every day, there's sort of a nationwide aspect, when we're also looking at another data type is how people interact within these different settings. For that we used an awful lot of literature review. We spoke to people that work in the settings. We spoke to people that work in care homes, we spoke to care homes franchise owners to understand their staffing policies and things related to that. We also spoke to government departments like the Department of Justice. So, it was a lot of different data sources all sort of gathered together for the various aspects of this project.    MF  This model you've created, what's its future? Perhaps in different scenarios that might arise in the future.     BA  The model was very, very carefully constructed to be as flexible as possible at the time for potential future COVID variants in mind, but because of that, it means it's very adaptable to different infectious diseases. So if you change just a few input parameters, like the mortality rates, you know, the infection rate, a few factors like that, it's quite easy to transform this model to simulate the spread of other infectious diseases. So, things like flu, which has a big impact on care homes every year and has the potential to be used to better understand how to combat that. But another thing that I think is very useful about this model is it has the ability to help us in game plan for potential future pandemics, because I think it's fair to say that governments around the world when COVID came along, were kind of caught by surprise, or wrong-footed, sort of without a game plan of how to respond. And as we know, the early stages, whether it's a single pandemic or an individual outbreak, it's those early stages which are really, really critical. With this sort of model, we can gameplan you know, what response should we give if we have a future pandemic with these properties? Say we've got this transmissibility, it's got this mortality rate, we have tests that cost this much and they give you this accuracy. In that scenario, what should we do? And to be able to do that research upfront and to have some sort of game plan in mind so that if and when future pandemics come along, we are better prepared and can respond efficiently and quickly to try and have the best outcomes possible. So that's something I think is really exciting for the for the future of this model.    MF   Okay, that's beautifully explained, thank you very much indeed.  Bill, so we've heard from Becky about how the data that she had to access had to come from many different places, but I guess that might have been an impediment to actually producing a model as rapidly in the pressing circumstances of the pandemic as it could potentially have been achieved. Does that suggest then that while the SRS has achieved on its own terms, a great deal, nevertheless, there have been limitations, and perhaps it's time to be doing this kind of data sharing across the public sector in a much bigger and better way?    BS  Yes. When I look at the sort of challenges and limitations around the SRS, I think there's probably three things, one of which is the ability to get the data sharing moving as fast as we need to meet this sort of policy need. The second area would be around the fact that actually the SRS is ageing technology now, and although it's performed really well, and especially during that sort of pandemic response we talked about earlier, it's fair to say it has struggled to cope with some of the really sort of heavy processing requirements that have come out of during that sort of COVID response. Some of the modelling required was much larger than the traditional sort of research projects we might have had in the SRS. And then the final thing is around some of the processes that we described earlier, that sort of five stages framework. All of our processes and rules apply to users, regardless of their sector. What that means is for government analysts who are seeking to access government data, working on government systems to inform government policy, there's a feeling that we could do things faster. Only 25% of our user base is government analysts at the moment, you know, I think that's something we certainly could improve to build that area of the service.    MF  Building the service then for the future is where Jason comes in, Jason Yaxley. As the director of the new Integrated Data Service, we've heard about potential, we've heard about the opportunity to do more in future. Tell us then about the Integrated Data Service, which promises to expand the amount of data available to researchers to speed up the delivery of it and to really produce a huge step-change or transformation in the ability of researchers to do this kind of work in the future. Is that a fair expectation?    Jason Yaxley  Hi Miles, pleased to be here. Yes, I think it's a very fair expectation. So I have the pleasure of being the programme director for the Integrated Data Programme, which will deliver the Integrated Data Service and the ONS is the lead delivery partner for all of government to deliver a transformation both in how government uses data, but also the underpinning technology that enables us to analyse and use that data much more quickly. And so that's a reason why we're one of the key enablers of the government's data strategy and why I view this very much as a transformation rather than just another big data lake where lots of government data goes and we can't really get into it. So, it's a really exciting opportunity. Were in the sort of middle stage of the programme where we have a service that is built and now we have to sort of grow it and expand it and get more data to really enhance its functionality, but it's a really exciting time. A really great job to have.    MF  And in terms of scale, what's the difference between IDS coming in, the Integrated Data Service, compared to the old, if I can put it that way, Secure Research Service?    JY  When it comes to the SRS, it is brilliant at what it does, but it's technology is starting to age and that is causing limitations. And I think what makes the Integrated Data Service sort of a step-change and perhaps unique across government falls into sort of four broad categories. There's the enabling infrastructure itself, which will be state of the art cloud-based, there is the data which will be much more friction free and will be quicker and easier to access data, use data, shar data. It will enable data visualisation in a way that's never been done before. And rather than having to do individual agreements to link one bit of data to a different bit of data, what we will have here is a service for people that will be scalable, repeatable, standardised, which makes it much much easier on a regular basis to link and index and then do research against much larger datasets much more quickly and produce faster results, which is going to be a huge benefit to the public good through the lens of better more informed and evidence-based policy decision making, that has much more statistical and analytical evidence that sits underneath it.   And so we're transforming both the data access itself and the technology that enables that, but also the sort of almost the cultural lens through which we work together. We share information to simplify it.  I really want to stress the IDS is keeping all the really good parts of SRS around the five safes, around the de-identification of data, protecting that data and ensuring that you know, public concerns about how government holds and uses data are entirely met.    MF  That's an obvious question isn't it, if this is happening much more widely on a much bigger scale, and how are those safeguards that were heard about from Bill going to be protected? How are they going to persist, and the same level of protection be provided?    JY   2023 is a big year for the programme, particularly March when we hope and we're aiming to receive our own Digital Economy Act accreditation in the same way that the SRS has. So we will carry forward the same safeguards that SRS has used so successfully, as I say around the five safes around, how users are accredited, but through technology and through the service that we operate, to streamline and simplify that, particularly for government users using government data. So this is about that cultural journey as well as that technological journey. Very central to what we're doing is the security of data, the protection of data, you know, we have to convince all of the Chief Technical Officers and all the data analysts across Whitehall that we are as safe and as secure as we could possibly be. So that they'll be comfortable with us having access to that data.    MF  Other potential areas that most UK government data will be made available will be accessible by researchers.    JY  And that's the end game. Absolutely. As I say, we're on a journey at this point. Again, 2023 is important to us. We've just brought in what we're calling super early adopters, which are strategic experienced government analysts from both Whitehall departments and the devolved administrations, particularly Welsh Government right now, and we have brought census 2021 data into the system very early. And so we're already working with government analysts to start to do early exploratory projects that unlocks the information and the power of the census data against certain government priorities, for example, around the economy or around energy, and particularly, we're working with Welsh Government to look at what is the impact of recent economic situation on the Welsh farming community and how can we analyse the industry against the information that we hold in the census data and other data sources to find outcomes of what's happened in say, the last 10 years between the two census datasets.    MF  So what happens next, what are the next steps on this? And particularly what's the message to researchers who think that they would like to be involved in this project?    JY  2023's really big steps are, as I've just mentioned, DEA accreditation, we reach the next level of maturity for our functionality also in in March, which means in the rest of 2023, having had these two points in time, we'll be in position to unlock the full sort of power of ideas, we will be wanting to encourage particularly more government researchers. Our aspiration is that every government professional analyst will be registered on and be able to use the service. We will accelerate our pipeline with Whitehall departments with data that we want to bring in. And over the life of the programme we will want to transition SRS itself, and its data and its users into IDS unlocking for those users as I say, the enabling technology of data visualisation, the speed and the pace, the scale. So, I at the moment feel that what we have is a huge warehouse with one corner that has data in it but the potential to fill it with as much data as we can in a way that is linked and matched and indexed. So that you can do much greater analytical research than hitherto has been possible. Just to illustrate that the way the way I like to think of it is there are a lot of people both in government and in academia that can do point to point linkage between dataset A, dataset B, and then run some research against it. And you can think of that perhaps as a ferry crossing a river from point A to point B on the other side, what helps visualise why IDs will be different is to think of us as a bridge and a road that goes over the river and so we can have multiple streams of traffic. We can have a much greater flow of information and research and all the agreements only have to be done once and then it's just repeatable from there. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so excited to be working with the colleagues on the programme and colleagues across government and academia to deliver the transformation which we aim to complete by March 2025. So we still have some way to go to fully exploit all of the technology and get all the data in, but we're on our way.    MF  In the meantime however, there are a couple of examples already out there that listeners might care to check out for themselves if they haven't already. The first of which is the climate statistics data dashboard, creating a one-stop shop if you like for statistics on climate change related topics, bringing together data from around government, you can see it at climate-change.data.gov.uk and another one is the violence against women and girls data dashboard that's vawg.GSS-data.org.uk, which has been created as an important part of the government's 2021 tackling violence against women and girls strategy. And of course, the very popular and widely used COVID dashboard which continues to be available as well. So real living examples of the Integrated Data Service already serving the public benefit.   Becky, if I could bring you back in again, if we're able to deliver on this and the warehouse as Jason described, it becomes bursting with data from right across government sources, presumably then in the future, the kind of work you told us about your award winning work during the pandemic will become that much faster, much easier to execute.    Dr. Becky Arnold  Yes, it really, really would. And I also can't understate how much the integration value of it of having things in the same place and linked just saves so much time and try to track down what data is available and then trying to combine it all together is such a undertaking. Having that sort of delivered there, sort of knowing what is available in a much more accessible way. Being able to use it much more readily would vastly, vastly speed up the sort of research that I did. But it would also be hugely, hugely valuable.    MF  Perhaps some of those listening to this Becky might be surprised actually at how difficult it has been to access public data like this in the past, and that government departments haven't collaborated in making it available in a single place.    BA  One of the biggest difficulties in doing the research I did was trying to get access. Just trying to find what datasets are out there is also a really, really big time sink and the idea of these all being integrated together and much more findable in a way that they aren't now is really, really exciting because it means that if you know what data there is you can use the most appropriate data for what you're trying to use, rather than trying to cobble together what you know exists and you can get your hands on. So integrating this all together in one place where it's findable. It would be a huge, huge win for the sort of research like what I did - or what my team did a lot more accurately. Another factor on that as well is the linking. It is so difficult if you've got different datasets compiled for completely different purposes by different departments - trying to combine those together is really hard. Even if they are about the same sorts of people, the same sorts of things. So having datasets that are already integrated would be a huge, huge step forward in trying to use that data as effectively as possible for the sort of research to drive evidence-based decision making in policy, which I think is something that is so important, and it's something I'm really passionate about.    MF  Becky, thank you very much for joining us. And thanks also to Jason Yaxley, and to Bill South for taking us through this important topic.   I'm conscious that we've approached it largely through the perspective of researchers. And the whole issue of data ethics and how public good is assessed. It's something we've tackled in a previous podcast - do please listen to that and hear about the work of the data ethics committee as well because obviously, confidence in these kinds of initiatives, public trust in these kind of initiatives, depends very much on people understanding the ethical framework under which this work goes on. That's another big topic we will return to in the future, no doubt, and also track progress in the development, the ongoing development, of the Integrated Data Service and tracking the progress of some of the fantastic research projects that have already resulted from this kind of work and the potential ones very excitingly in future too, as well.   I'm Miles Fletcher, and thanks once again for listening to Statistically Speaking. You can subscribe to new episodes of this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts and all the other major podcast platforms.   Our producers at the ONS are Steve Milne and Alisha Arthur. Until next time, goodbye.    ENDS 

