UK Data (Use and Access) Bill: copyright clauses finally agreed

Data (Use and Access) Bill

The Data (Use and Access) Bill (“DUA Bill”) is the legislation that replaces the old Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (“DPDI”), which collapsed with the new government. It is made up of 8 parts in total and there are certain provisions from the old proposed DPDI bill that are retained in the DUA bill. Key provisions include reform to the Information Commissioners Office (“ICO”), the introduction of Digital Verification Services, reform to the UK data protection framework, such as the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), Data Protection Act (“DPA”) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation (“PECR”), and smart data schemes.

The Data (Use and Access) Bill was first introduced into the House of Lords in October 2024 and has swiftly made its way through both houses of parliament in just 9 months. A number of amendments were made by the Lords, including new copyright clauses that covered a) compliance with UK copyright law; and b) transparency regarding web crawlers and the text and data used in training.  These copyright clauses were rejected by the House of Commons. However, revised amendments were discussed a number of times, during a drawn-out parliamentary ‘ping-pong’ between the Commons and the Lords, before finally reaching agreement.

Copyright clauses

The Secretary of State is obliged, within 9 months of Royal Assent, to:

• publish an assessment of the economic impact of each of the four policy options described in the Government’s recent Copyright and AI consultation paper, including the impact on copyright owners, developers and users. The four policy options described in the consultation are: 1) do nothing and leave UK copyright laws unchanged; 2) strengthen copyright requiring licensing in all cases, 3) introduce a broad data mining exception; or 4) introduce a data mining exception which allows right holders to reserve their rights, underpinned by supporting measures on transparency. You can read more on the ongoing Copyright and AI consultation in our earlier article here.
• publish, and lay before Parliament, a report on the use of copyright works in the development of AI systems. The report must consider and make proposals in relation to the following, including in relation to AI systems developed outside the UK:
• Technical measures and standards (e.g. those concerned with metadata) that may be used to control the use of works to develop AI systems and the accessing of works for that purpose (e.g. by web crawlers)
• The effect of copyright on access to and use of data by developers (e.g. the effect on text and data mining)
• The disclosure of information by developers about their use of copyright works to develop systems and how they access works for that purpose (e.g. by means of web crawlers)
• The granting of licences to developers of AI systems to do acts restricted by copyright; and
• Ways of enforcing requirements and restrictions relating to the use of copyright works and the accessing of copyright works for that purpose including enforcement by a regulator.

The Secretary of State must also make a progress statement relating to the economic impact assessment, and report on the use of copyright works, within 6 months of Royal Assent.

Comment

Despite many hours of discussion and numerous attempts by the Lords to persuade the Commons that the Bill should include requirements to impose copyright transparency obligations on developers, the Bill has now passed with much watered down reporting obligations on the Secretary of State. In practice, both the impact assessment and report will feed into the Government’s highly anticipated response to the ongoing Copyright and AI consultation, for which no timeline has been given as yet. The Government has been keen to emphasise that it does not want to pre-empt the outcome of the ongoing Copyright and AI consultation by including any commitments to amend copyright laws or introduce obligations on developers in the DUA Bill and it has been successful in holding back the attempts by the Lords to do so.

The lengthy debates over copyright provisions in the Lords and Commons have continued to highlight the controversy surrounding the Government’s approach to copyright and AI, and the divisions within Parliament. In response to the fractious debate over the copyright provisions, on 6 June 2025, Peter Kyle, the Science and Technology Secretary, has also announced a cross-party Parliamentary Working Group on AI and Copyright, to support policy development in this area. The announcement was not well received by the Chairs of the parliamentary committees he sought to invite to participate, who argue that the role of the Working Group is confusing and duplicative, since Parliament’s select committees (including DCMS, DSIT, Science & Technology, and Communications & Digital Committees) have already taken significant evidence jointly on AI and copyright.

So whilst the debates between the Commons and the Lords over the DUA Bill have now finished, the UK copyright and AI debate is certainly not over yet.

Authored by Penelope Thornton.