The sharing of information held by different public bodies can help those bodies deliver better public services. The Digital Economy Act 2017 (DEA 2017) allows data sharing in order to deliver public services which benefit individuals and households. Section 123 of this Act amends section 35 to extend these data sharing powers to support the delivery of public services which benefit businesses, or "undertakings".
	The section also defines the term "undertakings" to include those carrying on trade whether for profit or not for profit and any body established for charitable purposes.
	Part 5 of the DEA 2017, which includes section 35, contains safeguards to limit the circumstances under which information can be shared. Section 35 of the DEA 2017 provides a gateway to enable specified public authorities, listed in Schedule 4 of the DEA 2017, to share information for tightly constrained objectives which must be for the benefit of individuals or households. Those objectives must be set out in regulations and must be for the improvement or targeting of the provision of a public service. The same framework of constraints apply to the sharing of information to improve delivery of public services to undertakings.
Information to improve public service delivery