The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has selected 10 data projects for the beta phase of its regulatory sandbox.

Opened to applicants in March, it is designed to support organisations using personal data to develop innovative products and services.

Participants will be able to work with the ICO’s specialist staff to help ensure they comply with data protection rules, providing some comfort from enforcement action and, where feasible, increased public reassurance that products and services are not in breach of data protection legislation.

The beta phase offers a free service to organisations of varying types and sizes, across a number of sectors. The first round was chosen from 64 applications and comprises:

• The Greater London Authority’s Violence Reduction Unit is using social and healthcare data to better understand how public health and social services can be managed to help prevent crime.
• Higher education technology organisation Jisc is developing a code of practice with universities and colleges wishing to use student activity data to improve support services.
• NHS Digital is working on the development of a central mechanism for collecting and managing patient consent for sharing their healthcare data for secondary purposes, such as research and clinical trials.
• The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government is working with Blackpool Council and the Department for Work and Pensions to match personal information from different parties to create a dataset on the private rented sector to help improve the quality of the properties.
• Heathrow Airport is looking to streamline the passenger journey through facial recognition biometrics.
• RegTech startup FutureFlow is designing a forensic analytics platform to monitor the flow of funds in the financial system, to leverage both regulators’ and firms’ intelligence on electronic financial crime, without a reliance on personally identifying information.
• Norvatis Pharmaceuticals UK is exploring the use of voice technology in healthcare, while addressing the data privacy issues.
• Software-as-a-service firm Onfido is researching how to identify and mitigate any algorithmic bias in machine learning models used for remote biometric identity verification.
• Tonic Analytics is exploring the use of satellite data analytics to improve road safety and prevent and detect crime.
• Authentication specialist TrustElevate is aiming to help companies comply with regulatory requirements in providing verified parental consent for under-16s.

Information commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: “The ICO supports innovation in technology and exciting new uses of data, while ensuring that people’s privacy and legal rights are protected – we have always said that privacy and innovation are not mutually exclusive and there doesn’t need to be an either-or choice between the two.

“The sandbox will help companies and public bodies deliver new products and services of real benefit to the public, with assurance that they have tackled built-in data protection at the outset.”

The next stage of the process will be to agree and develop detailed plans for each sandbox participant before work starts on testing their products and services. It is envisaged all participants will have completed work the sandbox by September 2020.

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