Update: HMIC have generously agreed to stop using the name MyPolice, which is great news. Seems to be some very reasonable work has been put in to finding a solution. Here's the MyPolice.org statement.

With the government, egged on by Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt, finding the guts to embrace the open data ethos, you would be forgiven for thinking that policy makers and geeks are lovingly slow dancing towards a rosy government IT future. But there are still some extremely clumsy steps in there. Leaving aside the ghastly Digital Economy Bill - by the way, you might want to write to your MP urging them to support Austin Mitchell's Early Day Motion calling for the Bill to get a full debate - the most recent technology faux-pas has come from the police’s OFSTED, HMIC. They are engaged in a strange David and Goliath story that helpfully demonstrates how government can, knowingly or otherwise, trample on the clever thinking and entrepreneurial spirit that defines the best of the social web. 

This has been covered in detail very well elsewhere (at Left Foot Forward, for example). So the short version is this: 

There are now two services called MyPolice. One is a lovely website called MyPolice.org, set up by a few entrepreneurial types to help people give feedback to their local police service. The other is a useful new service from HMIC at mypolice.org.uk that helps people find out how good a deal people are getting from their police service. MyPolice.org.uk - the HMIC site - came second. It seems like they were fully aware of MyPolice.org. 

Both sites are driven by noble aims and are useful tools. It is good the HMIC are engaging in this sort of approach. But there is no reason for them to have chosen the same name. The only effect is to damage innovative, smart and smaller projects like  - projects that are built on ideas of a better future and the hard work and skills required to get there. 

The drive to release data is built on the notion that governments and institutions can support people who want to use public resources to build socially useful applications. HMIC have done the opposite by going for an unnecessary land-grab. They could, by most accounts, have acted in a much more collaborative fashion, and there are some simple solutions. MyPolice.org are supplying a good few ideas, for example HMIC choosing a different name (they offer about 40 decent alternatives) or the two websites working collaboratively to share their services via widgets.

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