In this episode Miles is joined by Professor Luciano Floridi of Oxford University; Simon Whitworth of the UK Statistics Authority; and Pete Stokes from the ONS to talk about data ethics and public trust in official statistics.   TRANSCRIPT   MILES FLETCHER    Hello, I'm Miles Fletcher, and in this episode of Statistically Speaking we're exploring data ethics and public trust in official statistics. In 2007, 15 years ago to the very day we are recording this, the UK Parliament gave the Office for National Statistics the objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good. But what does, or should, the “public good” mean? How does the ONS seek to deliver it in practice? Why should the public trust us to act in their interests at a time of exponential growth in data of all kinds? Where are the lines to be drawn between individual privacy and anonymity on the one hand, the potential of data science to improve public services and government policies to achieve better health outcomes, even saving lives, on the other.   Joining me to discuss these topics today are Simon Whitworth, Head of Data Ethics at the UK statistics authority, Pete Stokes, Director of the Integrated Data programme here at the ONS and Luciano Floridi, professor of philosophy and the ethics of information and director of the digital ethics lab at the Oxford Internet Institute.   Professor let's start this big concept with you. What do you think Parliament meant when it said that the ONS should serve the public good in this context?     LUCIANO FLORIDI     It might have meant many things, and I suspect that a couple of them must have been in their minds. First of all, we know that data or information, depending on the vocabulary, has an enormous value if you know how to use it. And, collecting it and using it properly for the future of the country, to implement the right policies, to avoid potential mistakes and to see things in advance - knowledge is power, information is power. So, this might have been one of the things that they probably meant by “public good”. The other meaning, it might be a little bit more specific...It's when we use the data appropriately, ethically, to make sure that some sector or some part of the population is not left behind, to learn who needs more help, to know what help and when to deliver it, and to whom. So, it's not just a matter of the whole nation doing better, or at least avoiding problems, but also specific sectors of the population being helped, and to make sure that the burden and the advantages are equally distributed among everybody. That's normally what we mean by public good and certainly, that analysis is there to serve it.    MF    So there's that dilemma between using the power of data to actually achieve positive outcomes. And for government, on the other hand, being seen as overbearing, or Orwellian, and spying on people through the use of data.    LF    That would be the risk that sometimes comes under the term “paternalism”, that knowing a lot about your citizens might lead to the temptation of manipulating their lives, their choices, their preferences. I wouldn't over-emphasise this though. The kind of legislation that we have and the constraints, the rules, the double checking, make sure that the advantage is always in view and can more easily be squeezed out of the data that we accumulate, and sometimes the potential abuses and mistakes, the inevitable temptation to do the wrong thing, are kept in check. So yes, the State might use the government's political power, might misuse data, and so we need to be careful, but I wouldn't list that as my primary worry. My primary worry perhaps, would be under-using the data that we have, or making mistakes inadvertently.    MF    Do you think then, perhaps as a country, the UK has been too cautious in this area in the past?    LF    I don't think it has been too cautious, either intellectually or strategically. There's been a lot of talking about doing the right thing. I think it's been slightly cautious, or insufficiently radical, in implementing policies that have been around for some time. But we now have seen several governments stating the importance of that analysis, statistical approaches to evidence, and so on. But I think that there is more ambition in words than in deeds, so I would like to see more implementations, more action and less statements. Then the ambition will be matched by the actions on the ground.    MF    One of the reasons perhaps there might have been caution in the past is of course concern about how the public would react to that use of data. What do we know of public attitudes now in 2022, to how government bodies utilise data?    LF    I think the impression is that, depending on whom you ask, whether it is the younger population or slightly older people my age, people who lived in the 50s versus my students, they have different attitudes. We're getting used to the fact that our data are going to be used. The question is no longer are they going to be used, but more like, how and who is using them? For what purposes? Am I in charge? Can I do something if something goes wrong? And I would add also, in terms of attitude, one particular feature which I don't see sufficiently stressed, is who is going to help me if something goes wrong? Because the whole discussion, or discourse, should look more at how we make people empowered, so that they can check, they have control, they can go do this, do that. Well, who has the time, the ability, the skills, and indeed the will, to do that? It's much easier to say, look, there will be someone, for example the government, who will protect your rights, who you can approach, and they will do the right thing for you. Now we're getting more used to that. And so, I believe that the attitude is slightly changing towards a more positive outlook, as long as everything is in place, we are seeing an increasingly positive attitude towards public use of public data.    MF    Pete, your role is to make this happen. In practice, to make sure that government bodies, including the ONS, are making ethical use of data and serving the public good. Just before we get into that though, explain if you would, what sort of data is being gathered now, and for what purposes?    PETE STOKES    So we've got a good track record of supporting research use of survey data, that we collect largely in ONS, but on other government departments as well. But over the last few years, there's been an acceleration and a real will to make use of data that have been collected for other purposes. We make a lot of use now of administrative data, these are data that are collected by government not for an analytical purpose but for an operational purpose. For example, data that are collected by HMRC from people when they're collecting tax, or from the Department of Work and Pensions when they're collecting benefits, or from local authorities when they're collecting council tax - all of those administrative data are collected and stored. There's an increasing case to make those data available for analysis which we're looking to support. And then the other new area is what's often called “faster data”, and these data that are typically readily available, usually in the public domain where you get a not so deep insight as you'd get from a survey of administrative data, but you could get a really quick answer. And a good example of that from within the ONS is that we calculate inflation. As a matter of routine, we collect prices from lots of organisations, but you can more quickly do some of that if you can pull some data that are readily available on the internet to give you those quicker indicators, faster information of where prices are rising quickly where they're dropping quickly. There's a place for all of these depending on the type of analysis that you want to do.    MF    This is another area where this ethical dilemma might arise though isn't it, because when you sit down with someone and they've agreed to take part in the survey, they know what they're going in for. But when it comes to other forms of information, perhaps tax information that you've mentioned already, some people might think, why do they want to know that?    