Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether his Department has had discussions with the private sector on the use of digital identity for accessing financial services.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA), within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, is working to enable the use of secure and trusted digital verification services across the UK economy for those who want to use them. OfDIA has engaged with organisations who are interested in adopting digital identity technology, including those within the financial services sector.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on cross-government plans for digital identity systems.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Office for Digital Identities and Attributes (OfDIA), within the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, is working to enable the use of secure and trusted digital verification services (DVS) across the UK economy for those who want to use them.
OfDIA regularly engages with cross-government colleagues regarding DVS, including seeking feedback on the Government’s standards for digital identity and work to remove regulatory barriers to adoption in different use cases where these exist. OfDIA also facilitates technical working groups for cross-government collaboration.
GOV.UK One Login is the government’s sign-in and identity verification solution, for accessing central government services. All major government departments have committed to onboarding their services to GOV.UK One Login, and are actively developing delivery plans. They are supported by an Onboarding and Engagement team to enable technical service teams to onboard their services smoothly.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment he has made of the potential impacts of introducing mandatory digital identity systems in the UK on (a) privacy and (b) civil liberties.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government has no plans to introduce a mandatory digital identity system.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if he will publish a full list of approved masts included in the Shared Rural Network programme.
Answered by Chris Bryant - Minister of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The locations of proposed government-funded Total Not Spot masts can be found at https://srn.org.uk/about/srn-tns-site-locations/,however this is due to be updated soon, as we now expect the objectives for this part of the programme to be met with far fewer masts. We are currently in the final stages of following the necessary processes with the mobile network operators to approve the details before they can be shared publicly. Details of the Home Office masts that will be upgraded for the Shared Rural Network are not publicly available as not all Home Office masts will be viable for the programme, but my officials will write to you with details of the sites that will be upgraded in your constituency.
Asked by: Angus MacDonald (Liberal Democrat - Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that creative industries and their intellectual property rights are (a) protected and (b) strengthened, in the context of increasing use of Artificial Intelligence.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government’s consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence (AI) closed on 25th February.
This consultation sought views on a range of approaches to clarify copyright law for both the creative industries and AI innovators. The Government’s priority now is to review all responses to the consultation, gathering the evidence to inform its next steps. The Government will continue to engage extensively before setting out proposals in due course.