It sounds like a subject that people with more knowledge than us need to speak up about…
Could you find out from your friend what the course was, and what the legislation actually is?
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I’ll see what detail I can get from her.
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I’ve had to do far more than I would ever have wanted with data protection and freedom of information legislation, and I think a legitimate overview is that it is an absolute bloody mess, with all sorts of contradictory pieces of law scattered around in it.
How it would hold up legally to make verbal contracts (which are binding in law, although of course hard to prove) non-binding in one particular sphere of human activity while remaining binding in others is anyone’s guess.
It’s also not clear to me what the dividing line would be between providing information about a business (eg 'There’s a caffi called Caffi Maes on the Maes in Caernarfon, here is longitude/latitude for it) and providing details such as ownership, annual accounts etc - and which information it would be considered illegal to share without permission, and what FoI legislation would have to say about that in principle…
A lot of attempted legislation around the internet is absurdly clumsy, and either gets quietly rolled back later or just goes uninforced because it makes no actual sense - this sounds as though it might go into that kind of territory - the impact on all sorts of crowd-sourced knowledge sites would potentially be dramatic, and very damaging to businesses - so it’s not clear to me at this stage who would be the complainants on this point…
But having a ‘Can we list you?’ form follow up might well be a wise thing just in case, as Dee says…
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this is the link to the information - Data Protection Reform - but I haven’t had time to delve into it yet and see what would specifically affect us.
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I used to teach a basic introduction to Data Protection law as part of the various IT courses I’ve been a tutor on over the years. Unless things have been changed to protect businesses and other organisations, the DPA only ever applied to clearly identified individuals.
Providing a list of businesses where Welsh is spoken shouldn’t require the consent of the owners. However, saying that Sally Jones, aged 24, waitress at Caffi’r Tebot Bach is a Welsh speaker happy to converse with learners would.
But I’m saying that after a quick skim of the guidelines relating to the new act which gave me the impression that it still only relates to individuals, but obviously advice from someone who is au fait with the new laws coming in is advisable.
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Yes. One of the areas where DP gets a bit hairy, though, is cross-referencing - not necessarily from within the same dataset - so if you have a dataset with information about the Tebot Bach, and you (or even someone else) has a dataset that makes it possible to identify that as a place of work for Sally, then you are at the very least into stuff about (usually moderately pointless) rights to access data etc.
Large swathes of the new stuff, as per the old stuff, will I imagine be more honoured in the breach than the observance…
I have just been sent information about this KickStarter. Scroll down, and you’ll see that part of the effort is a map on which Welsh-speakers are encouraged to tag themselves (I think I’ve done this - via a Twitter link). One of my colleagues has been encouraging the businesses he works with to get themselves onto this map. Overlap / opportunity for cooperation?
Hi Sara,
We had a thread about it a while ago, and over 80 people have clicked on the link to place themselves on the map, so we should have quite a few SSiWers on there already.
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That kickstarter campaign is trying to raise £15,000 to fund the development of apps that will do speech recognition for Welsh and other Celtic languages - the aim being to provide feedback to learners to tell them if they are pronouncing things correctly.
The map isn’t part of the campaign, but were produced by the same guy behind the Kickstarter campaign - Magnus Orr of braw.media.
It depends what his aims are for his maps if there’s an overlap. My initial impression of them was that it was more along the lines of showing how widespread Welsh/Gaelic/Irish were, rather than providing a detailed resource listing Welsh businesses.
In recent times he has added an option for businesses to add themselves, so it’s possible it’s moving in that direction.
What’s been the response to your colleague’s encouragement? Is there a demand for this sort of thing from Welsh businesses?
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I just added myself to this map. Really needs sharing. 
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Hi guys, just stumbled across this. Not very pc minded, nor do I have the time… Being out of date with technology and lived over 5 decades without too much tech in my life I can not help wondering if this is just making it all complicated. As a beginner I know it is me that stops me talking even the bits I do know, partly as somehow the locals know I am not Welsh so they speak in English and ping all good intentions are gone. My thought is if you do speak some Welsh then be brave, walk in to a shop, library etc and talk!
I live in Ceredigion and found in most shops etc between Tregaron and Newcastle Emlyn there are some people working that are Welsh speakers, and I have found they are only too pleased to share their language. The smiles I get and encouragement from those I tell I am learning is amazing!
So here is my contribution, come to gorgeous still unspoiled Ceredigion. Good luck with the project. Hoyle
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We should get more after today- Aran is bendegedig teaching Jeremy Vine ![quote=“jamesmahoney, post:1, topic:9135, full:true”]
@ji_1, @TomCasnewydd and myself have talked about a map showing locations where Welsh speaking is available, but so far it hasn’t moved past the demo stage e.g.
http://chat.cymru/welsh/map
If there was a sticker scheme for shops and businesses it would be straightforward to add an option to a map to only display those locations displaying the sticker.
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This map kind of does it but not a lot on it and slow. It should default to your location;-
The search engine works a bit better;-
Well that’s disappointing… none of my local shops speak Welsh.
Unsurprising for Somerset, but still disappointing!
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You might find someone eventually. Year before last, whilst exasperated with my lack of ability to speak Welsh I said something in Russian (I’d done precisely one lesson) and the husband of the couple I was speaking to replied … in Russian.
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Did anything ever come of the app? I realise its not an easy thing to set up (I don’t have those skills), particularly if you’re doing it unpaid, but it sounds like such a useful and exciting idea!
@warrendavies appears to have kicked this off so he may be able to provide an update. I created the breatheyourwelsh website and entered about thirty locations that were rated and people could provide comments but there was very little interest and I have just taken it down.
I still think an App linked to a website is still a great idea but it needs shops/outlets etc to be interested and for learners to want to use it. Maintaining a database (let alone create an effective App) is not easy.
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Thanks for the update. Yeah I can imagine its not an easy things to do, and relies on other people to buy into it. Maybe something will happen one day. Cheers!
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Hi. I’m coming to this a bit late, but I have an open source project running on GitHub that anyone can join.
The end result is a searchable map showing places and how they have been categorised as a likelihood of hearing / speaking Welsh.
The project is still in early days and still looking to find the best use case for itself.
You can view the project live at https://www.byw.cymru
All the code is available on GitHub at the links on the site. Contributions are always welcome! There are many ways to contribute to the project, not just software development. All development takes place in the open on GitHub.
Also anybody can submit a location or adjust a category, no login or account required.
Edit I forgot to mention that the database management is automated, so it doesn’t require any manual intervention at all. The development work is to add / improve functionality only.
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