7 ms·

And even GDS isn't getting it right. Some mind-blowing examples of that are the Government Gateway replacement, Office of the Public Guardian, Border Force and

And even GDS isn't getting it right. Some mind-blowing examples of that are the Government Gateway replacement, Office of the Public Guardian, Border Force and Home Office... GDS does really good work. Not denying that, and it's awesome to see that in the public sector. However when your only(!) tool is a web app, every project starts looking like a thumb. It should also be noted that others like the MoD have had even bigger successes than GDS, that simply cannot be publicised. Even the NHS Digital Service is struggling with spend. The still-born Type 1 Diabetes project from a year or so ago a is prime example of writing off months of work without a word.

djaychela 8y ago
>And even GDS isn't getting it right. Some mind-blowing examples of that are the Government Gateway replacement, Office of the Public Guardian, Border Force and Home Office... Yeah - I used money claim online this year to take a non paying client to court. It was a really nasty experience - the login is needlessly complex and had I not made manual notes I wouldn't have been able to log back in. Awful.
- DanBC 8y ago
  I think MoJ is not using GDS because they want independence from government.
- spacescape 8y ago
  Was that the new service in Beta https://www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk/eligibility https://www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk/eligibility Or the old one? https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome
  - rorygibson 8y ago
    The old one is, iirc, a clone of the PCOL (Possession Claims Online) system - another MoJ project centred around small claims. PCOL dates from 2006 (I should know, I helped work on it, mostly performance testing using CompuWare to locate & iron out horrible Hibernate-on-Oracle issues...) All of this was delivered by EDS, completely pre-dates the GDS stuff and shouldn't be considered anything to do with it. :)
  - djaychela 8y ago
    It was the old one. Awful!
kennydude 8y ago
> Government Gateway replacement Both Government Gateway and GOV.UK Verify aren't great. Verify seems be slightly better, if you can pick a decent verification company.
- Spearchucker 8y ago
  Apologies for the late reply - with Xmas and so on I've only just seen this. That said, I suspect you're familiar with neither the scope nor scenarios and clients that Government Gateway services. Verify only does SAML. No ADFS/WS-* (so no support for the NHS, for example), no Chip & PIN (both Identify and Respond, on Java and .NET silicon -- this is important because provisioning), and assorted side-scenarios required by the security cluster. The idea of a verification company is laughable. Forgive me. Digital identity systems must be designed so the disclosure of identifying information is limited to parties having a necessary and justifiable place in a given identity relationship (see law 3 of the laws of identity, https://www.identityblog.com/stories/2005/05/13/TheLawsOfIdentity.pdf https://www.identityblog.com/stories/2005/05/13/TheLawsOfIde...). What justifiable role does a bank or credit agency play when I require meds for an STD? Amongst some very, very personal and private transactions some of us make? A credit agency's purpose is to provide a credit rating, and not to verify identity. Also note that many banks and credit verification agencies GDS proposes are HQ'd outside the EU, which makes Verify impossible to use by many organisations in the UK - and can therefore never replace the Government Gateway. Verify's technical shortcomings can be built out and addresed. The use of commercial, unjustifiable verification companies with poor security records to boot (Experian, HSBC, and so on) cannot. This is Verify's single biggest failing.

djaychela 8y ago

>And even GDS isn't getting it right. Some mind-blowing examples of that are the Government Gateway replacement, Office of the Public Guardian, Border Force and Home Office... Yeah - I used money claim online this year to take a non paying client to court. It was a really nasty experience - the login is needlessly complex and had I not made manual notes I wouldn't have been able to log back in. Awful.

DanBC 8y ago
I think MoJ is not using GDS because they want independence from government.
spacescape 8y ago
Was that the new service in Beta https://www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk/eligibility https://www.moneyclaims.service.gov.uk/eligibility Or the old one? https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome
- rorygibson 8y ago
  The old one is, iirc, a clone of the PCOL (Possession Claims Online) system - another MoJ project centred around small claims. PCOL dates from 2006 (I should know, I helped work on it, mostly performance testing using CompuWare to locate & iron out horrible Hibernate-on-Oracle issues...) All of this was delivered by EDS, completely pre-dates the GDS stuff and shouldn't be considered anything to do with it. :)
- djaychela 8y ago
  It was the old one. Awful!

kennydude 8y ago

> Government Gateway replacement Both Government Gateway and GOV.UK Verify aren't great. Verify seems be slightly better, if you can pick a decent verification company.

Spearchucker 8y ago
Apologies for the late reply - with Xmas and so on I've only just seen this. That said, I suspect you're familiar with neither the scope nor scenarios and clients that Government Gateway services. Verify only does SAML. No ADFS/WS-* (so no support for the NHS, for example), no Chip & PIN (both Identify and Respond, on Java and .NET silicon -- this is important because provisioning), and assorted side-scenarios required by the security cluster. The idea of a verification company is laughable. Forgive me. Digital identity systems must be designed so the disclosure of identifying information is limited to parties having a necessary and justifiable place in a given identity relationship (see law 3 of the laws of identity, https://www.identityblog.com/stories/2005/05/13/TheLawsOfIdentity.pdf https://www.identityblog.com/stories/2005/05/13/TheLawsOfIde...). What justifiable role does a bank or credit agency play when I require meds for an STD? Amongst some very, very personal and private transactions some of us make? A credit agency's purpose is to provide a credit rating, and not to verify identity. Also note that many banks and credit verification agencies GDS proposes are HQ'd outside the EU, which makes Verify impossible to use by many organisations in the UK - and can therefore never replace the Government Gateway. Verify's technical shortcomings can be built out and addresed. The use of commercial, unjustifiable verification companies with poor security records to boot (Experian, HSBC, and so on) cannot. This is Verify's single biggest failing.