PS    When people give their data to HMRC or to DWP as part of the process of receiving a service, like paying tax for example, I think people generally understand what they need to give that department for their specific purpose. When we then want to use this data for a different purpose, there is a larger onus on us to make sure that we are protecting those data, we're protecting the individual and that those data are only being used ethically and in areas of trust, specifically in the public interest. So, it's important that we absolutely protect the anonymity of the individuals, that we make sure where their data are used, and that we are not using the data of those data subjects as individuals, but instead as part of a large data-set to look for trends and patterns within those data. And finally, that the analysis that are then undertaken with them are explicitly and demonstrably in the public interest, that they serve the public good of all parts of society.    MF    And that's how you make the ethical side of this work in practice, by showing that it can be used to produce faster and more accurate statistics than we could possibly get from doing a sample survey?    PS    Yes, exactly, and sample surveys are very, very powerful when you want to know about a specific subject, but they're still relatively small. The largest sample survey that the ONS does is the Labour Force Survey, which collects data from around 90,000 people every quarter. Administrative datasets have got data from millions of people, which enables you to draw your insights not just at a national level and national patterns, but if you want to do some analysis on smaller geographic areas, administrative data gives you the power to do that when surveys simply don't. But, any and all use of data must go through a strict governance process to ensure that the confidentiality of the data subjects be preserved. And not only will the use be clearly and demonstrably in the public interest, but also, will be ethically sound and will stand up to scrutiny in that way as well.     MF    And who gets to see this stuff?    PS    The data are seen by the accredited researchers that apply to use it. So, a researcher applies to use the data, they're accredited, and they demonstrate their research competence and their trustworthiness. They can use those data in a secure lockdown environment, and they do their analysis. When they complete their analysis, those can then be published. Everybody in the country can see the results of those analyses. If you've taken part in a social survey, or you've contributed some data to one of the administrative sources that we make available, you can then see all the results of all the analysis that are done with those data.    MF    But when you say its data, this is where the whole process of anonymization is important, isn't it? Because if I'm an accredited researcher selling it to see names and addresses, or people's personal, sensitive personal information.    PS    No, absolutely not. And the researchers only get to see the data that they need for their analysis. And because we have this principle, that the data are being used as an aggregated dataset, you don't need to see people's names or people's addresses. You need to know where people live geographically, in a small or broad area, but not the specific address. You need to know someone's demographic characteristics, but you don't need to know their name, so you can't see their name in the data. And that principle of pseudonymisation, or the de-identification of data, before their used is really important. When the analyses are completed and the outputs are produced, those are then reviewed by an expert team at ONS, and so the data are managed by us to ensure that they are fully protected, wholly non-disclosive, and that it's impossible to identify a member of the public from the published outputs.    MF    Historically, government departments didn't have perhaps the best record in sharing data around other bodies for the public benefit in this way. But all that changed, didn't it? A few years back with a new piece of legislation which liberalised, to an extent, what the ONS is able to do.    PS    So, the Digital Economy Act, passed in 2017, effectively put on a standard footing the ability of other departments to make their data available for researchers in the same way that ONS had already been able to do since the 2007 System Registration Service Act. It gave us parity, which then gave other departments the ability to make their data available and allow us to help them to do so, to take the expertise that the ONS has in terms of managing these data securely, managing access to them appropriately, accrediting the researchers, checking all the outputs and so on, to give the benefit of our expertise to the rest of government. In order that the data that they hold, that has previously been underutilised arguably, could then be fully used for analyses to develop policies or deliver services, to improve understanding of the population or cohorts of the population or geographic areas of the country, or even sectors of industry or segments of businesses, for example, in a way that hasn't previously been possible, and clearly benefits the country overall.    MF    So the aim here is to make full use of a previously untapped reservoir, a vast reservoir, an ocean you might even say, of public data. But who decides what data gets brought in in this way?    PS    We work closely with the departments that control the data, but ultimately, those departments decide what use can be made of their data. So, it is for HMRC, DWP, the Department for Education, it's for them to decide which data they choose to make available through the Secure Research Service (SRS) or the Integrated Data Service (IDS) that we run in ONS. When they're supportive and recognise the analytical value of their data, we then manage the service where researchers apply to use those data. Those applications are then assessed by ONS first and foremost, we then discuss those requests and the use cases with the data owning departments and say, do you agree this would be a sensible use of your data?     MF    Is there an independent accreditation panel that reports to the UK statistics Authority Board, that assesses the request to use the data is in the public interest, that it serves the public good?    PS    The ethics of the proposal are also assessed by an independent ethics advisory committee, whether it's the national statistician's data ethics advisory committee or another. There's a lot of people involved in the process to make sure that any and every use of data is in the public interest.     MF    From what we know from the evidence available, certainly according to the latest public confidence and official statistics survey - that's a big biannual survey run by the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) - I guess for that, and other reasons, public trust remains high. The Survey said 89% of people that gave a view trusted ONS, and 90% agreed that personal information provided to us would be kept confidential. But is there a chance that we could lose some of that trust now, given that there is much greater use, and much greater sharing, of admin data? It should be said that it doesn't give people the chance to opt out.    PS    I think one of the reasons that trust has remained high is because of the robust controls we have around the use of data. Because of the comprehensive set of controls and the framework that we put around use of data that protects confidentiality, that ensures that all uses are in the public interest. And another important component of it is that all use of data that we support is transparent by default. So, any analyst wanting to use data that are held by ONS, or from another department that we support, we publish the details of who those analysts are, which data they're using, what they're using them for, and then we require them to publish the outputs as well. And that transparency helps maintain public trust because if someone wants to know what their data is being used for, they can go to our website or directly to the analyst, and they can see the results tangibly for themselves. Now, they might not always agree that every use case is explicitly in the public interest, but they can see the thought process. They can see how the independent panel has reached that conclusion, and that helps us to retain the trust. There's a second half of your question around whether there is a risk of that changing. There is always a risk but we are very alive to that, which is why as we built the Integrated Data Service, and we look to make more and more government data available, that we don't take for granted the trust we've already got, and that we continue to work with the public, and with privacy groups, to make sure that as we build the new service and make more data available, we don't cross a line inadvertently, and we don't allow data to be used in a way that isn't publicly acceptable. We don't allow data to be combined in a way that would stretch that comfort. And this is that kind of proactive approach that we're trying to take, that we believe will help us retain public trust, despite making more and more data available.     