Letter: Three tests for platforms running critical services

The UK is right to question the platforms behind its critical services. But the debate should not be reduced to whether one provider is trusted. What matters more is whether public institutions retain control as advanced data and AI platforms become central to healthcare, policing and national security. For public bodies running critical services, three checks matter.

First: can you leave? A platform you cannot exit without prohibitive rebuilding costs isn’t a tool you own, it’s a dependency you rent.

Ownership matters too: your data and the operating models built on top of it, in a form you can take elsewhere.

And is it built on open standards, so today’s supplier isn’t the only one who can work with tomorrow’s data?

These aren’t anti-innovation concerns. They are how institutions avoid concentration risk, and competition is the safeguard against it.

Importantly, as our neighbours have discovered, the UK does have an option. Across Europe, governments are already pressing for sovereignty, interoperability and real choice.

The era of blind trust in public-sector technology is coming to an end. As the UK reassesses its dependence on large technology platforms, it should back the ones that let public bodies move faster while staying in control of their data and their decisions, without surrendering ownership of their future.