27 July 2011 by Joe Cicero. No Comments.
We sometimes get requests from companies asking us to remove their products from the Recalled Products website. These requests follow products being reclassified as fit for sale on the RAPEX website, the original EU-wide recalls resource from which our data is sourced. At first it seems to make sense to remove these products. After all, [...]
19 July 2011 by Dafydd Vaughan. 1 Comment.
The Royal Mail provides a major public service across the UK – it handles millions of items of mail every day. Its operating licence requires it to publish a number of data sets on its performance on a regular basis. For example, it is required to publish information on its delivery targets (quality of service) [...]
2 May 2011 by Dafydd Vaughan. 2 Comments.
Late last night all CF Labs sites were taken offline following a serious hardware failure at our remote hosting centre. Our supplier has worked to replace the faulty equipment and bring our services back online. This work was completed at around 2.15pm this afternoon. There are however a few outstanding issues with some of our websites: [...]
22 March 2011 by Dafydd Vaughan. No Comments.
In 2005, South Wales was hit by a major outbreak of E.coli O157. A total of 157 people, mostly children, became ill and five-year-old Mason Jones died. Following the outbreak, a Public Inquiry developed 24 recommendations aimed at preventing further outbreaks. Consumer Focus Wales has taken on the task of monitoring the implementation of these [...]
3 February 2011 by Dafydd Vaughan. 1 Comment.
Yesterday we released an updated website for publishing UK and European product recall notices. The changes we’ve made at RecalledProducts.org include a refreshed look, enhanced statistics and an improved recalls importer. The biggest change you’ll notice is the design of the site. It’s more of an evolution of the design than a brand new look [...]
28 January 2011 by Dafydd Vaughan. No Comments.
Today is European Privacy and Data Protection Day. It’s a day for governments, businesses and campaign bodies to promote the importance of keeping control of your personal information. This makes today a great chance to talk about how StayPrivate.org protects the information you give to us. Data encryption When you sign up to StayPrivate.org you [...]
26 January 2011 by Joe Cicero. 2 Comments.
The second version of the StayPrivate.org service was released yesterday. v2 It contains significant enhancements to v1 which are detailed below. It seems like a while since the heady days of June 2010 when the website fell over following unexpected mainstream media coverage on version 1 launch day. Since then we’ve racked up a substantial [...]
21 January 2011 by Joe Cicero. No Comments.
What is happening? We will be upgrading and testing the StayPrivate.org website on Tuesday 25th January. The site may be temporarily unavailable while the work is carried out, although we will endeavour to keep interruptions to an absolute minimum. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may cause. More Detail We will be testing [...]
15 December 2010 by Dafydd Vaughan. No Comments.
CAPTCHAs (or Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) are the distorted images containing text that you sometimes find at the end of forms when logging in or registering for various services online. These images are generally used to make sure that it is a human submitting the form, not an [...]
13 December 2010 by Dafydd Vaughan. 1 Comment.
Earlier this year, we released a rebuilt version of the Consumer Focus Energy Price Comparison service (EPC). The EPC was inherited from Energywatch – a predecessor to Consumer Focus and provides an idea of the cheapest energy costs for each supplier based on a number of factors. These include usage type (high, medium or low [...]
Consumer Focus is the independent champion for consumers across England, Wales, Scotland and (for postal consumers) in Northern Ireland. We operate across the whole of the economy, persuading businesses and public services to put consumers at the heart of what they do.
www.consumerfocus.org.uk
