As of February 2025, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), through its incorporation of the Government Digital Service (GDS), requires full consideration be given to the use of open standards and open-source software.

DSIT oversight and approval processes for major IT spend is governed by the requirements and guidance contained in several key GDS publications:

• Technology Code of Practice (TCoP): This is the primary set of criteria used for government digital and technology spend controls. It explicitly requires departments to "be open and use open source" and to build technology using open standards to ensure interoperability and avoid vendor lock-in.
• The Service Standard: Point 12 requires teams to "make new source code open" and available for reuse across government, while Point 13 mandates the use of and contribution to open standards and common components.
• Open Standards Principles: The government's open standards principles state that the standards must be used for software interoperability, data, and document formats unless a specific exemption is granted.

Oversight Mechanisms

• v.6 Government Digital and Technology Controls are in place until 31 March 2026: all unexempted digital and technology spend proposals that fall within scope, must obtain DSIT Digital spend control approval prior to committing spend.
• In scope spend for public-facing digital services is whole life cost above £100,000.
• In scope spend for all other technology is whole life cost above £1,000,000.
• To obtain spend approval, departmental assurers (and, according to risk, GDS) benchmark the spend proposal against the requirements and guidance contained with the three key publications cited at section 2 above.

From 1 April 2026 onwards, each department is accountable for applying all functional standards as set by DSIT, regarding Digital, Data and Technology spends. Functional assurance will only be conducted by DSIT where the spend exceeds the Department’s Delegated Authority Limit (DAL) set by HM Treasury.

The Government expects all firms to treat their customers fairly, and there is a strong framework of consumer rights in the UK that underpin this. At the same time, businesses are generally free to set the price of their products as they wish. The UK competition regime encourages open and competitive markets which produces lower prices for consumers. The Government has strengthened both competition and consumer protection regimes in the recent Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act.

The Department for Business and Trade has not conducted a formal assessment on Microsoft's price increase for Office 365.

Microsoft cites the addition of advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities as the main reason for higher prices. Digital technologies, including AI, are an important way to improve business efficiency. We are exploring ways to boost uptake through the SME Digital Adoption Taskforce, Technology Adoption Review, and AI Opportunities Action Plan. We also provide a range of other support for small businesses, from the Business Support Service to local Growth Hubs.

One of the functions of the new Government Digital Service is to incubate AI products and scale them into cross government services. As part of this funding for the development of Connect and Humphrey will come from the budget of the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence, which sits within DSIT's overall operating budget.

The level of funding is subject to the department’s settlement at Spending Review. Currently other departments are not charged for use of these tools, though the department will determine an appropriate operating model on finalisation of the Spending Review. Following a handover of the tool, future budgetary decisions for Scout will belong to the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.

The UK has a strong open-source ecosystem, which has helped drive innovation and distribute the benefits of technology widely.

The AI Opportunities Action Plan outlines how the government will maximise the potential for AI, including its support for open-source development. This includes the government's agreement to support open-source solutions when procuring AI models and other software for public sector use where appropriate. As a result, we are working closely with and engaging the open-source community to benefit from open-source innovation through appropriately sourced models and other technical solutions.

The principles of being open and using open source has been part of the Government's Technology Code of Practice for some time, and continues to be one of our core principles.

The Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (i.AI), which is part of the Government Digital Service, developed these tools. i.AI maintains Connect and the Humphrey GovAI toolkit. Scout will be maintained by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority.

The Generative AI Framework provides general guidance for civil servants using AI tools. The government is, in addition, currently evaluating Microsoft 365 Copilot via a formal experiment, the findings of which will feed into future guidance for civil servants. Training has been supplied centrally to increase the efficacy of Microsoft 365 Copilot alongside material on Civil service Learn on generative AI to raise awareness of benefits, limitations and risks of Generative AI tools, such as Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft's agreement with its Public Sector customers ensures enhanced privacy assurance on Microsoft 365 Copilot, including a commitment that end-user prompts are not used to train external large language models.

DfT Ministers regularly discuss a range of issues with automotive manufacturers, including Nissan. However, the Government is not able to comment on individual business matters.

The government is investing a total of £3.8bn in skills in England by 2024-25 and at the most recent SR we quadrupled the scale of free Skills Bootcamps in digital skills, including software and data skills.

My department recognises that Digital Skills shortages cannot be tackled by government alone, which is why we established the Digital Skills Council in 2022. Government offers a range of free in digital skills, including software and data skills.

DSIT is taking proactive steps to address the distinct skills needs of our priority technology sectors. For example, through the £30 million AI and Data Science Conversion Course programme.

All UK visa application centres in Africa have document scanning facilities on site which are available to applicants for visitor visas.

