In the not too distant future could we be logging on to report crimes or bad drivers, have virtual job interviews or even receive online truancy alerts, all from the comfort of our own home?

Public services supersite Directgov has been finding out what parents, teenagers, motorists, over 50s and disabled people want in future from the net and these are just some of the most wanted services.

Parents are keen for the web to help them to be more involved in their kids’ education with online truancy alerts, PTA meetings, disciplinary records and even webcams in schools suggested. Virtual tours of universities or even online driving lessons are how teenagers would use the net if they had the chance, while motorists want to be able to save time with virtual MOTs or renewing car tax online. Disabled people want to go a step further and see online check-ups carried out by virtual doctors so they don’t have to leave the home. The over 50s see being able to keep in touch with their families and friends is the web’s most vital function in future.

Directgov’s Alex Butler and TV presenter Spencer Kelly join us live online on Wedneday 13th June at 12:30 to talk about the future of the internet.

H: Hello there, welcome to the Lifestyle Show brought to you by Direct Gov, I’m Mark Ryse. Well this TV show is being brought to you on the web, something that we wouldn’t have dreamed of doing several years ago of course. And you can do so many things online now whether it’s checking the weather, online shopping, online banking of course – but what do you think you’d like to do in the future and indeed what is available right now that we don’t know about? To answer some of those questions, two of my distinguished guests, let’s meet them now – Spencer Kelly is from the BBC’s Click program, he is a technological expert I guess we’d say, and also Alex Butler is from Direct Gov and the website of course that you need to go to for all of those services is www.direct.gov.uk. A question’s come in to start with Spencer, let’s talk about this because we’re saying we can’t believe how much the internet has actually expanded – we often wonder, what did we do before?

S: Quite, quite what did we do. I didn’t have a job for a start but it’s the same with anything isn’t it, once it’s made your life more convenient you just can’t imagine, you know – if we were meeting for lunch, I was 20 minutes late, I can now call your mobile phone. Couldn’t do that 25 years ago. Now we’re getting access to all kinds of information, and we’re able to communicate, stay in touch with people halfway around the world that you know we just wouldn’t have got round to writing those letters, we certainly wouldn’t be having face to face conversations with people around the world

H: Well that was a question that came in from Gordon in London, that’s exactly what we’re talking about, an interactive question coming through to the show and you can send us a question as well on the little box at the bottom of the screen, just put your name in and send your question, very very easy to do. Alex Direct Gov – what exactly is it?

A: Well we’ve pulled together things in public service online in a way that makes sense for people

H: By public services – what kind of things?

A: Well anything really from finding a local school to a doctor, to advice on buying a new home for example

H: So all of those things from health, education, communication, car, motoring, all of those kind of extra things you can do outside work life as well?

A: That’s right, ability to be able to do some of these things as well then and there, like for example renewing your car tax

H: Fantastic and we’ll come onto that and what motorists can do in just a moment’s time, because I know that you’ve done a survey asking a number of people, groups of people including parents what they would like out of the web – John Salmon from Liverpool sent us a question, Spencer this one’s for you – “with more and more user-generated content on the web, something used as UGC, are the users the true people in charge of the internet now?”

S: I think they are, and any company and organisation that ignores the voice of millions of people that can put their comments on a website, they’ll be a fool. I mean it really is a democratic medium, you have people all over the world who might not have had access to information before – take China for example where the people don’t have access to as much information as say the rest of the world. They can now access all this information, they’re given a voice. And also it’s an opportunity for people to kind of vote on their favourite hotel, or their favourite school. You don’t have to believe the blurb anymore you can actually see hundreds of thousands of people’s comments. It’s an opportunity for us to really voice whatever we want to on the web and of course that’s a double edged sword, you know some of the places on the web you don’t want to see the opinions that are posted there, but on respectable sites for example, it really is so democratic that people have this voice and can change the way that things happen

H: In the survey you talked to a lot of parents Alex and what parents wanted from the web. A lot of people were saying we want to be able to follow our children, we want to be able to maybe have a webcam in school, we want to be able to do online PTA meetings – is any of that being looked at?

