Product Security and
Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill
The purpose of the Bill is to:
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● Improve cyber resilience and digital connectivity for
individuals and businesses across the UK, further growing the
economy.
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● Ensure that smart consumer products, including smart
phones and televisions, are more secure against
cyber-attacks.
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● Accelerate and improve the roll out of mobile and
broadband networks so that more people can have good digital
connectivity more quickly.
The main benefits of the Bill would be:
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● Protecting consumers from cyber-attacks by ensuring
that manufacturers, importers and distributors only sell
smart devices that meet tougher security standards.
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● Ensuring product security requirements, which protect
devices from emerging threats, will be regularly updated.
Manufacturers will also be required to have a point of
contact for reporting software vulnerabilities. This will
increase consumer confidence in new technologies.
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● Accelerating the rollout of broadband in the coming
years, to enable faster and more reliable connectivity for
more of the population. By 2025 the Government is aiming for
a minimum of 85 per cent gigabit-capable coverage.
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● Reducing the number of new sites and installations
needed to meet the Government’s digital connectivity targets
by utilising existing equipment. This makes it cheaper and
easier to install apparatus, giving operators more funding to
invest in digital rollout, helping communities and businesses
across the UK.
The main elements of the Bill are:
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● Requiring manufacturers, importers and distributors
of smart devices to comply with minimum security standards.
The legislation also imposes duties on these businesses to
investigate and take action in cases of non-compliance.
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● Providing a robust regulatory framework that can
adapt and keep pace with rapid technological advances,
techniques used by cyber criminals, hostile states and
broader global regulation.
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● Reforming the Electronic Communications Code to
support faster, fairer and more collaborative negotiations
for the use of private and public land to enable deployment
of telecommunications networks.
Territorial extent and application
● The Bill will, in the main, extend and apply across the UK.
Key facts
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● The average UK household was estimated to have nine
or more smart devices in 2020.
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● In the first half of 2021 alone, there were 1.5
billion attempted compromises of connectable products, double
the equivalent 2020 figure. Personal data has been lost and
compromised devices have been used to launch attacks on
businesses, governments and critical infrastructure. This
Bill is a vital lever that will help protect these
organisations from such attacks.
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● To provide faster and more reliable connectivity to
both the public and businesses, the Government wants 95 per
cent of the UK’s geographic landmass to have 4G coverage by
2025, and for the majority of the population to have 5G
coverage by 2027.
