Data (Use and Access) Act 2025
2025 CHAPTER 18
An Act to make provision about access to customer data and business data; to make provision about services consisting of the use of information to ascertain and verify facts about individuals; to make provision about the recording and sharing, and keeping of registers, of information relating to apparatus in streets; to make provision about the keeping and maintenance of registers of births and deaths; to make provision for the regulation of the processing of information relating to identified or identifiable living individuals; to make provision about privacy and electronic communications; to establish the Information Commission; to make provision about information standards for health and social care; to make provision about the grant of smart meter communication licences; to make provision about the disclosure of information to improve public service delivery; to make provision about the retention of information by providers of internet services in connection with investigations into child deaths; to make provision about providing information for purposes related to the carrying out of independent research into online safety matters; to make provision about the retention of biometric data; to make provision about services for the provision of electronic signatures, electronic seals and other trust services; to make provision about works protected by copyright and the development of artificial intelligence systems; to make provision about the creation of purported intimate images; and for connected purposes.
[19th June 2025]
B e it enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
Part 1 U.K. Access to customer data and business data
Introductory U.K.
1 Customer data and business data U.K.
(1) This Part confers powers on the Secretary of State and the Treasury to make provision in connection with access to customer data and business data.
(2) In this Part—
“ business data ”, in relation to a trader, means— (a) information about goods, services and digital content supplied or provided by the trader, (b) information relating to the supply or provision of goods, services and digital content by the trader (such as, for example, information about— (i) where goods, services or digital content are supplied or provided, (ii) prices or other terms on which they are supplied or provided, (iii) how they are used, or (iv) their performance or quality), (c) information relating to feedback about the goods, services or digital content (or their supply or provision), and (d) information relating to the provision of information described in paragraphs (a) to (c) to a person in accordance with data regulations;
“ customer data ” means information relating to a customer of a trader, including— (a) information relating to goods, services and digital content supplied or provided by the trader to the customer or to another person at the customer’s request (such as, for example, information about— (i) prices or other terms on which goods, services or digital content are supplied or provided to the customer or the other person, (ii) how they are used by the customer or the other person, or (iii) their performance or quality when used by the customer or the other person), and (b) information relating to the provision of information described in paragraph (a), or of other information relating to a customer of a trader, to a person in accordance with data regulations;
“ data holder ”, in relation to customer data or business data of a trader, means— (a) the trader, or (b) a person who, in the course of a business, processes the data;
“ data regulations ” means regulations under section 2 or 4 (and see section 23);
“ trader ” means a person who supplies or provides goods, services or digital content in the course of a business, whether acting personally or through another person acting in the trader’s name or on the trader’s behalf.
(3) For the purposes of this Part, a person (“ C ”) is a customer of a trader (“ T ”) if C has at any time—
(a) purchased goods, services or digital content supplied or provided by T (whether for use by C or another person),
(b) been supplied or provided by T with goods, services or digital content purchased from T by another person, or
(c) otherwise received goods, services or digital content free of charge from T.
(4) In subsection (3), the references to purchase, supply, provision or receipt of goods, services or digital content at any time include purchase, supply, provision or receipt before this section comes into force.
(5) In subsections (3) and (4), references to purchasing goods, services or digital content include entering into an agreement to do so.
(6) In this Part—
(a) a reference to providing customer data or business data to a person (however expressed) includes a reference to providing the person with access to such data or with the ability to provide other persons with access to such data, and
(b) a reference to a person receiving customer data or business data (however expressed) includes a reference to a person obtaining access to such data or the ability to provide other persons with access to such data.
Commencement Information
I1 S. 1 in force at Royal Assent for specified purposes, see s. 142(1)(2) (h)