iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 6h

Kazuo Ishiguro has betrayed us to the robots!

Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 9h

The UK's trade union for professional writers has tried to make some minor concessions to material reality, and it hasn't gone over very well Creative industries launch Ethical AI Charter societyofauthors.org/2026/10/14/c... #genAI #IPlaw #techpolicy

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 10h

UKRI research data policy www.ukri.org/publications... new from UK Research and Innovation @ukri.org Press release www.ukri.org/news/ukri-pu... #researchdata #datasharing #openscience #opendata -relevant

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 10h

Hackers stole records dating back almost 50 years in legal aid cyber attack www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crim... (England and Wales) Updates www.gov.uk/government/n... + questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat... Incident seems to be rather worse than originally described #dataprotection

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Jeni Tennison @jenitennison.com · 11h

I am actually shocked that NAO is labelling this "exemplary". I would have expected a much shaper critique, particularly of the poor evaluation methods, the naive approach to human review and the lack of consideration for prisoner rights. This is not the level we should be aiming for.

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Open Data Manchester CIC @opendatamcr.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Open Data Camp 11 lands in Birmingham, 21–22 November 2026. Free, unconference-style, and the open data community's big annual get-together. Bring a topic, bring a question, bring yourself. #OpenData #OpenDataCamp www.tickettailor.com/events/opendat…

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 11h

Counts and ranks of baby surnames, in England and Wales, births registered in each year 1996 to 2025 www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula... ad hoc release from ONS Useful data for lots of purposes, not only race-baiting #babynames #opendata 👶🏽

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 11h

AI safety commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri... briefing from UK House of Commons Library Liam Byrne's BIST Committee has opened a "major new inquiry" committees.parliament.uk/committee/36... Evidence session yesterday committees.parliament.uk/event/28282/... #genAI #AIpolicy #techpolicy

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 13h

Sally Rooney says she can no longer sell books in UK due to Palestine Action support www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... Faber statement www.faber.co.uk/journal/fabe... #GazaGenocide

Faber Statement: 14 October 2026

Faber said today: Current legislation in the UK has led to circumstances where Faber cannot pass on UK earnings to Sally Rooney for her work. To sell a writer’s work and not be able to pass on earnings is an unconscionable situation for a publisher.

As such, and in full agreement with Sally, we have taken the decision that we can no longer supply her works in the UK in any format. We remain the proud publisher of her remarkable body of work, which we will continue to sell in other territories.

We have no further comment at this time.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 13h

Emily Middleton has been confirmed on GOV·UK as Director General for Digital Transformation at GDS within DCMS www.gov.uk/government/p... The job was advertised in April but Middleton has been doing it on an interim basis. You may recall some controversy around Middleton's DSIT appointment in 2024.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 15h

Latest #openaddresses from local government: South Holland District Council, in the East Midlands region of England, has released its Council Tax address list as open data www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... (no download yet) Without UPRNs, so no map this time #FOI #UKhousing #localgov #opendata

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Letter from DCMS Committee chair Caroline Dinenage MP requesting clarification on where UK ministerial responsibility for AI and copyright sits these days committees.parliament.uk/publications... Message seems to be that DCMS ministers should get their finger out #genAI #IPlaw #techpolicy

1. Where does ministerial responsibility for AI and copyright now sit within government?

2. What is the department doing, at both ministerial and official level, to ensure that copyright and the interests of creators are adequately reflected in the government's AI strategy?

3. When does the government expect to launch its consultation on digital replicas, originally scheduled for summer 2026?

4. What progress has the government made in establishing a taskforce to develop proposals on the labelling of AI-generated content? Does the government still expect an interim report to be published in autumn 2026?

5. What is the government doing to support the emerging collective licensing market, including for smaller and independent creators?

6. When will the government publish its review of the mechanisms available for creators to control their works online, including standards, technical solutions and best practice on input transparency?

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Fumigated my attic and the next day Russian bot traffic is down by 94% Coincidence? I think not!

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Minutes of 2026 meetings of the National Data Guardian Panel www.gov.uk/government/p... The Panel did not meet in July 2026. The minutes note "a period of reduced capacity across the team". Mathew Fry, Head of the Office of the NDG, left that role at the end of March. Hmm.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Latest #openaddresses from local government: West Devon Borough Council, in the South West of England, has released its Council Tax address list as open data www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... (no download yet) #FOI #UKhousing #proptech #localgov #opendata

Screenshot of geocoded West Devon Borough Council address data visualised in Leaflet with background mapping from OpenStreetMap

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

Building a Safer, More Secure Britain in the age of AI www.gov.uk/government/s... Transcript of a speech yesterday by Kanishka Narayan MP, the UK's Minister for Super Intelligence

Progress must serve the people whose work has made it possible.