A: Well there were some fantastic ideas in there and we need to look at some of them in much more detail. I think a lot of what people were saying to us is symptomatic really of the sort of society that we’re in at the moment. What we take out of it is that it’s great that parents want to get more involved with their children’s education. Anything that we can do to help that is a good thing. I think the idea of parents, parent teacher association meetings for example online – great idea for busy parents. Or the opportunity to download a lesson that your child sat through earlier on in the week so that you can help with the homework is a great idea

H: It’s all about homework isn’t it, how many parents have had that conversation where the kids have gone “can you help me” and they go “right what was your teacher talking about then?”

S: Yes I was always –

H: Exactly

S: Like that, yes

H: Becky has sent us a question, she says “watching our kids at school – is this big brother gone mad though?”

A: I mean some of these things are going to be more appropriate for us to do than others. Anything that we look at coming out of those ideas – we need to really think about you know the security and the privacy issues that go alongside that

H: I’m coming on to security in just a second because it is a big issue, you’re absolutely right. So while these are all really good ideas, it maybe some time before we actually see them coming into schools and coming in to be able to be used?

A: Well actually a lot of the things that people were bringing up in the survey are things that we can already do on Direct Gov

H: Oh really?

A: Like for example the first thing that motorists were looking for was the opportunity to be able to renew their car tax online and that’s –

H: Well you can do that because I did that last year, it’s really simple, you put in your MOT which is electronic now anyway, you get the electronic number and all the insurance details are already all available to the site anyway, so you just put in your registration number and your own personal details and you’re away

A: That’s right, and it’s a really popular thing that you can do on Direct Gov, but again also some of the ideas that people were coming up with were actually technically very easy to implement, just we need to go through and look at them in more detail and make sure that they’re appropriate for the site

H: Let’s talk about security as we promised, and security raises its head on a number of different issues, especially with the parents that were saying you know, can we have a webcam in the classroom – issues there over security, number of different issues Spencer there though aren’t there?

S: I think so yes, I mean whether or not we put a live webcam in a classroom is going to cause heated debate if ever you guys think about doing it, however – you know being able to watch what the teacher was doing at a later date

H: Indeed

S: Will help with the homework, but there’s a lot of worry over computer security. It’s unknown for a lot of people, you know how safe and secure is this?

H: Can you boil it down easily as to what we should be thinking about?

S: Well I think first of all you’ve got to protect your computer. There are programs out there, it’s just like it happened in the movies 10, 15 years ago or whatever – it is possible to get, for me as a malicious hacker to get a computer program onto your computer without you knowing and it will sit there and listen out for when you type in your passwords and your credit card details, and then it will send them back to me when you’re not looking

H: So how do I protect myself?

S: You protect yourself very easily by buying anti-virus software, a firewall and anti-spyware software, so when you’re buying your computer, factor that into the cost. It might cost you an extra £50 or something, but it just locks the computer down and stops anyone from poking around. When we’re online, we’re online using broadband, the connection’s always there so anyone in theory could poke into your computer at any point when the computer’s switched on, and rummage around. So just buy yourself that protection software

H: There’s the other thing isn’t there, when I’m putting my credit cards in there’s normally a little padlock symbol on the screen isn’t there?

S: Yes, exactly, and the other side of this is we’ve got to get a little bit more street smart. Like I said, it’s an unknown, it’s new, it’s an unknown. It’s a bit like moving to a new city, there are certain dark alleyways you wouldn’t go down at night. There are certain places on the web that you wouldn’t go and certain parts of the web that you – you need to be able to see that that’s not a place where I want to put my credit card number, even if they ask for it. Stick to trusted sites, sites that you recognise, you know the government websites, the bank websites, don’t reply to an email that asks for your password because anyone could have sent that email, it doesn’t – even if it says it’s from your bank, that’s simply someone with a –

H: That’s so called phishing

S: That’s phishing, and that’s phishing with a ph because anything nowadays has to start with a ph, and so it’s really just getting a different level of common sense about where not to go and also who not to tell things. Apart from that you can kind of then not worry so much about the media scare stories

H: That’s brilliant and a good level of common sense there. Richard has sent us a question, thank you very much for sending it in. Richard wants to know “will we ever be able to vote online?” Alex is that something that Direct Gov has looked at?

