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29 Mar, 8 tweets, 5 min read
🔥NEW: You can’t run a government by disappearing message.

1/ When @BorisJohnson texts @MattHancock or @pritipatel over WhatsApp or Signal, he may be breaking UK law.

We've teamed up with @allthecitizens for a legal action.@jimwaterson has the story:

theguardian.com/law/2021/mar/2…
2/ We love @signalapp. (We used to use @WhatsApp lots until Facebook took our data!)

Disappearing messages are great for us, the citizens. They're not appropriate for officials.

Why, you ask?
3/ Simple. The Public Records Act 1958 requires officials to review every message about the formulation of government policy to perform a legal check – in case it needs to be archived for public release.

If the message explodes, the check can never happen.
4/ It's a growing problem. Last summer @tnewtondunn reported that basically all ministers, from BoJo on down, had migrated to Signal, where messages can be set to disappear. thesun.co.uk/news/11557299/…
5/ Archivists and historians agree that this is a massive issue. @dpc_chat, a grouping of every copyright library you care to name, sent the government a letter and were brushed off.

dpconline.org/docs/miscellan…
6/ Their President, Bodley’s Librarian, @richove, wrote a great piece on it in the FT. Still no movement from government. ft.com/content/d7f10e…
7/ Sadly, some officials have form for seeking to use digital services to avoid scrutiny. In 2011, @ICOnews found Michael Gove, as Education Secretary, and his spad Dominic Cummings broke the law by moving to Gmail to avoid FOI. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…
8/ From Brexit to Covid, if crucial messages vanish, our history is a blank, and we can't hold officials to account.

Privacy is for the people. Transparency is for the government. We're proud to be working with @allthecitizens - and we'll litigate if we have to!

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More from @Foxglovelegal

Foxglove Profile picture
30 Mar
📢NEW📢: we've won the Palantir case!

At last, officials admit YOU have a right to a say in long-term deals between the NHS and US tech firms like Palantir.

It only took us a year, thousands of you speaking up, and two court cases with @openDemocracy to get there!
Here’s our write-up by @martyftz and @cori_crider.

They’ve hit pause – they won’t extend Palantir’s NHS role beyond Covid without stopping to consider our rights, and ask.

This is a major step. NHS now says they’ll consult the public.

opendemocracy.net/en/ournhs/weve…
Special mention to our friends at @TBIJ who obtained key emails at the start of this case, showing Palantir wooing NHS execs and UK officials over Davos chats and watermelon cocktails.

thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2021-0…
Read 9 tweets
Foxglove Profile picture
24 Feb
🚨 NEW: We’ve filed a lawsuit with @openDemocracy defending YOUR right to a say about data deals between the NHS and Big Tech.

@Rowlsmanthorpe has the story, for @SkyNews.

Saddle up, people! 🏇 [THREAD] -

news.sky.com/story/nhs-faci…
Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen private firms creep into our public institutions at a shocking rate – through chummy, opaque backdoor deals.

One such deal was with @PalantirTech - a shady data firm that mainly works with the CIA, US cops, and ICE.

opendemocracy.net/en/ournhs/cont…
Last year, the government signed the largest data deal in history between the NHS and giant tech firms – like Palantir and Faculty, a British AI start-up involved with the Vote Leave campaign.

We took legal action and, with your support, forced them to publish the contracts.
Read 8 tweets
Foxglove Profile picture
18 Nov 20
Breaking: More than 200 @Facebook content moderators (and supporting employees) from across the US and Europe have published a demand for better protections - and full employment rights - during the pandemic.

foxglove.org.uk/news/open-lett…
This is the biggest joint international effort of Facebook content moderators yet. We are proud to have worked with them to do it. Many more moderators in other sites wanted to sign, but were too intimidated by Facebook - these people are risking their livelihood to speak out.
They've taken that risk because Facebook has risked their lives by forcing content moderators back to the offices. Full FB staff are allowed to work from home - many mods have to come in, even with live Covid cases on the floor, as @samfbiddle reported: theintercept.com/2020/10/20/fac…
Read 9 tweets
Foxglove Profile picture
16 Aug 20
NEW: last night, @Ofqual pulled from its website its guidance about the algorithmic grading appeals process. We’re posting it and a letter we've sent this AM because we think it opens up a new ground of challenge. (tl;dr – it basically works like this) foxglove.org.uk/news/grading-a…
First, the position was that the algorithm was sacrosanct and more reliable than mock exams or teachers’ assessed grades.
Ofqual then changed tack, saying mock exams could be more reliable than the algorithm.
Read 5 tweets
Foxglove Profile picture
14 Aug 20
THREAD: hundreds of you emailed in anguish about the unfair grading algorithm. This case affects you all, and we are asking for crowdfunding support (gofundme.com/f/fairgrades20…), so we wanted to post our letter as soon as possible. It’s at foxglove.org.uk/news/grading-a…. Key points:
Ofqual just hasn’t got the power to mark students based on an algorithm which actively ignores individual student performance for cohorts over 15. In law-speak, this is called ‘ultra vires’.
The algorithm is irrational – it treats teachers’ rankings as sacrosanct, yet teachers’ assessed grades are treated as either everything (under 5) or nothing (over 15).
Read 8 tweets
Foxglove Profile picture
12 Aug 20
📢Potential new case Klaxon!📢

Thousands of A-level students get their “results” tomorrow. Covid-19 meant exams were cancelled. So, instead, their grades will in many cases have been generated by a hastily-built government algorithm.

We’ve got concerns about this algorithm.
Firstly, as is so often the case, there’s a lack of transparency about what this algorithm does and how it works.

This is unacceptable. Students have a right to understand how decisions which affect them are made. And algorithmic decision-making needs to be open to scrutiny.
Secondly, it appears the algorithm grades schools rather than students: “Where a subject has more than 15 entries in a school, teachers’ predicted grades will not be used”.

So an individual student’s life chances hang on an estimate based on their school’s historic performance.
Read 10 tweets

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