Technological change should serve human dignity.

The state has a responsibility to ensure that its benefits are shared.

We are, once again, living through a technological revolution whose consequences will be felt for generations.

As we cross the threshold into the age of super intelligence.

The choices we make now matter. And so I am making a simple choice:

We must build machines that serve us.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

It's like they've never heard of the Streisand effect

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Oxford University tutor faces trial accused of possessing indecent child images www.lbc.co.uk/article/oxfo... + www.aol.com/articles/oxf... Coverage from the Telegraph, Mail, and GB News on Saturday has mysteriously disappeared from those sites. Lola Salem was Michael Gove's partner until recently.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

The NHS Federated Data Platform: advice on public and professional trust www.gov.uk/government/p... Letter to UK Government from the outgoing National Data Guardian, Dr Nicola Byrne – with rather a strong whiff of I-told-you-so #NHSdata #patientdata #publicprocurement #techpolicy #Palantir

My advice as National Data Guardian:

• Public and professional trust should be given substantial weight when evaluating any supplier of a system involving people’s health and care data. Commercial strength and technical capability must not outweigh whether the public, professionals and end-user organisations trust the arrangements. Without sufficient trust, the system is unlikely to be adopted widely enough to fulfil its potential to improve health and care.
• Decisions about the future of the FDP should be supported by clear, objective evidence of the platform’s benefits and limitations, communicated transparently. NHS England’s integration into the Department of Health and Social Care presents an opportunity to strengthen the culture around, and approach to, ongoing evaluation and transparency. Technical challenge, dissenting voices and local concerns should be engaged with constructively in shaping direction and delivery, helping to strengthen the programme and support its long-term success.
• Concerns about interoperability, vendor lock-in and data sovereignty must be addressed. This should include consideration of open standards and open-source technology, consistent with wider government digital policy.

Whatever decision is taken about the current supplier, the FDP programme must command sufficient public and professional trust. This is important not only to the future of the FDP, but to wider trust in how the NHS uses people's data.

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Rachel 🦁 @rachelnull.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

New Zealand Government, do the right thing and put Buck the sheep in the public domain (and tell Kiwibank to stop abusing the DMCA).

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Latest #openaddresses from local government: Harborough District Council, in the East Midlands region of England, has released its Council Tax address list as open data www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... (no download yet) Without UPRNs, so no map this time #FOI #UKhousing #localgov #opendata

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

I still don't believe AI psychosis is a real thing. What the Anthropic researchers have is called larping. Roko's basilisk can eat my shorts

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

List of witnesses scheduled to give evidence to Liam Byrne's Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee in the UK House of Commons on Tuesday: AI adoption, safety and governance committees.parliament.uk/event/28282/... #AIpolicy #techpolicy All the talents

Tuesday 13 October 2026, 2:00pm
AI adoption, safety and governance - Oral evidence

2:00pm
Daniel Kokotajlo (Executive Director at AI Futures Project)
Aengus Lynch (Technical Staff at Theorem)
Steven Adler (Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Guidelight AI Standards)
Geoffrey Irving (Co-Founder and Chief Scientist at Resolution)

3:00pm
The Lord Booth-Smith (Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa Policy at Anthropic)
Tom Duff Gordon (Vice-President and Head of Europe, Middle East and Africa Policy at OpenAI)
Owen Larter (Senior Director at Google DeepMind)
Rob Sherman (Vice President, Global Policy at Meta)

4:00pm
Henry De Zoete (Director at AI Security Institute)
Cat Little CB (Permanent Secretary at Cabinet Office)
Alexandra Jones (Director General Growth, International, Science & Technology at Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade)

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

When No ID Means No Internet: Age Verification and the Right to Access Information www.eff.org/deeplinks/20... via @eff.org #ageverification #masssurveillance #censorship #humanrights #techpolicy

Age verification laws are less about confirming the age of a user and more about creating barriers to online participation that many people cannot reliably scale. The net result is reduced access, more data collection, and an increased chance of unequal or mistaken exclusion from accessing information online.

Nobody doubts the importance of protecting children online. While proponents assert that age verification laws protect minors from harmful material, online harassment, and digital addiction, these laws are not the solution. They subvert fundamental freedom of expression rights and pose significant privacy risks.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

ICO has published its decision notice finding that Southampton City Council should not have refused an FOI request about supernatural-related requests ico.org.uk/action-weve-... "… a request is not vexatious merely because it concerns unusual, speculative or apparently limited-value information."

