GDPR indexed.

Well, it's created a lot of uncertainty, for a regulation that spans just 50 pages (and 30 of preamble). But it's not very accessible, because it's hard to find an indexed version. Well, if you want one of those, here it is.

In May, the EU's General Data Protection Regulations comes into force. The EU bill is only 86 pages, and there's a PDF published at eur-lex.europa.eu (oh, awesome, the secure version of that link isn't securely configured).

Also not awesome is the fact that the PDF doesn't have an index. So it's to find the bits you need to read. So, I've created one, like I did with the UK's IP Bill before. The process of creating the index has helped me understand the regulation much better, and I hope if helps others too.

View HERE! DOWNLOAD HERE! (Do let me know if that download link fails. I'm not sure I trust Google Docs here).

Of course, as we rush to prepare for GDPR, the Government hasn't actually published UK law on this. There's a Bill that's been through the Lords, and had a first reading in the Commons though. You can follow its progress at [https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/dataprotection.html]. Again, published as a PDF without an index, so I've made one with an index. Don't forget, it's subject to amendment. I guess it's pretty likely there will be amendments, but I've no idea how important they'll be.

View the Bill here DOWNLOAD HERE!

Finally, there's the Information Commissioner's guidance on the matter. As it's they who'll actually be issuing fines, following their guidance seems like a good idea.

IP Bill with Table of Contents

When the Government published its draft Investigatory Powers Bill, it provided a nearly useful PDF copy. "Nearly", because the formatting is chaotic (eg, sometimes you can select a section title with its number, and sometimes you can't).

So, I used the very good (nearly excellent PDF Outliner) to create a table of contents. Unfortunately, its automatic outliner didn't work (because of the aforementioned chaos in the PDF itself). So it was quite a tedious process. Tip: use Apple keyboard preferences to create a keyboard shortcut for "Number Sequentially...". It's probably also useful to remap several other keys for large docs like this, for ergonomic reasons.

Anyway, Javier Ruiz of the absolutely excellent Open Rights Group, asked if I was going to produce a copy of the now published Bill. So, here it is. Tip: hit the download button at the top of the page.

Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

The government published a Draft Investigatory Powers Bill yesterday. Of course, they didn't really get the format right. For example, they published it in a PDF with chaotic layout. It didn't include a useful Table of Contents (you know, that you can click to navigate, for example).

However, they did publish it using the Open Government License, which allows you and me to modify and redistribute the document. So, I've added a useful table of contents, to make it easier to see the structure, and navigate the document.


So, here it is. Note that the document is in three parts: a preamble with some government guides to various parts, the draft Bill itself, and then official guidance notes on the draft Bill.

[Edited to add: note that you won't see the table of contents if you view this PDF in your web browser. You have to download it, and open it in a PDF viewer like Apple's Preview, or iBooks, or Kindle for Mac. I presume Adobe PDF viewer will also show the ToC, but I haven't tested that. Anyway, to facilitate that, I've also changed the link to a direct download link.]

Download the Draft Investigatory Powers Bill  (first draft and guidance) with a proper table of contents.

Businesses must treat everyone fairly.

UKIP Lewes District Councillor and prospective MEP Donna Edmunds said, on the Lewes Forum, today

"…all business owners, Christian, Muslim, gay, straight, should be allowed to withhold their services from whomever they choose whenever they choose."

She, apparently, thinks that businesses should be free to choose, but also thinks that they should choose to do the right thing. I presume, also that she thinks they would do the right thing. But, she's ignoring history here. Rosa Parks, and countless others, have fought hard to get equal rights in all walks of life, not just the right to use buses and enrol at Universities. In the end, the rights had to be granted through legislation.

There are two reasons that legislation was used. First, progress without it was just too slow, and second: that's how we express our views in a democracy. Of course, as a Liberal, I'd rather avoid legislation where possible, but in this case it's clear that legislation was required. Businesses benefit from all sorts of legislation that protects their legal identity, intellectual "property", physical property, and accrued financial assets. In return, we expect certain standards of behaviour from them: including fair treatment of all citizens.

I'm pleased to say, the condemnation has been unanimous. The BBC used it to illustrate the "pitfalls of UKIP's 'major party status'". The Daily Mail pointed out that Nigel Farage thought UKIP had eliminated this sort of thing, and that current candidates were "of a calibre to be proud of".  The Metro called it "Today's UKIP meltdown news". And every other story I've seen covering this has condemned her. Of course, Norman Baker has, too.

