Britain Publishing Itself Screensaver
The Britain Publishing Itself screensaver shows datasets newly published to data.gov.uk, key-less from its CKAN catalogue. Local councils dominate the feed, and that is the honest shape of open government data: most of what a state publishes about itself is published at the smallest tier, one planning register at a time. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
Live preview
Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the Britain Publishing Itself screensaver works
The saver reads the source described above and draws it on a canvas — no account, no tracking.
Datasets newly published to data.gov.uk, key-less from its CKAN catalogue. Local councils dominate the feed, and that is the honest shape of open government data: most of what a state publishes about itself is published at the smallest tier, one planning register at a time.
It refreshes on a schedule, so what you see stays current.
Colours can be changed in settings; nothing is stored beyond your own browser.
How data.gov.uk catalogues public datasets
data.gov.uk is the UK government’s open data portal, run by the Government Digital Service within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and described as being transformed into the UK National Data Library. Its directory API is built on CKAN, an open-source data catalogue platform, so each dataset is a CKAN package belonging to a publishing organisation. The portal lists data from central government, local authorities and other public bodies.
The portal mainly lists descriptions, called metadata, and links to datasets that stay on the publisher’s own site; publishers add links to data held on GOV.UK or on their organisation’s website. Content on data.gov.uk is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 unless otherwise stated, and each dataset record shows its own licence. A nightly dump of all dataset metadata is also published.
A stream like this is therefore a view of who is publishing, not a guide to what is important. Local councils produce many small, regular datasets, so they dominate by count. A new record might be a new release, a re-registration of an existing series or an update, so the same title can show up repeatedly.
A worked example
Datasets newly published to data.gov.uk, key-less from its CKAN catalogue. Local councils dominate the feed, and that is the honest shape of open government data: most of what a state publishes about itself is published at the smallest tier, one planning register at a time.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the display.
- Every value on screen comes from the live source — nothing is simulated.
- Press ESC to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real data?
- Yes — it comes from the source named on this page and is refreshed on a schedule.
- Is a key needed?
- No. This source is fully key-less.
- Is it free?
- Yes, and it runs entirely in your browser.
- Does the portal host the data files?
- Mostly no. It lists metadata and links, and the data itself is held by the publishing organisation.
- What licence applies to the data?
- Content on data.gov.uk is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 unless otherwise stated, and each dataset record states its own terms.
- What is CKAN?
- CKAN is an open-source data catalogue platform. The data.gov.uk directory API is built on it, and in CKAN a dataset is called a package.