Labour’s 330bn plan to unlock the potential of data

To little surprise, a new Labour government is upon us. Gaining a landslide victory, on Friday 5th July, Kier Starmer’s Labour government ushered in a new dawn of centre-left policies. What might be surprising to some is their eye on fintech, and their commitment to data sharing. What is a “data library”? What does this mean for data regulation? What is their stance on Artificial Intelligence, and why might it disappoint some? Read on for updates on their changes to data sharing, regulation, and Artificial Intelligence.

What’s been said?

Resting entirely on provisional institutional investment and the streamlining of data policy, the so-called ‘Fintech Plan for Government’ envisions a route for the UK to use their competitive advantage in fintech to lead globally on innovation. As City A.M reported, “Rachel Reeves’ Treasury has pledged to “embrace” the fintech sector after a trade body said the industry could bolster the government’s coffers to the tune of £330bn over the next five years.” Smart data is at the heart of this mission.

Data portability

“Central to the body’s plans is a call for ministers to embrace so-called smart data, a form of “data portability” that allows companies to more easily transfer information”, clarify City A.M. Then-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has previously stated his interest in “kickstart[ing] a smart data big bang” by overhauling data rules.

The proposed data portability between companies, with a keen eye on security, privacy and ethics, might change our collective perception of data as we have a type of data passport, rather than leaving an inaccessible trail behind us as we move between providers. This new data culture would encourage collaboration and innovation between businesses. We might look back to look forward: what GDPR was hoping to achieve was a shift in the balance of power; organisations see transactional data as theirs, whereas the regulators want consumers to see it as theirs. This might be the regulatory change needed to do just that.

The ability to curate and combine datasets for greater insight cross-industry can only be a good thing. But expanding the level of scrutiny shows this might be tricker than Labour might realise; how does this account for competitive edge over curated datasets? Sharing datasets brings to light greater compliance, governance and quality issues. And what about international data transfers? Multiple, differing data protection regimes still block this visibility and distribution.

Resilience, regulation and innovation

Labour do not intend to do this without caution. In their manifesto, Labour detailed their new investment into regulation and innovation. “Regulators are currently ill-equipped to deal with the dramatic development of new technologies, which often cut across traditional industries and sectors. Labour will create a new Regulatory Innovation Office, bringing together existing functions across government. This office will help regulators update regulation, speed up approval timelines, and co-ordinate issues that span existing boundaries.” Listen close enough and we might hear decision-makers in heavily regulated industries, who currently face ridiculous approval waiting times for any innovative changes, sigh in relief.

Artificial Intelligence

The labour government are equal parts sceptical and optimistic when it comes to AI. Those with large amounts of power over the datasets will soon feel the force of “binding regulation” on the state of their development. However, Labour have pledged to “support the development of the AI sector” through their industrial strategy, though this requires further clarification for specifics.

They have expressed a focus on AI leadership through proposal of the appointment of Chief AI Officers across government departments and the creation of an AI fund to foster innovation between the public and private sector. They are following the US in this manner.

Interestingly, despite the crippling environmental effects of AI centres, Labour encourages the building of new data centres. This has already been considered disappointing by some, who look towards their green pledge as proof that this sort of investment may find governmental encouragement. This comes alongside their intention to build a “National Data Library” which has an eye to expand and grow public-serves using a data-driven infrastructure. It has been clear in communications that Labour intends to deliver a full crack-down on “the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes”, however. More to come in this space.