A: We are looking at a whole range of things and that’s one of them. Again back to the security and the integrity of the service, it’s absolutely paramount – of paramount importance to us that we get those things right first, but certainly one of the things that we’ll look at

S: You don’t want any hanging chads or whatever it was in the US elections

H: True. But also we’re talking about making it easier for people to be able to vote and also if you’re talking about making anything easier in communication terms, it’s the box in the corner of your living room now, just like the television has been for 40 years. This is a great way of using a communication’s device in the corner of the room

A: It is and I think it’s something that will enable us to have a better relationship between government and real people. Interacting with each other in a better way than we have done before and that can only be a good thing

H: There were some quite unusual suggestions on the survey that you did, and Lucy wants to know “do you think your findings are realistic? For instance will we really be able to MOT our car online?” Which if you think about it – is there a virtual mechanic, I don’t know!

A: Yes there were a few of those sort of suggestions weren’t there. I mean personally I think I’d quite like a real mechanic to look at my car

H: I think so yes

A: But certainly automating some of those processes and putting them online – anything that makes people’s lives easier, helps them – tick off some of those boxes and get it sorted

S: It’s just like what you guys were saying about your car tax, you can renew your car tax online and that’s done by several organisations sharing their information, and we always worry that our information is going to be – once we put it in online it’s going to be shared with different organisations. There’s the flip side, the good side, you know if your insurance company and the DVLA and everyone can talk to each other and share information, you can take some of the load off the guys doing the MOT. Some of the – you know, what’s the mileage now if that was electronic, is the insurance – this, that and the other – have you had a service recently? If they know all that beforehand then maybe they can tailor the MOT that you do have to go to in the garage to be more efficient, quicker and cheaper as well

H: So even though that seems like quite an out there kind of question, when you boil it down actually there’s some really good suggestions coming from it and all of these can be looked at. Interesting. The other big thing that we think about when we think about going away is passports, and obviously we’ve got to go to a government website for that. Can I cancel and renew my passport online now?

A: You can do quite a lot of that online. We’re improving that service as we go along, but certainly the guidance is all there and some of it you can certainly do online

H: Excellent stuff. Now the thing is so much is available online now, it sometimes gets a little bit confusing. I guess this is why Direct Gov has tried to put lots of things, lots of services in just one area, so we can go to one place and then work outwards from there?

A: That’s right, it’s designed to be helpful and to help you sort out you know those sort of, those government admin sort of things that we all have to do – make your life a lot easier

H: And I guess it’s a question from parents looking for schools and also health for their children. For health for all of us and hospitals locally to the things that are available to us online in terms as we’ve talked for motorists and for passports and travel and things like that. All there in one place

A: That’s right. I’m moving house at the moment and I used Direct Gov at the weekend to find out everything from you know when my bin gets emptied to how I’m going to pay my council tax and you know is there a likelihood of a flood near me

H: So there’s no need necessarily to go to your local government website, your local council website, you can go out from Direct Gov?

A: You certainly can

H: Because that’s really important, so that website address, remember is www.direct.gov.uk – useful to know that. John has sent us a question, he seems to spend countless hours on the internet dealing with people face-to-face less and less now – is that a bad thing?

