Imagine a world where every citizen automatically receives the government grants they’re entitled to, stays informed about public consultations, and can easily contribute feedback—feedback that they trust will genuinely shape policy decisions. Services like these could strengthen and transform democracies worldwide.

But, should this be the reality we ought to seek? What are the opportunities and challenges? And how close are we to achieving this?

At this TICTeC gathering, we heard from two insightful speakers:

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[00:04] Louise Crow: Welcome everyone. I’m Louise Crow. I’m Chief Executive of mySociety. Thank you so much for joining us today for this TICTeC community gathering: ‘From digital public infrastructure to democratic public infrastructure’.

[00:20] Just as a brief reminder, TICTeC stands for The Impacts of Civic Technology. TICTeC started life as a conference, but since 2020 we’ve been running year round activities to try and connect people building using and researching technology to strengthen democracy and civic power, with the aim of helping us learn from each other and boost our collective impact.

[00:44] So ahead of the global DPI summit next week, we thought this was a good time to talk about civic tech’s relationship to digital public infrastructure. What are we talking about when we say digital public infrastructure?  (more…)

TheyWorkForYou aims to improve the quality of UK democracy by making more and better information available to everyone. In previous updates, we’ve expanded coverage to all the UK’s parliaments and brought all the registers of interests together.

Now we’re pulling in data from beyond Parliament to provide richer insights into your representatives. Alex and Julia share our new features:

No intro this time: we’re plunging you straight into the audio from the event!

00:00 Julia Cushion Thanks so much for coming along to this little update. We try and do these every so often. 

00:03 You might have come to our one a few months ago, we were talking about TheyWorkForYou Votes, whereas today, we’re telling you about some of the broader stuff we’ve been up to on TheyWorkForYou. We’re calling it “A richer view of Parliament.” (more…)

In our latest online webinar, we convened three experts to speak around the topic of how Freedom of Information works in practice – in other words, how does the law work when it comes into contact with the real world?

Speakers were:

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Music: Grand_Project from Pixabay

Myf Nixon 0:00

Myf Nixon 0:10

This is the audio version of an online event, in which a couple of the speakers refer to visual elements. If you’d like to see the websites, etc, that they mention, please see the video of the event at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvJVCgBprwY.

Across the world, there are many websites and apps that help citizens to better understand how their democracies work, and what their elected representatives are doing on their behalf.

Historically, one of the main ways these tools could measure their impact was by tracking their visitor numbers and page views via website analytics tools.

However, across the world, civic and pro-democracy tech projects are finding that citizens can’t, or no longer, directly visit their websites and apps. They’re either restricted by data packages that only allow them to use social media sites, or are finding out information via AI chatbots or social media, rather than directly visiting sites and apps.

This shift can make it harder than ever to measure the reach and impact of pro-democracy projects and tools. Traditional website analytics no longer tell the full story, leaving some projects struggling to demonstrate their effectiveness—and, as a result, to secure the funding needed to sustain vital democratic services.

At this TICTeC gathering, we hear directly from practitioners running civic and pro-democracy tech initiatives from across the world. They share the strategies they’re using to reach people where they are, ensure their services remain accessible and relevant, and find new ways to track impact in this changing digital landscape.

Ana Arevadze from ForSet in Georgia talks about their work with social media influencers to inform and educate Georgian youth on voting and democratic information.

Ufuoma Nnamdi-Udeh from Enough is Enough Nigeria shares how they have leveraged social media, chatbots, and messaging services through their ShineYourEye platform to provide citizens with accurate democratic information and improve access to elected representatives.

Joseph Tahinduka from ParliamentWatch Uganda speaks about working with infomediaries such as local radio and journalists to get parliamentary information to a wider audience, as well as their usage of social media and messaging apps.

This is a TICTEC Communities of Practice session. Find out more about TICTeC at https://tictec.mysociety.org/.

