Describe your idea:

Create an app for iPhones and Android that enables users to log the location of CCTV cameras.

By doing it we could build up a more robust picture of what we’re facing.

And in time that might gives us a stronger platform to challenge them.

What problem does it solve?:

1. The inertia of CCTV is towards more. It’s proved impossible to draw a line in the sand.

2. There are some good ‘facts’ about UK CCTV but they’re not properly substantiated, making it hard for opponents to argue against them.

3. My main worry now isn’t more cameras, it’s the existing ones being increasingly networked, automated. Imagine the tabloid pressure in the 3 years time when faced with another Jamie Bulger/Damiola Taylor incident.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

Last year the world’s airlines boarded around 2 billion passengers and their baggage, Unfortunately 1% were mishandled and recorded as lost baggage whilst in transit’.

Baggage PIN was formed to provide a reliable cost effective solution that would enable the Worlds Airlines and travel industries to provide a better quality of service to their passengers whilst also providing a solution capable of identifying the owner of an item of unattended baggage quickly and cost effectively.

Contrary to popular belief, it is an expensive and time consuming exercise for airlines to identify the legal owners of lost baggage and whilst every effort is always made, there is no guarantee that your baggage will ever be returned to you.

What problem does it solve?:

The solution is not reliant on any electronic baggage tracking systems or RFID tagging solutions to identify the legal owner of baggage items. The legal owner of the item of lost baggage is based upon the personal information provided by the member that is linked via their secure profile to the PIN number displayed on the tag.

The Baggage PIN service is a totally passive solution and requires no expensive hardware to implement the solution and represents a highly reliable stand –a-lone baggage owner identification and contact solution that will enhance any existing process or system. It’s the aim of the company to make the Baggage PIN solution preferred Baggage owner contact system in the future.

Type of idea: A campaign or PR drive

Describe your idea:

all minutes to all meetings of council and government departments published on the internet and
get rid of the official secret act. no hiding places for corruption

What problem does it solve?:

all politicians accountable at high and low levels as we know what they are doing in meetings and cabinet meetings

Type of idea: A campaign or PR drive

Describe your idea:

Enables you to see how, when, what, why and where an item of information / data has been used more than once.

This means I can see how an item of data is connected and linked to other sources. It could be how a GP in one area provides services across multiple regions, how funding is used from one source and distributed etc.

What problem does it solve?:

Enables services to see how they can cut costs and save time efficiently by not duplicating the same information many times.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

The place to go to get help with your civic / social / democracy problem, when you don’t know where to begin.

A community of volunteers will answer your question, and you can choose the best answer. People get rewarded with more powers and badges for answering questions well.

Works like Yahoo Answers, or Stack Overflow. See description on this page of an open source implementation of Stack Overflow http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2009/9/2/plurk-solace-released Perhaps that could just be reskinned and used with appropriate text, and marketing cross links from other sites.

What problem does it solve?:

mySociety provides lots of specific tools, which are all very useful, but not if you don’t know where to begin. What tool should you use first? Who can you go to to solve a specific problem?

This site would invite people to enter their problem – which could be mundane, or complex. The community of mySociety supporters would then suggest places to go or ways to work round the problem, or offer ideas to help start a campaign about the problem.

The best answers would get rated up, and the site would gradually become a resource which would fill up Google search results for civic problems that people ask of the oracle.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

A website which allows people to understand and influence the wider context of policy debates.
Site would present a simplified summary view of the issues facing the UK, and the plans to address these issues.
This may include:
– forecasts of major issues facing the UK in the next 5/10/20 years; split according to sector (health, economy, education, etc) aggregated from think tanks, UK Gov departments…
– UK Gov departmental plans; political party manifestos; budgets; other suggested solutions.
– how these elements interact, to show the direction the UK is being taken by each major policy debate.
Site will allow users to filter this information, and perhaps comment against these elements. Site may be delivered in “wiki” style.

What problem does it solve?:

A plethora of information is available from taxpayer funded (and other) sources looking at future issues for the UK, and the plans to address these. Nowhere is this brought together in an easily digestible format.
Our politicians and media set an agenda that chooses to focus on single policy issues in isolation and in a very narrow focus.
It is hard for people to retain perspective, to compare competing solutions in a wider context, and to form an opinion of the relative importance of that particular debate.
This understanding is vital for each of us to hold our elected representatives to account and would naturally tie in well with other mySociety offerings.
In short, what is the plan and how are we doing against it?

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

folks involved in various volunteer schemes to try to clean up litter where they live as part of stop the drop, sustrans volunteer ranger, clean my parish, parish path rangers, etc – all doing the same thing by being virtual eyes and ears of a patch (however allocated/chosen)

adoptapatch or keepUKclean ?

could make more use of fixmystreet.com by being shown (anonymously) as looking after a patch or street or path and then also being directed copies of the alerts fixmystreet currently distribute to councils

What problem does it solve?:

sometimes local councils are stretched to do everything all the time everywhere , and the path could be cleaned up locally if at all possible or even it could add to the clamour to get major litter cleared up

Type of idea: New feature for an existing project

Describe your idea:

Enables people to come together to voice a single issue / concern and then decide to do ONE single effective action about it.

For example, 100 people could share the view that more needs to be done to reduce pollution in London.

They then use the online collaboration tools provided to share ideas and methods on right course of action to take. Then they choose the best single action that will get the best result for all concerned.

This could be in the form of a letter that voices ALL of their concerns united as one. Or it could be a peaceful demonstration at an agreed time etc.

The main aim is for that ONE single action to represent the voice of all who shared that concern and want to do something about it NOW.

What problem does it solve?:

The idea that one person by themselves cannot make a difference but multiply this by 100 and condense this into a single action that will in turn yield great results.

Whereas a petition is a single letter signed by many people who share the same viewpoint. This idea goes a bit further and lets YOU decide with others HOW and WHAT the final step should be in the form of an ACTION.

This is about talking the talk and walking the talk – let actions do the talking instead of just signing an online petition and hoping things will change.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

A website where people can enter the weekly, monthly or annual income tax figure from their pay slip and see a detailed breakdown showing where exactly every last penny goes to.

In addition, it should also be possible to enter a national insurance contribution, VAT figure or any other UK tax paid and see a breakdown of what this amount is paying for.

What problem does it solve?:

Most UK tax payers grumble about the amount of tax they have to pay. They also complain when stories in the media highlight ‘apparent’ wastes of tax payers money.

This website would help to properly inform the ongoing debate on what the money collected through taxation should be spent on, by allowing each individual to see what their own personal contribution pays for.

Type of idea: A brand new project

Describe your idea:

Easy read version of “write to them” and “Fix my street”. An “Easy” or “with pictures” version of these to facilities, aimed at people with learning disabilities to increase their participation in democracy. When you go to either website, say “Write to them”, there is a “with pictures” or “Easy read” button which opens the same facility but made accessible for people with learning disabilities. See this website of a current project United Response is working on for an example http://www.everyvotecounts.org.uk/

What problem does it solve?:

Most people with learning disabilities (an estimated 1.5M in UK)are excluded from participation in democratic processes by social barriers and lack of access to information and, in this case, easy tools to invite their participation. Easy read, with pictures, versions of your participative sites would help greatly to solve this problem by adding easy tools for people to have a say.

Type of idea: New feature for an existing project