The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025

The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is a new piece of legislation recently past through the UK parliament that I’m really concerned about.

It’s been sold to the public with the promises that it will:

• Make grocery bills cheaper.
• Lead to cheaper energy prices.
• Reduce time spent in traffic.
• Give NHS Staff more time with patients (by cutting bureaucracy).
• Put £10 billion into the economy (over 10 years).
• Provide every person with a digital identity (verified by your biometric data), which some have dubbed the digital ‘Brit’ ID Card.

Sounds too good to be true? You’re not alone in thinking this.

The Act is a long document and I’ve not had the time to read it all. But from what I have read, I’m concerned about:

1. Removal Of My Right to Withhold My Consent To Sharing Data And Provides No Facility For Opting Out (Fully Or In Part). This was a vital part of previous legislation around data.
2. My Privacy – This legislation allows sharing of medical records, meaning that everyone in the NHS (and potentially other public and private organisations) will be able to see everything about my past and present health. Surely I should be able to decide who can see what about me, but this new law allows complete data sharing through a process called automated decision making. In addition, it allows sharing without making the individual aware of what exactly is being shared and why. It feels like a data free for all.
3. How Safe & Secure My Data Will Be – More data online and more data transferred/shared increases the risk of it falling into the wrong hands. Either by accident or through a deliberate attempt to access/steal data through hackers or advanced AI. What I’ve read about this legislation does little to reassure me about the safety and security of my data.
4. Potential For Data To Be Misused/Abused – There is a great potential for this data to be misused/abused by those with power and unlimited access.
5. No Say When It Comes To Deleting Data – The legislation doesn’t seem to have a mechanism for deleting data. There may be several reasons to delete data, for example if it is out of date or inaccurate.
6. The Government Having More Control On What Data Can Be Accessed – The legislation lets Government and officials/organisations have more control on what data can be accessed about an individual and under what circumstances. This feels fundamentally flawed, as those in power/control of the data could again misuse/abuse the data.

Blog soon,

Antony