Sign up for TICTeC updates at https://tictec.mysociety.org/events/ or subscribe to updates about all mySoicety activities by telling us what you’re interested in at http://eepurl.com/gOEVFj.

Alex Parsons 0:01

Alex Parsons 0:02

AI and automated decision-making technologies are increasingly being used in government, and due to their opaque nature, it’s vital that we bring more transparency to their workings. In this event, three researchers and civil society actors talk about how they have used Freedom of Information to do just that.

You’ll hear from Morgan Currie from the University of Edinburgh; Gabriel Geiger of Lighthouse Reports, and Jake Hurfurt from Big Brother Watch. Learn what concerns them about this new age of automated decision-making; the practical tips and techniques they’ve used to bring hidden algorithms to light; and what needs to change in our laws as a matter of urgency.

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Louise Crow 0:03

Louise Crow 0:08

New launch, new launch! We could have just talked about our new votes platform, but it was much more interesting to also explore a bit of history, and research into how MPs and the public use TheyWorkForYou. So, together with Dr Ben Worthy, Alex and Julia, that’s what we did.

Speaker 1 0:00

Myf Nixon 0:23

Myf Nixon 0:47

(more…)

On March 4, we launched new data on TheyWorkForYou, making MPs’ financial interests easier for everyone to access and understand.

This wasn’t an easy undertaking! To explain the difficulties we encountered, and the recommendations we have for the way MPs declare their interests, we also put out a report.

At our launch event, we chatted through the challenges and our recommendations, together with Rose Whiffen of Transparency International, and Chris Cook from the Financial Times.

Myf Nixon 0:01

It’s March 4 2025, and we’re releasing a bunch of new data on TheyWorkForYou, around each MPs’ financial interests: that’s whether they have second jobs, what donations helped them campaign ahead of the general election, and whether they’ve received gifts such as Taylor Swift tickets.

In the course of assembling this data — with the help of our brilliant team of volunteers — we’ve come to understand exactly what the problems with the current system of reporting are.

If you’re seeing this on the morning of release, we’ll also be launching a report at 1pm today, and you’re welcome to join us. (Don’t worry if you’re too late; we’ll be sharing the video afterwards. Just make sure you’re signed up for our newsletter to be alerted when it’s available).

Don’t forget to check out your own MP, to see who funds them, on TheyWorkForYou.com. And if you have any questions about this project, the data, or MPs’ financial interests in general, send them to us at [email protected].

If you appreciate this type of work, please help us do more of it by making a one-off (or even better, a regular) donation. Thank you!

[0:00] Julia: If you’ve ever wondered if your MP has a second job, what donations they received, or if they were one of the ones that got a free Taylor Swift ticket, we’ve got the answers for you. (more…)

In this super-short episode, we look at three recent examples of how the Council Climate Action Scorecards are bringing measurable change. The Scorecards are a joint project between mySociety and Climate Emergency UK, and you can visit them at councilclimatescorecards.uk.

Here are the three blog posts where you can find more details about all of these examples:

If you value the work we do at mySociety, please donate.

0:00 [Myf:] I’m not really a data person. I’m a Communications Manager, right? So my currency is words and pictures, but my colleagues at mySociety are real data people. (more…)

In our second video interviewing subjects of the book Our City: Community Activism in Bristol, we talk to journalist Joe Banks, who was able to find a real anomaly in the council’s approach to developing the oldest part of the city.

He did this both by looking at information other people had requested, and putting in his own Freedom of Information requests, on mySociety’s WhatDoTheyKnow website.

Details of the book can be found on the Tangent Books website.

You can read lots more about Joe’s investigation into St Mary Le Port, and other local topics, on his website.

If you value the work we do at mySociety, please donate.

0:05 Myf: I’m Myfanwy Nixon, communications manager at mySociety. We’ve been talking to some of the people featured in this book: Our City, community activism in Bristol, edited by Suzanne Audrey. (more…)