Posts tagged "Cookies"

Archived Post

Week notes #1

Government Service Design Manual

A number of people are starting to put together week notes about what they have been up to over the past 5 days of work. I want to give this a go too, partly so I can look back in a few months time and remind myself what has been achieved.

I probably won’t get round to writing these every week, but hopefully often enough that it makes sense.

4 May 2013
Archived Post

Brushing off the cobwebs

Outside Downing Street

Just over a year ago, I blogged that I was taking a break from CF Labs and joining a project to create a new website for government.

Since then lots of things have happened, and many things have changed. Here is a quick summary:

  • The Government Digital Service (GDS) was created to bring together many bits of government that were working on similar things, including the project to create the new website
  • We released a public beta of our proposed new website for citizens (to replace Directgov). We followed this with a beta of a platform to replace all central government websites and an alpha of our design principles
  • I got involved in, wrote and talked about the use of cookies on websites and the new law that has caused a lot of fuss
  • I got to go to Number 10
  • I left Consumer Focus and joined GDS full time as a developer and tech lead
  • I spent a huge amount of time travelling from South Wales to London and staying in hotels
  • I eventually stopped this madness and relocated from Cardiff to a flat in East London
  • We released the first batch of things for businesses on the public beta
  • We announced the date on which GOV.UK will replace both Directgov and BusinessLink – the two biggest government websites.

Over the last year, this blog has been very much unloved and has gathered an unhealthy layer of dust. It’s not for want of trying – there are several half finished posts that I just haven’t gotten around to finishing. I’m hoping I can resurrect some of these, but I suspect many are now too out of date.

29 September 2012
External Article

GDS: It's not about cookies, it's about privacy

An update on how government websites will be implementing the new cookie / privacy regulations
19 March 2012
External Article

GDS: Cookies on the GOV.UK Beta

How the gov.uk beta website will be using cookies
12 January 2012
Archived Post

An update on the EU cookie law

2019 update:

This e-book doesn’t seem to exist anymore, so I’ve removed the link

EU Cookie Law definitive guide
The law was meant to protect the privacy of people using the Internet. To accomplish this, the EU made over 90% of websites illegal

Back in May I wrote about the new EU law on cookies that came into effect this year and will be enforced from May 2012.

27 July 2011
Archived Post

Using website cookies in the EU

Later this week a new law comes into effect – the Privacy & Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2011. This law requires all website operators in the EU to gain consent from visitors before storing or retrieving information from a visitors computer.

Essentially, this law blocks the use of cookies until a user has been asked for (and has given) informed consent. Francis Davey, the fantastic tech legal expert has written an in-depth blog about the changes.

24 May 2011