MF     Professor Floridi, we gave you those survey results there, with people apparently having confidence in the system as it stands, but I guess it just takes a couple of negative episodes to change sentiment rapidly. What examples have we seen of that, and how have institutions responded?    LF    I think the typical examples are when data are lost, for example, inadvertently because of a breach and there is nobody at fault, but maybe someone introduced the wrong piece of software. It could be a USB, someone may be disgruntled, or someone else has found a way of entering the database - then the public gets very concerned immediately. The other case is when there is the impression, which I think is largely unjustified, but the impression remains, that the data in question are being used unjustly to favour maybe some businesses, or perhaps support some policies rather than others. And I agree with you, unfortunately, as in all cases, reputation is something very hard to build and can be easily lost. It's a bit unfair, but as always in life, building is very difficult but breaking down and destroying is very easy. I think that one important point here to consider is that there is a bit of a record as we move through the years. The work that we're talking about, as we heard, 2017 is only a few years ago, but as we build confidence and a good historical record, mistakes will happen, but they will be viewed as mistakes. In other words, there will be glitches and there will be forgiveness from the public built into the mechanism, because after say 10 or 15 years of good service, if something were to go wrong once or twice, I think the public will be able to understand that yes, things may go wrong, but they will go better next time and the problem will be repaired. So, I would like to see this fragility if you like, this brittle nature of trust, being counterbalanced by a reinforced sense of long-term good service that you know delivers, and delivers more and more and better and better, well then you can also build a little bit of tolerance for the occasional mistakes that are inevitable, as in everything human, they will occur once or twice.    MF    Okay, well, touching my mic for what would in effect be my desk, I can say that I don't think ONS has had an episode such as you describe, but of course, that all depends on the system holding up. And that seems a good point to bring in Simon Whitworth from the UK Statistics Authority, as kind of the overseeing body of all this.  Simon, how does the authority go about its work? One comment you see quite commonly on social media when these topics are discussed, is while I might trust the body I give my data to, I don't trust them not to go off and sell it, and there have been episodes of data being sold off in that way. I think it's important to state isn't it, that the ONS certainly never sells data for private gain. But if you could talk about some of the other safeguards that the authority seeks to build into the system.     SIMON WHITWORTH    The big one is around the ethical use of data. The authority, and Pete referred to this, previously back in 2017, established something called the National Statisticians Data Ethics Advisory Committee, and that's an independent committee of experts in research, ethics and data law. And we take uses of data to that committee for their independent consideration. And what's more, we're transparent about the advice that that committee provides. So, what we have done, what we've made publicly available, is a number of ethical principles which guide our work. And that committee provide independent guidance on a particular use of data, be they linking administrative data, doing new surveys, using survey data, whatever they may be, they consider projects from across this statistical system against those ethical principles and provide independent advice and guidance to ensure that we keep within those ethical principles. So that's one thing we do, but there's also a big programme of work that comes from something that we've set up called the UK Statistics Authority Centre for Applied Data Ethics, and what that centre is trying to do is to really empower analysts and data users to do that work in ethically appropriate ways, to do their work in ways that are consistent with those ethical principles. And that centres around trying to promote a culture of ethics by design, throughout the lifecycle of different uses of data, be they the collection of data or the uses of administrative data. We've provided lots of guidance pieces recently, which are available on our website, around particular uses of data - geospatial data, uses of machine learning - we've provided guidance on public good, and we're providing training to support all of those guidance pieces. And the aim there is, as I say, to empower analysts from across the analytical system, to be able to think about ethics in their work and identify ethical risks and then mitigate those ethical risks.     MF    You mentioned the Ethics Committee, which is probably not a well-known body, independent experts though you say, these are not civil servants. These are academics and experts in the field. Typically, when do they caution researchers and statisticians, when do they send people back to think again, typically?     SW    It's not so much around what people do, it's about making sure how we do it is in line with those ethical principles. So, for example, they may want better articulations of the public good and consideration of potential harms. Public good for one section of society might equal public harm to another section of society. It's very often navigating that and asking for consideration of what can be done to mitigate those potential public harms and therefore increase the public good of a piece of research. The other thing I would say is being transparent. Peter alluded to this earlier, being transparent around data usage and taking on board wherever possible, the views of the public throughout the research process. Encouraging researchers as they're developing the research, speaking to the public about what they're doing, being clear and being transparent about that and taking on board feedback that they receive from the public whose data they're using. I would say that they're the two biggest areas where an estate provides comments and really useful and valuable feedback to the analytical community.     MF    Everyone can go online and see the work of the committee, to get the papers and minutes and so forth. And this is all happening openly and in a comfortable way?    SW    Yes, absolutely. We publish minutes of the meetings and outcomes from those meetings on the UK Statistics Authority's website. We also make a range of presentations over the course of the year around the work of the committee and the supporting infrastructure that supports the work because we have developed a self-assessment tool which allows analysts at the research design phase to consider those ethical principles, and different components of the ethical principles, against what they're trying to do. And that's proved to be extremely popular as a useful framework to enable analysts to think through some of these issues, and I suppose move ethics from theory to something a bit more applied. In terms of their work last year, over 300 projects from across the analytical community, both within government and academia, used that ethics self-assessment tool, and the guidance and training that sits behind it is again available on our website.    MF    I'm conscious of sounding just a little bit sceptical, and putting you through your paces to explain how the accountability and ethical oversight works, but can you think of some examples where there's been ethical scrutiny, and research outcomes having satisfied that process, have gone on to produce some really valuable benefits?    