Seeking ways to empower consumers with Smart Data

Smart Data can be a challenging concept to explain. Discussions often descend into technical jargon like APIs and authorisation protocols. But at its core, Smart Data is simple. It enables individuals and businesses to access and share their data simply and securely with third parties, enabling those third parties to provide them with innovative services. This vision differs from the current norm, where customer data typically remains under lock and key with the organisation that collected it.

You might wonder if this concept is all that revolutionary. Legally, individuals already have the ‘right to data portability.’ However, having this right doesn’t necessarily mean you can use it effectively. Data portability becomes valuable when you can do something practical with your data. For that to happen, products and services must exist, enabling you to take advantage of moving your information between trusted businesses.

Infrastructure, investment, and regulation

Creating products and services relies on having the technical infrastructure to support innovators in building them. Sort of like establishing a set of rules for how data portability works – rules that both consumers and businesses can trust. However, building this infrastructure requires investment, and it’s not typically driven by data holders, who often have little incentive to invest in making it easier for customers to move their own data around.

This is where regulation or policy intervention comes into play. Government might need to legislate to create the powers to mandate smart data schemes. The question is whether society should make this investment. We believe the answer is yes. Data is an integral part of the modern economy, and breaking the data silos, with consumers at the helm, could lead to substantial innovation and growth. Although estimating the benefits is difficult, Smart Data’s economic benefit has been estimated at £28 billion.

Maximising these benefits with the Smart Data Discovery Challenge

What we really want to know is how we can be more specific about the perks for consumers and maximise its economic benefits. This is where the Smart Data Discovery Challenge comes in. The Department for Business and Trade, Challenge Works, the ODI and Smart Data Foundry are inviting innovators to imagine innovative products and services that could emerge in a smart data economy and make a significant difference for consumers. 

Imagine Smart Data not only in banking but also in energy, transport, retail, home buying, and other financial services. We’ll collaborate with these innovators to design the smart data infrastructure that supports their innovations. Our goal is to provide a clearer picture of the path to smart data implementation, to guide Government in the coming months and years.

Join the challenge today

So why join the Challenge? If you have ideas for Smart Data innovations, this is an opportunity to:

• Shape the future of Smart Data scheme development in the UK;
• Influence the focus of a potential Smart Data challenge prize, which we aim to launch after the Discovery Challenge later in 2024, in which participants will benefit from a share of up to £750,000 and access to a bespoke data sandbox;
• Join an emerging community of organisations with a shared interest in, and exciting ideas for, Smart Data
• Receive expert mentorship for your cross-sector use case ideas;
• Win a reward from a prize pot worth up to £20,000, with individual prizes up to £5,000 each, at the March 2024 Smart Data community event.

If that sparks your interest, and you have ideas for what Smart Data could do for consumers, then we want to hear from you.