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Presumably it means the local council runs a permit scheme but you can't use the permits in that particular car park Syntactically it should be "permits are not allowed for use in" or "use of permits is not allowed in" this car park

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Mumsnet denies using AI for content after prompt appears on message board www.theguardian.com/media/2026/o... The thread www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_st... Among other things it seems Mumsnet was sending draft text to OpenAI while users were writing it #genAI #techpolicy #terfisland #dataprotection

Mumsnet was founded in 2000. It faced a 19% drop in its monthly unique user numbers in 2025 to 6.1 million and the number of posts fell by 600,000. It said in its latest annual report that it was "embedding AI tools to improve productivity and enhance the user experience".

Recent research, published in Nature, has shown that AI assistance in social media risks creating "semantic garbage" and is seen by users as less informative, "robotic" and "generic".

Soon after the prompt emerged, Mumsnet denied that it used AI to write threads and said it had come from a tool to suggest thread titles which uses an OpenAI model. But users refused to accept this explanation and some copied the prompt into an AI and found it generated a full post.

"We are not idiots," said one user, MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack. "Please can you give us a transparent explanation?"

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Environment Agency publishes detailed 2025 storm-overflow data (for England) www.watermagazine.co.uk/2026/10/08/e... 2025 data added to 2024 data: Event Duration Monitoring-Storm Overflow-Start/Stop Detailed Data environment.data.gov.uk/dataset/e967... #waterquality #sewagescandal #opendata

The Environment Agency has updated its storm-overflow dataset with detailed 2025 monitoring data for England's 10 water and sewerage companies, providing individual records of when monitored overflows activated and stopped.

The dataset, updated on 7 October, contains the detailed Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) records submitted by water companies for 2025, alongside comparative data for previous years.

The information records the start and stop of each potential storm-overflow discharge and is provided separately for the water companies operating in England.

The Environment Agency has stressed that the detailed data has not been subject to formal verification by the Agency.

The newly updated files cover the 2025 performance of companies including Anglian Water, Northumbrian Water, Severn Trent, South West Water, Southern Water, Thames Water, United Utilities, Wessex Water and Yorkshire Water.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Fuel prices added to Google Maps as petrol and diesel costs soar www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Press releases from UK Government www.gov.uk/government/n... + Google/Waze blog.google/company-news... Fuel Finder scheme www.gov.uk/government/c... #govtech #opendata #fuelprices

Some experts say Fuel Finder is not entirely reliable.

"At the moment, we still have to supplement the Government's Fuel Finder feed with other data sources because, on its own, it does not provide the level of coverage and accuracy needed to deliver a complete and reliable service to motorists," said Clare Lafferty, director at the price comparison site PetrolPrices.

"There are still sites that have not registered with the scheme at all, alongside sites that have registered but are not consistently updating their prices within the required timeframe."

She said the firm identified 200 forecourts in September which it did not believe had updated its diesel prices in time.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Tone-deaf for all sorts of reasons But also, Google Maps? Didn't we used to have a national mapping agency

Screenshot of post on X/Twitter from UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham @andyburnham:

I know people are worried about fuel prices. And I get it. You get to the pump, watch the numbers climb, and wonder why it's costing so much more than it used to.

The reality is that global events are pushing up costs, and families here at home are feeling the impact.

But I won't accept that there's nothing I can do to help.

That's why from today, you'll be able to see petrol and diesel prices on Google Maps, compare nearby stations and find the cheapest option before you fill up.

It's a small change, but if there's a practical way to help people keep more money in their pocket, I'll do it.

8:39 AM · Oct 8, 2026

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Gavin Freeguard @gavinfreeguard.com · 08/10/2026

Exclusive: the government doesn’t want you to know who’s advising it on civil service reform medium.com/state-of-the...

medium.com

Exclusive: the government doesn’t want you to know who’s advising it on civil service reform

The short version

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

'ChatGPT for the win': Parents are using AI to skip out on kids' school photos www.fastcompany.com/91615016/par... (US) Why depend on ChatGPT? The next step is these parents will figure out how to install local models and train loras of their kids What could go wrong

Others worried about the implications of feeding photos of children into ChatGPT. "You are putting your children's image and likeness through AI that can be utilized by AI later and stored in its memory," one commenter cautioned.