SW    ONS has done a number of surveys with victims of child sex abuse to inform various inquiries and various government policies. They have some very sensitive ethical issues that require real thinking about and careful handling. You know, the benefits of that research has been hugely important in showing the extent of child sex abuse that perhaps previously was unreported and providing statistics to both policymakers and charities around experiences of child sex abuse. In terms of administrative data, yes, there are numerous big data linkage projects that have come to ONS and have been considered by ONS, in particular, linkage surveys that follow people over time. Linkages done over time provide tremendous analytical value, but of course need some careful handling to ensure that access to that data is provided in an ethically appropriate way, and that we're being transparent. So those are the two I think of, big things we are thinking about in an ethically appropriate way. And being able to do them in an ethically appropriate way has really allowed us to unleash the analytical value of those particular methods, but in a way that takes the public with us and generates that public trust.    MF    Pete, you are part of the organisation that in fact runs an award scheme to recognise some of the outstanding examples of the secure use of data?    PS    We do, and it's another part of promoting the public benefit that comes from use of data. Every year we invite the analysts who use the Secure Research Service (SRS), or other similar services around the country, to put themselves forward for research excellence awards. So that we can genuinely showcase the best projects from across the country, but then also pick up these real examples of where people have made fantastic use of data, and innovative use of data, really demonstrating the public good. We've got the latest of those award ceremonies in October this year, and it's an open event so anybody who is interested in seeing the results of that, the use of data in that way, they would be very welcome to attend.    MF    Give us a couple of examples of recent winners, what they've delivered.    PS    One of the first award winners was looking at the efficacy of testing that was done for men who may or may not have been suffering from prostate cancer, and it analysed when if a person was given this test, what was the likelihood of its accuracy, and therefore whether they should start treatment, and the research was able to demonstrate that actually, given the efficacy, that it wasn't appropriate to treat everyone who got a positive test, because there was risk of doing more harm than good if it had persisted, which is really valuable. But this year, we'll be seeing really good uses of data in response to the pandemic, for example, tying this back to the ethics, when you talk about the use of data made during the pandemic in retrospect, it's clearly ethical, it's clearly in the public interest. But, at the start of the pandemic, we had to link together data from the NHS on who was suffering from COVID which was really good in terms of the basic details of who had COVID and how seriously and sadly, whether they died, but it missed a lot of other detail that helps us to understand why.   We then linked those data with data from the 2011 Census where you can get data on people's ethnic group, on their occupation, on their living conditions, on the type and size of the family they live with, which enable much richer insights, but most importantly, enabled government to be able to target its policy at those groups who were reluctant to get the vaccination to understand whether people were suffering from COVID due to their ethnicity, or whether it was actually more likely to be linked to the type of occupation they did. Really, really valuable insights that came from being able to link these data together, which now sounds sensible, but at the time did have those serious ethical questions. Can we take these two big datasets that people didn't imagine we could link together and and keep the analyses ethically sound and in the public interest. What's what we were able to do.     MF    That's certainly a powerful example. But before we pat ourselves on the back too much for that survey I mentioned, some of the research we've been doing at the ONS does suggest that there is nevertheless a hardcore cohort of sceptics on all of this.  Particularly, it is suggested, among the older age groups, the over 55's in particular. I mentioned the social media reaction you see as well. Kind of ironic you might think, given the amount of data that big social media platforms and other private organisations hold on people.   Professor, do you think there's a paradox at work there? People are apparently inclined not to trust public bodies, accountable public bodies, but will trust the big social media and internet giants? Or is it just a question of knowledge, do you think?    LF    I think it might be partly knowledge, the better you know the system, who is doing what, and also the ability to differentiate between the different organisations and how they operate, under what kind of constraints, how reliable they are, etc, versus for example, commercial uses, advertisement driven, etc.   The more you know, and it happens to be almost inevitably the younger you are, the more you might be able to see with a different kind of degree of trust, but also almost indifference, toward the fact that the data are being collected and what kind of data are being collected. I think the statistics that you were mentioning seem to be having an overlapping feature. A less young population, a less knowledgeable population, is also the population that is less used to social media, sharing, using data daily, etc. And is also almost inevitably a little bit more sceptical when it comes to giving the data for public good, or knowing that something is going to be done by, for example, cross referencing different databases.  On the other side, you find the slightly younger, the more socially active, the kids who have been growing with social media - and they are not even on Facebook these days anymore, as my students remind me, Facebook is for people like me - so let's get things right now, when it comes to Tiktok, they know that they are being monitored, they know that the data is going to be used all over the place. There is a mix of inevitability, a sense of who cares, but also a sense of, that's okay. I mean data is the air you breathe, the energy you must have, it's like electricity. We don't get worried every time we turn on the electricity on in the house because we might die if someone has unreliably connected the wires, we just turn it on and trust that everything is going to be okay. So, I think that as we move on with our population becoming more and more well acquainted with technology, and who does work with the data and what rules are in place, as we heard before, from Simon and Pete, I mean, there are plenty of frameworks and robust ways of double checking that nothing goes wrong, and if something goes wrong, it gets rectified as quickly as possible. But the more we have that, I think the less the sceptics will have a real chance of being any more than people who subscribe to the flat earth theory. But we need to consider that the point you made is relevant. A bit of extra education on the digital divide, which we mentioned implicitly in our conversation today. Who is benefiting from what? And on which side of the digital innovation are these people placed? I think that needs to be addressed precisely now, to avoid scepticism which might be not grounded.    MF    I hope through this interesting discussion we've managed to go some way to explaining how it's all done, and why it's so very important. Simon Whitworth, Pete Stokes, Professor Luciano Floridi, thank you very much indeed for taking part in Statistically Speaking today.   I'm Miles Fletcher and thanks for listening. You can subscribe to new episodes of this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts and all the other major podcast platforms. You can comment or ask us a question on Twitter at @ONSFocus. Our producer at the ONS is Julia Short. Until next time, goodbye    