The Government takes the infringement of intellectual property rights seriously, and as the lead agency the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) recognises the importance of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning both for their potential infringing uses, as well as the tools they may provide to assist in the enforcement of IP rights.

To better understand this emerging area of technology, the IPO has commissioned and will shortly publish a report examining whether and how AI can be used to track and trace Intellectual Property infringing goods, as well as assessing the resulting money flows and the potential use of AI by those infringing IPR.

NHS Foundry is procured and operated by NHS England to manage the COVID-19 vaccination programme. The vaccination capability in NHS Foundry is one of several use cases developed to support the National Health Service response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes the supply of equipment such as personal protective equipment, oxygen and ventilators, with some of those use cases accessed by users outside NHS England and NHS Improvement.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are piloting the use of NHS Foundry by NHS trusts and integrated care systems to support the elective recovery strategy. NHS England and NHS Improvement intend to begin market engagement discussions shortly on future requirements for a data analytics platform, with a procurement process expected to follow. NHS England’s decisions on further deployment of the platform will be subject to the usual control and assurance processes.

Since 7 January 2021, it has been legally required that operators of local bus services across England openly publish their bus live location data to the Bus Open Data Service.  Currently, 98% of vehicles are fitted with location data devices.

Third party application developers are able to access this open data online via the Find Bus Data Service for inclusion in journey planners and applications, helping passengers plan their journey on public transport on their mobile phone or computer.

In the North East, application developers such as Google Maps, Bus Times, Transit and Citymapper have been able to launch their journey planning products which include bus time arrivals utilising data from the Bus Open Data Service and integrates it into multimodal journey plans to enable passengers to plan their journeys on public transport.

Since 2007, TfL has made data freely available to enable app developers to create journey planning solutions for passengers, so that bus time arrival information is readily available. Since the launch of the London Datastore, there are now over 600 apps powered by this data and almost half of all national bus journeys completed in London.

Inspired by the success in London, the Bus Open Data Service (BODS) was launched in 2020 to make bus live location data available to application developers for local bus services across England. The National Bus Strategy includes a commitment to provide funding for predictions information which will inform the passenger how many minutes away their bus is from the bus stop and on average how long the journey will take.

In the North East, application developers such as Bus Times and Citymapper have been able to launch their journey planning products which include bus time arrivals utilising data from the Bus Open Data Service and integrate it into multimodal journey plans to enable passengers to plan their journeys on public transport.

The Open Data Institute have shaped the programme since its early inception back in 2017, for example delivering the Discovery research project. We will continue to build upon this success of the early programme, steered by our programme board which the Open Data Institute does participate in.

Since 7 January 2021, it has been legally required that operators of local bus services across England openly publish their bus live location data to the Bus Open Data Service. Currently, 98% of vehicles are currently fitted with Automatic Vehicle Location devices.

Third party application developers are able to access this open data online via the Find Bus Data Service for inclusion in journey planners and applications, helping passengers plan their journey on public transport on their mobile phone or computer.

Guidance on data publication can be accessed online: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bus-open-data-implementation-guide

Since 7 January 2021, it has been legally required that operators of local bus services across England openly publish their bus live location data to the Bus Open Data Service. Currently, 98% of vehicles are currently fitted with Automatic Vehicle Location devices.

Third party application developers are able to access this open data online via the Find Bus Data Service for inclusion in journey planners and applications, helping passengers plan their journey on public transport on their mobile phone or computer.

While DfT does not offer funding for the publication of this data, guidance on data publication can be accessed online: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bus-open-data-implementation-guide

Business change support is offered to bus operators to help them meet their statutory requirement of publishing data, due to higher levels of digital exclusion particularly for smaller operators.

I refer the Hon. Member to the answers given by my Hon. Friend the Minister of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to the Hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife on 22 December 2020 to Question 129026 and on 27 January 2021 to Question 144646.

The company iProov does not provide a vaccine passport service and therefore no technical specification exists that could be shared. In addition, their service does not compare facial data. It scans a user-submitted photograph in real-time, as part of identity checks when registering to use NHS Login to gain access to health records or personal information. NHS Login, under strict controls, compares this image and an image captured from a user’s ID document, such as a driving licence or passport. No information is either shared or stored within iProov or the NHS App.

The facial verification software for the NHS App was developed by iProov who also own the copyright. iProov have developed their services using datasets which are highly diverse across age, ethnicity and gender and their services are continually performance-tested to ensure a high-level coverage across all face types.

NHS login and NHS App store and process personal data within the United Kingdom and European Economic Area. NHS Digital use two approved identity verification suppliers to check the user submitted photographic identity document. This data is processed outside of the device but remains within the control of NHS Digital as the data controller and within the UK. Data leaving the UK is heavily restricted. There are two data processors engaged by NHS Digital to support delivery of the NHS App who process data outside the UK.