WIREDGOV

Access to essential services in the UK is increasingly decided in the moment by something simple and unstable: having enough data to complete the task in front of you. Booking a GP appointment. Managing a welfare claim. Responding to a school message. Increasingly, those tasks sit behind a login screen, and that screen assumes stable, affordable data at the moment access is required.

When Data Decides Access, a new report from the Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA), looks at what happens when that assumption breaks down. Drawing on original survey evidence from people experiencing digital and data poverty, alongside stakeholder insight and existing research, the report shows how data affordability shapes whether healthcare, welfare, education, and other essential services remain reachable in practice.

What emerges is not a one-off problem. It is a pattern. Mobile data is the main route online for many respondents, with 31% relying on it as their primary connection. Running out of data is also common, with 55% reporting this either frequently or occasionally. For those households, access is not continuous. It fluctuates. Data is rationed. People make quick decisions about what they can attempt now, and what has to wait. From the outside, that can look like low usage or low demand. In reality, it can be the practical discipline of avoiding disconnection halfway through a process.

The report frames digital access as layered infrastructure rather than a binary state. Affordable, reliable data sits at the foundation. When that layer becomes unstable, disruption moves upward. Essential services are affected first, and the strain is often absorbed privately through workarounds rather than complaint.

Survey respondents describe relying on public Wi-Fi to complete benefit tasks, attend online appointments, or access school platforms. Others delay engagement until data becomes available again. These responses can keep things moving in the short-term, but they come with costs. Time is lost. Privacy is compromised. Stress accumulates. Continuity of care becomes harder to maintain. Responsibility for staying connected shifts onto individuals, even as services continue to move online by default.

It is within this context that the report examines zero rating, allowing access to specific online services without those interactions counting towards a data allowance. Zero rating is not presented as a solution to digital and data poverty, or as a substitute for wider affordability measures. It is examined as a targeted mechanism to prevent access to essential services from failing at the point where data scarcity would otherwise block it. The report notes that the UK has already used zero rating in moments of recognised necessity, including during the COVID-19 pandemic when mobile network operators removed data charges for NHS websites and selected public service platforms.

Elizabeth Anderson, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Poverty Alliance:

“What this report makes clear is that once public services move online, access to them is no longer guaranteed by policy alone but by whether people can afford to stay connected at the exact moment they need help, and that is a risk no essential system should be designed to carry.”

When Data Decides Access is released today at the DPA’s annual Network Away Day at the British Library. Partners from across government, industry, and the third sector are coming together around this evidence, alongside focused discussion on the UK’s circular economy and proposed digital ID legislation.

Read the full report here