Digital Information and Smart Data Bill
- The Government wants to ensure we harness the power of data
for economic growth, to support a modern digital government, and
to improve people's lives.
- The Bill will enable new innovative uses of data to be safely
developed and deployed and will improve people's lives by making
public services work better by reforming data sharing and
standards; help scientists and researchers make more life
enhancing discoveries by improving our data laws; and ensure your
data is well protected by giving the regulator (the ICO) new,
stronger powers and a more modern structure. These measures start
delivering on the Government's commitment to better serve the
British public through science and technology.
What does the Bill do?
-
The Bill will harness the power of data for economic
growth. We are giving a statutory footing to three
innovative uses of data that people can choose to participate
in and which will accelerate innovation, investment and
productivity across the UK. This includes:
-
establishing Digital Verification Services,
which make people's everyday lives easier through innovative
and secure technology. These measures support the creation
and adoption of secure and trusted digital identity products
and services from certified providers to help with
things like moving house, pre-employment checks, and buying
age restricted goods and services.
-
developing a National Underground Asset
Register, a new digital map that is revolutionising
the way we install, maintain, operate and repair the pipes
and cables buried beneath our feet. It gives planners and
excavators standardised, secure, instant access to the data
they need, when they need it, to carry out their work
effectively and safely.
-
setting up Smart Data schemes, which are the
secure sharing of a customer's data upon their request, with
authorised third-party providers.
-
The Bill will improve people's lives and life
chances. The Bill will enable more and better
digital public services. By making changes to the
Digital Economy Act we will help the Government share data
about businesses that use public services. We will move to an
electronic system for the registration of births and deaths.
And we will apply information standards to IT suppliers in the
health and social care system.
-
The Bill will help our scientists make better use of
data for world-class research by reflecting the
realities of modern interdisciplinary science research in our
data laws. Scientists will be able to ask for broad consent for
areas of scientific research, and allow legitimate researchers
doing scientific research in commercial settings to make equal
use of our data regime.
-
The Bill will ensure your data is well
protected. We are modernising and strengthening the
ICO. It will be transformed into a more modern regulatory
structure, with a CEO, board and chair. And it will have new,
stronger powers. This will be accompanied by targeted reforms
to some data laws that will maintain high standards of
protection but where there is currently a lack of clarity
impeding the safe development and deployment of some new
technologies. We will also promote standards for digital
identities around privacy, security and inclusion.
- The Bill also establishes a Data Preservation Process that
coroners (and procurators fiscal in Scotland) can initiate when
they decide it is necessary and appropriate to support their
investigations into a child's death. This will help coroners get
access to online information they need when investigating a
child's death.
Territorial extent and application
- The Bill will extend and apply UK-wide.
Key facts
- Digital Verification Services will help people and businesses
to make the most of identity-checking technologies with
confidence and peace of mind. Digital verification services will
save people time and money by providing convenient and reliable
options to prove things about themselves as they go about their
everyday lives. They will also enable smoother, cheaper and more
secure online transactions. Digital verification services will
lessen the everyday burdens on businesses by reducing costs, time
and data leakage. The economic benefits of secure digital
identities being in widespread use around the UK were estimated
to be around £600 million per year.
- Smart Data is the secure sharing of customer data, upon the
customer's (business or consumer) request, with authorised
third-party providers (ATPs) who can enhance the customer data
with broader, contextual ‘business' data. These ATPs provide the
customer with innovative services to improve decision making and
engagement in a market. Open Banking is the only active example
of a regime that is comparable to a 'Smart Data scheme' – but
needs a legislative framework to put it on a permanent footing,
from which it can grow and expand. This empowers customers to
make more informed choices and provides businesses with a toolkit
to innovate. By empowering consumers to share their data with
sectors we also hope to encourage the economic growth we've seen
from Open Banking, across the economy. This is crucial in markets
where customer engagement is low, or where businesses hold more
information and data than the customer.
- The National Underground Asset Register (NUAR) is a new
digital map that is revolutionising the way we install, maintain,
operate and repair the pipes and cables buried beneath our feet.
NUAR gives planners and excavators standardised, secure, instant
access to the data they need, when they need it, to carry out
their work efficiently, effectively and safely.
- The UK data economy (our data market plus the value data adds
to other sectors of the economy) now represents an estimated 6.9
per cent of GDP (as of 2022). We can harness the power of data to
create enormous value for our economy and broader society. The
UK's data economy is also crucial to boosting trade. In 2021,
data-enabled UK service exports accounted for 85 per cent of
total service exports, and were estimated to be worth £259
billion. The value of data-enabled exports from the UK to the EU
alone is estimated at £91 billion.
- Data is critical for UK businesses. 77 percent of UK
businesses handle some form of digital data, increasing to 99
percent for businesses employing more than 10 people
