Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 16 July 2020 to Question 72898, what he was referring to when stating in the Computer Weekly article of 9 July 2020 that, Open banking models have allowed those in financial need to share their income to HM Revenue & Customs - fast-tracking their applications for new welfare entitlements.

The innovation referred to in the Computer Weekly article of 9 July 2020 is an application in development, identified by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) as part of their global repository of the most innovative uses of data in response to the pandemic. The Covid Credit software seeks to help sole traders acquire the relevant banking information needed to self-certify income and show loss to HMRC, using open banking software protocols to retrieve their financial data.