2025-02-18
This harks back to our 2023 report concerning the then UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework beta version (0.3) updated 11th January 2023 (CBDC / Citizen Id by whatever means?).
As explained in that video, this was an unremarkable update to a previous Act, introduced as a administrative update that didn't require Parliament to vote upon it.
If you didn't watch that, I suggest you watch it now.
We've had a lot of water beneath the Parliamentary bridge since then, yet it seems that the Labour Government for whatever reason decided in December 2024 to make a proper Bill out of it, even though the consultations on the areas covered by the original proposals were concluded in 2022 under the Sunak government. No doubt the thinking has meanwhile advanced.
The thinking may not actually be yet concluded, as a Call for Evidence was put out just last week (deadline for submissions: 18 March).
If you want to make a submission, get your skates on!
"The bill has seven parts:
-
- Part 1 covers access to customer and business data and aims to enable “smart data” to be used in sectors other than its current use in open banking in the finance sector
- Part 2 would regulate the provision of digital verification services through the creation of a trust framework, a register of providers, an information sharing gateway, and a trust mark
- Part 3 would put the national underground asset register on a statutory footing
- Part 4 would update the way births and deaths are registered, moving from a paper-based system to an electronic register used by officials
- Part 5 would make changes to the UK’s data protection regime
- Part 6 would abolish the Information Commissioner’s Office and transfer its functions to a new body, the Information Commission
- Part 7 would, among other things, make further provision about the use of, or access to, data in the following areas:
- health and social care
- smart meter communication services
- public service delivery
- online safety"
(My emphasis)
Meanwhile Bill 179 has passed through the Lords and is already at the Committee stage in the Commons.
See a Factsheet covering "Smart data", and the NUAR prepared by the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology. There appear to be other factsheets although I haven't found any links.
See also HL Bills 40, 57, and 64 which appear to be sequential versions of the bill as it progressed through the House of Lords.
