Platformland #20

Data embassies, wallet wars, big numbers forms and data platforms

Hello and welcome to Platformland #20. As you might have noticed, it’s now a paid for newsletter. This one includes wallet wars, data embassies, forms and some big numbers. If you’ve found it useful in the past, please consider subscribing.

All the best,

Richard

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Platform news

🇸🇱🇧🇫🇲🇬 Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Madagascar are piloting implementations of the MOSIP digital identity platform. It looks like they include real users rather than being a technical proof of concept.

🇬🇧 The UK government has kicked off the process of digitising international trade documentation. Worth following as a case study for if you can do genuine cross-government service transformation and common platforms from within a silo (this consultation from back in July seems as much about making it clear that the tax department, HMRC, will be running the show as anything else).

🇺🇸 10 more US states, plus Puerto Rico, will issue digital driving licences via Apple’s Wallet app. More below on the practical and politics of what appears to be a carefully managed beta.

🇦🇺 The Australian government has begun mopping up after the Optus data hack potentially exposed a range of government credentials, including driving licences, passport details and Medicare numbers. It may mean a bigger role for MyGovId. The New South Wales digital minister Victor Dominello has suggested the response should include service models that are not reliant on sharing data in the first place.

🇮🇳 DigiYatra (your face as a boarding pass) has launched at three airports in India.

🇬🇧 The UK Government Digital Service has announced a forms platform. The code is here. Time will tell if the government is approaching strategically and intends to use the new platform privilege to break the departmental silos of service delivery (in a way that GOV.UK once promised, but arguably failed to deliver). The UK Ministry of justice has also published reflections a year into operating its forms platform.

🇬🇧 The department with the brief for local government in England has announced a beta of it’s planning and housing data platform. It’s nice to see a clear hypothesis about how it hopes to improve the housing system front and centre on the website.

🇬🇧 The number of services using GOV.UK Verify is reportedly down to 3. Work continues on One Login for (UK) Government and HMRC plan to use it this time. The Scottish Government is also developing a single sign on.

🇺🇸 The US Department for Defense has Published a contract notice with large numbers in it. (In other large number news, NHS England has published a tender for a data platform, which is widely expected to go to Palantir).

Software is politics