The most significant UK data law in years
Xavier Vallée, Founder, Sapionic
Important update.
The Data Use and Access Act 2025 is the most significant piece of UK data legislation in years. It gives government the power to create “Smart Data” schemes — essentially Open Banking-style mandated data sharing — in any sector of the economy. Its major provisions commenced on 5 February. Most businesses haven’t noticed yet. They should.
Tomorrow I’m at the Competition and Markets Authority “Data for Growth” roundtable, with their CEO, to discuss what this means in practice — specifically, how Smart Data schemes could do for mid-market AI adoption what Open Banking did for fintech.
Open Banking now has 16.5 million users, drove £4.1 billion in UK economic value last year, and created an entire industry that didn’t exist a decade ago. That started with a CMA intervention that forced banks to open their data.
The AI gap between platforms and practitioners isn’t a technology problem. It’s a data access problem. And for the first time, UK regulation is positioned to fix it.
Looking forward to contributing from a practitioner perspective.