S: I don’t think it’s all bad, especially if you ask the woman in my bank who's really miserable, so sometimes you just don’t need to talk to people. Of course you’re going to have real friends and you’re going to get real fresh air, but hey the great thing is that you now can have more friends if you look at some of the social networking sites, it’s still possible and I suppose I have to believe this, to have tens of thousands of friends from around the world, so it’s actually meeting people who share the same interests that maybe you wouldn’t meet in real life, it’s extending who we can talk to rather than replacing who you talk to

H: And of course you can talk to people face-to-face via webcams anyway can’t you?

S: Exactly, you get a high speed internet connection, broadband which more and more of us in the UK are getting now, and what that means is you can put more data down that line, and that means video and it means music – it means we can watch TV over the internet and it also means that I can send my video to you live in effect, you are seeing me even though you are 100 miles away and I’m seeing you and we’re having a conversation

H: And TV broadcast TV, the channels that we all know at the moment, this is the new big thing on the internet now as well that you’re able to kind of watch TV after it’s been broadcast as well

S: Exactly, well the internet is by definition all the phone wires and all the communication wires that go to computers, they’re already there and now the broadband connections are getting fast enough to send good quality TV, so we’re seeing the major broadcasters as well as you guys who are doing the web TV, we’re seeing the major broadcasters waking up and saying ah, actually people would like to watch my program a bit later, they’d like to download it after it’s been broadcast on the telly. They’re now doing that, so all of these things are becoming possible

H: Question’s just come in from JB Mathews, hello there, “I think alerts when my kids have not attended school is a great idea”, I’m surprised it’s not already been implemented, it’s something we were talking about at the top of the show.

A: Well there’s a whole range of things that we’ve looked at, that wasn’t one of them although I have heard anecdotally that some schools are doing that in their own ways

H: And I guess it’s a local rollout anyway as more and more schools kind of get behind the idea?

A: That’s right, we think it’s great idea

H: Yes if you’re able to target and look where your children are at all times, it’s sensible for parents in this age who do worry more. Obviously with the security issues that you’ve talked about as well Spencer, you are able to do it safely

S: Exactly and I think the two issues are first of all yes, this would be a great idea I think – the schools need to be able to roll it out, they obviously need to get the fund for the extra equipment, they need to find time in the teacher’s schedule to train them on the more equipment

H: Quite

S: But what’s come out of this survey particularly from the parents which is interesting is – I’m not a parent but I’ve got two cats, I get worried if I can’t get them in at night – parents worry about their kids and they want to know where they are, that’s come out and there is technology available now to be able to check they’ve turned up at school. How far we go with that of course is another discussion for another time

H: A quick question just before we end for you both – where do you see online access and the web being able to take us maybe in another 10 years time – where – just look forward for me?

S: What do you want, I mean –

H: It’s as wide as that is it?

A: Absolutely

S: When I say computer power is doubling every two years, if you draw that on a graph it goes like that, and what that means is that in 10 years we are exponentially going to have much more power now. So basically, think it now, and I reckon in 10 years we’ll probably be doing it. It really is – it’s incredible. Whether we can keep up you know, keeping people safe and secure and keeping people advised on what to do and what not to do, and making sure the right organisations do these great things and not just anyone from their back bedroom who doesn’t have an idea about security, that’s a different issue

H: Do you have an idea? What would you like to see in 10 years Alex?

A: Gosh

H: It is difficult isn’t it?

A: That’s really putting me on the spot but I was just thinking about 10 years ago, thinking back 10 years ago, it would not have occurred to me that I would have been able to use this box-like thing that I used to hold up to my ear to find out where a local chemist was for example

H: You’re talking about a mobile phone there, not the actual computer

A: I’m talking about the internet on my mobile

H: Crazy. Thank you so much. Let’s just remind people of that website, because Direct Gov as you say brings in all of your local services together, from whether you’re motoring, whether you’re health, whether it’s education – all there. Can you give us that website address one more time?

A: That’s right it’s www.direct.gov.uk

H: And that pulls together all those services for you. Alex, Spencer thank you very much indeed for joining us and I hope you’ll join us again on another Lifestyle Show very soon

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