Other parents didn't use AI to upgrade their own at-home pictures, but to acquire professional pictures without paying full price. Multiple posters on TikTok boasted about asking ChatGPT to remove the watermark from proofs of their children's pictures, getting high-quality digital versions of the images for free. "No longer getting scammed by the price of school pictures!" reads one user's caption.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Info on how the UK's Open Data Institute is funded these days, from a filing of annual accounts to the end of 2025 find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/0803...

The directors have not identified any significant uncertainties relating to events or conditions that might cast doubt on the company's ability to continue as a going concern.

During 2025 and into 2026, the ODI secured a substantial pipeline of grant and commercial income across its programme areas. In July 2025, the ODI received a US$3 million grant from Google.org to support the stewardship of Solid over a three-year period, and has been actively delivering this programme throughout 2025. Sport England awarded a follow-on grant of £700,000 in July 2025 for a further 24 months' delivery of the OpenActive programme. The ODI's continued involvement in the water sector led to a £309,000 follow-on grant from the Stream Water Data Initiative in 2025, alongside commercial engagements with several water companies to support their data strategies.

…

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

All I said was it's difficult to do horizon scanning with your head up your arse, he just took it the wrong way

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The UK's Cabinet Office says the activation of the Emergency Alert capability in August was "issued at no cost to the taxpayer" questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-ques... Context: Wildfire phone alert was 'entirely appropriate', government says www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #govcomms #vfm

Screenshot of UK Housing Commons written question UIN 21331, tabled on 28 August 2026 and answered on 6 October 2026:

Question
Alex Burghart
Conservative, Brentwood and Ongar Commons
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, with reference to the answer of 24 January 2024, to Question 10668, on Emergencies: Mobile Phones, what is the additional or marginal cost to the public purse of issuing a nationwide Emergency Alert.

Answer
Dan Jarvis
Labour, Barnsley North Commons

The Cabinet Office is committed to delivering value for money to the public. There is no additional or marginal cost of issuing a nationwide Emergency Alert; the most recent activation of the Emergency Alert capability on 14 August was issued at no cost to the taxpayer.

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

UK Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) spend data, transactions over £25,000, Apr 2010 - Aug 2026 drive.google.com/uc?export=do... (1.5 MB XLSX) The kind of valuable content I'm sure DCMS would be posting itself if it was active on Bluesky #publicspending #opengov #opendata

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

This is interesting but it seems clear that ChatGPT (or OpenAI) is not deliberately trying to pass off AI images as work of real cartoonists. This is apparently just common signatures surfacing from training data, in the same way the Getty logo used to show up in photo-style gens from older models

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Nothing drives the British media and political class to hysterics so much as an obvious point that might resonate with the public

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Reportedly, shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith will include leaving the Aarhus Convention in a speech he is making today www.theguardian.com/politics/202... "Griffith will say … that the Tories would continue to back the expansion of Heathrow airport and leave the Aarhus convention …"

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Did we ever find out why the ICO logotype has a dot after the abbreviation? ICO's logo and branding guidelines are silent on this important issue (But apparently the other dot, over the i, is called the "tittle")

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

ICO staff will need new raid jackets though

Photo of ICO staff wearing their raid jackets so you know they mean business

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I note that the UK's ICO is now styling itself as the "Information Commission's Office" as well as the Information Commission So we can continue to use the abbreviation, and only need to update our docs where we've used the full name 👍 #FOI #dataprotection

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Yet more #openaddresses from local government: Ceredigion County Council in Wales has released its Council Tax address list as open data www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... (no download yet) Without UPRNs, so no map this time #FOI #UKhousing #localgov #opendata

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Plus ça change. The Spectator reported last year that Starmer strategist Morgan McSweeney was experimenting with 'synthetic voters' – "essentially fake focus groups of AI voters who can tell ministers more quickly and cheaply what the public thinks of policies" www.spectator.co.uk/article/can-...

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Continuity McSweeney bsky.app/profile/owen...

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

More #openaddresses from local government: Hyndburn Borough Council, in the North West of England, has released its Council Tax address list as open data www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... (no download yet) #FOI #UKhousing #proptech #localgov #opendata

Screenshot of geocoded Hyndburn Borough Council address data visualised in Leaflet with background mapping from OpenStreetMap

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Latest #openaddresses from local government: Torridge District Council, in the South West of England, has released its Council Tax address list as open data www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... (no download yet) #FOI #UKhousing #proptech #localgov #opendata

Screenshot of geocoded Torridge District Council address data visualised in Leaflet with background mapping from OpenStreetMap

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Owen Boswarva @owenboswarva.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This thread has a couple of links with more information about the Manchester platform bsky.app/profile/owen...

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