Introduction

Smart Data is a data portability initiative, meaning that it allows individuals to obtain and reuse personal data for their own purposes across different services. Estimates suggest that greater personal data mobility could increase UK GDP by an estimated £27.8 billion per annum, not including the wider contribution from any digital innovations enabled.

This guide sets out what is needed for a smart data innovation model to help organisations, primarily in government and regulation, across multiple sectors to develop, test and bring to market smart data proposals.

The model is intended to help those groups encourage innovation and collaborate on the ongoing development of Smart Data schemes, including how they can be used to help people and organisations solve real and current problems. This should be done through collaboration of both sectoral regulators (such as Ofgem, Ofcom and the FCA) and cross-sectoral regulators (such as the CMA and the ICO), as well as industry, academia and civil society, by employing a variety of mechanisms such as sandboxes, advisory services, funding and more.

Cross-sector innovation already occurs outside of Smart Data, and has been shown to yield strong benefits. The ICO provides a Regulatory Sandbox service that cuts across industry lines, and the FCA’s feasibility study on a "Cross-Sector Sandbox" has shown strong promise.

The recommendations from this research seek to help connect the sectoral and cross-sectoral work that has already been implemented, to build on the lessons learned from those innovation programmes, and to lay out a Smart Data roadmap that can maximise innovation going forward.

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