On June 11th, the Data (Use and Access) Bill cleared its final stage in Parliament, with both Houses agreeing on its final text. It received Royal Assent on June 19th, officially becoming an Act of Parliament.
The Act (which covers both consumer and business data) places significant emphasis on Smart Data Schemes. These schemes, which enable secure, user-authorised data sharing between organisations, stand out as a transformative step for the UK economy.
The benefits are far-reaching, with the potential to unlock innovation, enhance competition, and improve user control and choice. Backed by the UK Industrial Strategy’s £36 million investment in new schemes across financial services, energy, and beyond, these changes promise real-world impact. Open Finance alone is estimated to boost UK GDP by £30.5 billion each year.
Done well, the Data Act will mean:
- Data portability and control of your data
- Better access to useful data
- Clearer rules and stronger protections for safety and fairness
- Greater empowerment and control for users to enable data sharing
- Foundations for better data sharing governance to enable real-world benefits of apps, AI and related tech services, while better addressing rights, consent and permission
This includes:
- A statutory code on automated decision-making
Meaning the government will create a legally-recognised code of practice to guide organisations that use automated systems to make decisions.
- Greater enforcement of the rules
More power to enforce data protection laws, making sure compliance isn’t optional and bad actors are held accountable.
- Increased emphasis on DPIAs (Data Protection Impact Assessments)
DPIAs are risk assessments that organisations must carry out before starting projects that involve high-risk processing of personal data (e.g., large-scale surveillance, sensitive health data).
- What about this whole AI thing?
Advanced software (such as AI and machine learning) is now being used to analyse data and in some cases to automate decision making. These systems are joining data together, in new ways across our economy. If we are to build and maintain trust, both voluntary and regulatory frameworks are essential to ensure they operate not only within the law, but also transparently and in the public interest. You can contribute to our conversation on this here.
Why Smart Data Schemes matter for a Net Zero future
Smart Data Schemes aren’t just good for the economy – they are essential for our Net Zero future, because decarbonisation requires faster, smarter decisions powered by better data.
Over the past five years, we’ve been turning this vision into impact across energy, water, transport, finance and beyond. Our key learning so far? Implementation matters.
Our data infrastructure is maturing to deliver real-world impact. Initiatives like Open Energy are open, networked and verifiable to enable faster, better decisions to be made across systems. To deliver a net zero future we need data to flow as efficiently as energy itself.
Through Open Energy, we’re creating a connected web of energy data and have already shown how better access to data delivers tangible, net zero-aligned outcomes.
For example:
- Our work with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN), shows how improved data access can better align grid capacity with EV demand.
- On the REACT project, we found that making data more accessible helps reduce delays in connecting green energy developers to the grid, enabling Transmission Owners to deliver critical infrastructure upgrades faster.
The Act also marks a major milestone for our work on Perseus, a national smart data initiative focused on enabling green finance for SMEs. Recently featured in the Willow Report, Perseus is a live example of how to operationalise Smart Data across sectors. Provisions in the Act (e.g. smart meter data infrastructure) directly strengthen our efforts to ensure every SME can access finance for the net-zero transition.
A decade in the making; the real work starts now
This moment is the culmination of more than a decade of work. In 2012, I was appointed founding CEO of the Open Data Institute, as the UK became a global leader in open data policy. During my tenure, I initiated what became a founding paper asking Who owns our Data Infrastructure?.
In 2015, I was appointed co-chair of the Open Banking Working Group that created the Open Banking Standard which proved that Smart Data Schemes could move from theory to practice, creating a blueprint for sectors like energy, telecoms, and transport. And, in 2023 I joined the UK Smart Data Council as its co-chair.
It’s been over a decade since that initial work and the UK is once again setting the bar on data infrastructure. Legislation is just the starting line: to deliver real outcomes for our economy and our environment, we must now build on this foundation at pace, with the same ambition, urgency, and collaboration that brought us here.
Example:
| Category | Customer Data | Business Data |
| Who is the data about? | Individual consumers (natural persons) | Businesses (e.g. SMEs, sole traders, partnerships, companies) |
| Examples of data | – Energy usage from a smart meter- Bank transactions- Insurance policies | – Energy use by a shop or farm- Business account transactions- Emissions data |
| Who controls access? | The individual (customer) provides consent | The business provides permission+ |
| Purpose | Help individuals get better deals, reduce bills, make greener choices | Help businesses access services (e.g. finance, advice, automation), reduce admin burden |
| Enables… | – Switching services- Personalised recommendations | – Carbon reporting- SME finance applications- Net-zero advisory tools |
| Governed by | Smart Data Schemes | Business Data Schemes |