SMG discuss the news that the UK government's Digital Economy Act aka The Porn Bill has failed. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/super-mega-geek/message

The title alone may be enough to evoke a feeling of discomfort in you. Some of you may be here because you are curious and some for reasons other than that. This in an information based interview and therefore contains conversations that relate to the title. If you haven't listened to the introduction to Season 3 -Please do so as I explain the format of the first two episodes of this season and the caveat around being cybertraumatisied. I begin this episode with John Carr,: A Child Online Safety Consultant. We discuss the prevalence of child sexual abuse material online (CSAM) and why as a society we need to be taking as much action as we can to reduce this, educate our parents, professionals and support organisations that deal with this everyday, such as the IWF and INHOPE (Coming next episode!) John takes us through some of his recent blogs (which he does regularly and with passion). We discuss how this material ends up online, how grooming is also related and the online white harms paper and how this can help us understand the duties of care that social media companies can take to assist in reporting and remove much of this material. This is a conversation that can lay dormant and out of our comfort zones no more. John is complimentary about the actions we re taking in the UK in terms of the online harms white paper and age identification plan and how these will assist us in reducing some of these issues/threats and concerns. We didn't get round to talking about Domain Name over HTTPS so please head to Johns blog to see why this is one of a/(my) major worries! Johns blog can be found : https://johncarr.blog/2019/ And he is on LinkedIn and Twitter EDIT 17 OCT 2019 It was reported in the media on the 18th October 2019 that the Online Identification plan will be scrapped- as you would expect this caused uproar however this is what actually appears in the statement released by Parliament: "The government has concluded that this objective of coherence will be best achieved through our wider online harms proposals and, as a consequence, will not be commencing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 concerning age verification for online pornography. The Digital Economy Act objectives will therefore be delivered through our proposed online harms regulatory regime. This course of action will give the regulator discretion on the most effective means for companies to meet their duty of care. As currently drafted, the Digital Economy Act does not cover social media platforms. " taken from https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statements/commons/ This means that there is still much work to be done here and in the meantime the discussion that John and I have about social media, grooming, adult content and yet to be discussed in depth DOH still remain. Children and Young people will continue to be at risk of seeing this material online and if you would like to know as a parent what to do- head to my youtube channel for the Parents guide to Porn (short video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzXa-giQV0o&t=1s