I'm also pleased to say that Lewes District Council has issued this statement:

"Date: Wednesday, 5 March 2014
Lewes District Council statement
Councillor Donna Edmunds, Lewes District Councillor for Barcombe, has expressed her personal view about business owners withholding services from whomever they choose.
A Lewes District Council spokesperson said “Councillor Edmunds’ views are her personal opinion and are not shared by the District Council. 

Lewes District Council has a statutory duty under The Equality Act 2010 to protect people from discrimination. We believe that everyone who lives and works in the area, and those who come to visit us, should feel welcome, safe, valued, included and respected. 

All officers and councillors receive regular training opportunities and there is no excuse for them not to be aware of their duties as council employees and elected members”.

Ends/

Lib Dem conference directory

The Lib Dem conference directory is published as a pdf. It has fringe listings, and handy maps. Except that, incomprehensibly, the maps are badly compressed bitmaps. The maps are also available as high quality images, and it's trivial (with Apple's OSX "print preview" app, for example) to replace the crap maps with the good ones. It took me about 10 minutes, which is why I don't understand why the published directory has the crap maps.

I've also found the official conference app unusable. It takes about a minute to start, which is far too long when you're looking for the location of a fringe event, for example. These things need to start instantly. The "killer" feature of the app is, or would be, the ability to create a personal agenda. In theory, you can do this: adding debates, fringe events, and training events. In practice, nothing that I "add" to my agenda actually gets added.

It would work quite nicely, even with the delay, if "adding" an event would just create an entry in my calendar app. Actually, that would be better than creating another diary in the official app. But that doesn't appear to have been considered.

So, that's why I've created a Google calendar with the main conference agenda, and a couple of the more popular fringe events. I've also made myself a cut down version of the directory: with legible maps, and fewer adverts (many of which are also illegible because they're over-compressed bitmaps instead of vector graphics).

Autumn Conference Calendar

I've published the Lib Dems' Autumn Conference Calendar on my Google Calendar. You can subscribe to it at http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/eiloart.com_ov92vs7r372538okh8ibq1uefs%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

It's just the two consultation sessions, and the main conference agenda at the moment. I'll add some of the bigger fringe attractions later.

My Heart Op

We don't know the reason for the stroke that I had in 2011.

It could be high blood pressure: my blood pressure is high, but not very high. Blood pressure is responsible for a third of strokes, and may be caused by excess dietary salt. I've been trying to reduce my salt intake, and I'm also taking Ramipril daily. My blood pressure has come down somewhat, but it's hard to get consistently accurate measurements.

It could be a Patent Foramen Ovale (PFO) - a hole in the heart that's supposed to close at birth. In about 25% of people, it doesn't close properly. However, 50% of people who have an early stroke have a PFO. It's possible that a clot forms in the hole, then escapes and lodges in the brain, for example.
PFO closure is a simple, day operation. Imagine pushing a tiny cocktail umbrella through the hole, then opening it up: but it's a more sophisticated bit of kit than that! It can be inserted through a large vein in the leg. It's a very safe operation, and there's some evidence that it really can reduce recurrence of Transient Ischemic Attacks (mini strokes, whose effects last only a very short time).

There are three studies that show a reduction in adverse events in the five years after the operation. None have shown a statistically significant effect, but adverse events turn out to be very rare, so larger studies may be needed. It may be that aggregating the statistics from the three studies would demonstrate a statistically significant result. Anyway, having declined the operation after the first study was published, I've now decided to go ahead with it.

I was very pleased to be given a choice of dates for the operation. I turned down May 1 (the day before the County Council Elections) and May 8th, the annual meeting of Lewes District Council. Instead I've elected to have the operation on May 15th. They only do it on Wednesdays, it seems.

I still have the altered sensation in my left side: often pain, but generally hypersensitivity to cold, heat, pressure, and so on. I think it's probably going to be permanent.

Edited to add: Yesterday (16 April), I got a phone call to say that the 15th May date isn't actually available. I had a choice of 1 May, or to go back on the waiting list. I chose to go for 1 May. Also, my wife and I watched a Holby City staff member (Tara Lo) die on the operating table, which is discouraging, even if entirely irrelevant! The letter that I got from the hospital says that my consultant has performed this procedure 260 times, and not had serious adverse affects. Tara's operation, in contrast, was (a) a high risk procedure, (b) on a brain tumour, and (c) fictional.