Jerry Barnett is an activist and author. He is the founder of the Sex and Censorship campaign, and author of Porn Panic!. In this episode we talked about the history of the porn industry and its regulation by the UK government, the Digital Economy act, free speech and our increasingly digital sexual lives. Find Jerry at http://sexandcensorship.org https://twitter.com/pornpanic https://patreon.com/jerrybarnett https://facebook.com/SexAndCensorship/ Follow Technosocial Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/technosocial... Twitter: https://twitter.com/TechnosocialP Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/technosocia... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4vUyoK0... Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/dyla...

In this episode Chris and Ben talk with Cat about their experience of moving from a large company to a small one, after that Cat sticks around to discuss the impact of the UK’s Digital Economy Act 2017.

Project Manager Laura Folkers of the Worcestershire Office of Data Analytics, and Charlotte Shepard Information Officer for Redditch & Bromsgrove Councils, one of the partners, discuss the project approach and anticipated outcomes. WODA has been awarded £57,500 from the Local Digital Fund for a discovery project to look at how registration data for births, deaths and marriages can be securely and ethically shared to improve services and reduce fraud. The Digital Economy Act 2017 enables more sharing off data among local public sector partners. The ‘Tell Us Once' service – an existing initiative for sharing this data - does not have a 100% take-up, is not used in all authorities, applies only to data volunteered by the public, does not cover marriage data and does not extend to eg NHS organisations. Laura and Charlotte describe some of the anticipated benefits of sharing births, marriages & deaths data more widely, how the project is unfolding, and where they anticipate having got to by March, when the project will end, with the possibility of its progressing to a further 'alpha' phase of work.  

Fevzi Tukalp, the Gadget Detective, joins Howard Hughes to bring the latest in technology news. This week; The Digital Economy Act set out a standard that people should get a minimum 10mb broadband, but many are continuing to fall short, along with many not receiving the speeds they expect from fibre based broadband. What can be done to help those customers? The Gadget of the Week is the Humax Eye Surveillance Cloud Camera, a small nightvision and wifi enabled security camera around 2 inches square which has some interesting and useful features. Using motion detection it can alert the user to any movement, plus it stores 7 days' of recordings on the included Humax service, which can be accessed by the user via iOS or Android app. For more information and how it scored a respectable 4 out of 5, listen in! You can hear Fevzi every Saturday on BBC Radio Berkshire at 7.40am, and you can follow him on Twitter @gadgetdetective #Fevzi #Turkalp #Gadget #Detective #News #Reviews #Tech #Technology #Help #Howard #Hughes #BBC #Radio #Berkshire #Internet #Broadband #Speed #Fibre #Legislation #Minimum #Download #Upload #Government #GadgetoftheWeek #Humax #Eye #Surveillance #Cloud #Camera #Security #Motion #Nightvision #Web #Mobile #Apple #iOS #Android #Wifi

This week we talk about 3D TVs, the Aereo, and fully loaded Kodi devices.We also discuss micropayments, television on Twitter, and the Digital Economy Act.Note about this version of this episode:The transitions at the end are a little clunky, as I wanted to rework it to cut out the ads, but also wanted to keep the book recommendation intact. This'll get better over the next several episodes, as I keep this eventual format in mind while recording. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

This week we talk about 3D TVs, the Aereo, and fully loaded Kodi devices. We also discuss micropayments, television on Twitter, and the Digital Economy Act. For more information about the podcast, and to view the copious show notes, visit letsknowthings.com. LKT is now on Patreon! Become a patron. My new book Becoming Who We Need To Be is available as an audiobook, paperback, and ebook. This episode is brought to you by Hostgator, Audible, and listeners like you.

CMU's Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the latest stats from the IFPI that reveal that global record industry revenues grew 5.9% in 2016 (despite flippin YouTube), and how new legislation to combat ticket touting just skated into UK law before Parliament broke up for a pointless election. The CMU Podcast is sponsored by 7digital.

Discussion of Internet surveillance, parliamentary oversight of security services, the Digital Economy Act, communications data, and government data sharing.

Discussion of Internet surveillance, parliamentary oversight of security services, the Digital Economy Act, communications data, and government data sharing.

What ever happened to the Digital Economy Act, Android debuts Ice Cream Sandwich, Steve Jobs vowed to 'destroy' Android and the EU plans to spend billions on boosting broadband speeds. If you enjoy The Two Techies, please subscribe to our other shows at munchtech.tv You can also subscribe to our newsletter at munchtech.tv/newsletter

5 live Investigates exposes the law firms making a mint by accusing innocent people of illegal downloading. As the entertainment industry cracked down on illegal file-sharing, an opportunity was spotted by law firms who sent tens of thousands of speculative letters to people claiming they had illegally downloaded music and pornographic films. The fear of having to fight such an embarrassing claim led many individuals to pay a fine, to make the problem go away. A recent court case has revealed one company has made up to £1 million from the scam, and as their operation is closed down, others are gearing up to step into their wake. 5 live Investigates speaks to former employees about the way these law firms operate - as well as those people wrongly accused of file-sharing - and tells the story of how an international community of hackers helped bring down the biggest player in this market. However, rather than clamp down on this problem, critics say the government's new Digital Economy Act - hastily passed during the previous Labour government's 'wash-up' period - could actually make these legal tactics even easier. Also on the programme, reaction to news that the Egyptian military is expected to ban from Monday union meetings and meetings of professional syndicates. Does it look as if the hopes of the protestors will be dashed? We speak to Professor Robert Springborg, an expert on the Egyptian military, who thinks the signs are ominous. FIFA has launched an investigation into match fixing, following an international friendly tournament in Turkey. Mihkel Uiboleht from the Estonian FA explains the situation. And the latest Direct Debit scam - fraudsters are using cashback websites to set up bogus direct debits for accounts they don't control and then pocketing cashback rewards. All they need are the bank account details. Charities, which publish their account details for potential donations, have been particularly badly hit. To contact the programme, email goldberg@bbc.co.uk - or send comments via Twitter to @5LInvestigates.

In FrequencyCast Show 51, Carl and Pete discuss our digital future, and the impact to TV, radio and the Internet following the introduction of the Digital Economy Act 2010. We also get hands-on with two walkie-talkies, and play with a silly sound machine. For our Interaction section, We also look at feedback from our listeners, including ITV 1 HD in Scotland, a magic geo-tagging Wi-Fi SD card, the options for catch-up TV, and views on our recent MP3 player feature. Links and transcripts at https://www.frequencycast.co.uk/cast51.html