Government digital and AI updates: what matters now and what to do next
Here's a focused readout for public sector leaders. Seven headlines, the signal behind them, and the moves to make this week.
Mobile IDs are moving from pilots to infrastructure
Governments are scaling mobile IDs to simplify access to services and reduce fraud. The priority is simple: make identity easy for citizens, safe for data teams, and interoperable across borders.
Focus areas: consent-driven data sharing, offline verification for low-connectivity areas, and a clear fallback path for people without smartphones. If you're in the EU, align with the EU Digital Identity Wallet specs early-procurement gets easier when standards are baked in.
- Adopt a unified identity roadmap: wallet, verification, and recovery.
- Run an inclusion audit: language, device access, assisted channels.
- Publish your interoperability profile to reduce bilateral headaches.
Regulators move on AI tools over harmful content
Reports of sexualised images linked to the Grok AI tool have triggered action by the European Commission and multiple countries. Expect faster investigations, stricter age protections, and more pressure on audit logs and provenance.
If you deploy generative models, assume duty-of-care expectations will rise. Build in guardrails and document them. Align early with risk tiers in the EU AI Act and similar frameworks.
- Mandate safety filters, image watermark checks, and human escalation paths.
- Add content-risk clauses to AI procurements (blocking, reporting, fixes).
- Log prompts/outputs for high-risk use cases with strict privacy controls.
Toward a "What Works Centre" for public sector AI
A dedicated hub for evidence, playbooks, and reusable evaluations would prevent every department from reinventing the same pilots. The value isn't more theory; it's shared measurement and shared code.
- Pool evaluation datasets for common tasks (summarisation, search, case triage).
- Publish reference processes: DPIAs, model cards, red-team protocols.
- Stand up a cross-department review board to approve repeatable patterns.
International learning is back on center stage
Global government forums this month are doubling down on peer learning. Civil services are swapping playbooks on identity, procurement, and AI safety, which shortens your time-to-value if you plug in.
- Nominate one case your team can share (success or failure) with clear metrics.
- Join working groups on identity, data sharing, and AI evaluations.
- Create a lightweight MoU to exchange code and test plans with a partner government.
GDS publishes a digital transformation roadmap
The UK's Government Digital Service has set out next steps on platforms, data, and service standards. Even if you're outside the UK, use it as a benchmark for sequencing work and measuring impact.
- Map your portfolio to three buckets: stop, fix, scale.
- Set two quarterly, testable outcomes per flagship service (e.g., identity match rate, completion time).
- Budget for platforms, not one-offs: identity, payments, notifications, data sharing.
Innovation 2026: use big events to move work forward
With Cat Little inviting civil servants to Innovation 2026, treat the event as a deadline. Bring real problems, not slides-then leave with one decision and one joint experiment.
- Pitch a 90-day experiment with a clear owner and exit criteria.
- Line up users for weekly testing before you arrive.
- Publish outcomes (good or bad) within two weeks.
Reports of major US treaty shifts-plan for policy whiplash
There are reports that President Donald Trump has withdrawn the US from the UN climate treaty and dozens of international bodies. Whether or not that stands, departments should be ready for sudden changes in international commitments.
- Maintain a treaty risk register: funding, data flows, and program dependencies.
- Draft continuity plans for grants, research, and cross-border projects.
- Coordinate communications to avoid mixed messages to partners and the public.
Before acting, verify the status of any international commitment through official notices and your foreign affairs lead.
What to do this week
- Identity: Approve your mobile ID inclusion plan and publish a public privacy note.
- AI safety: Add content-risk clauses to new procurements and enable output logging where lawful.
- Evidence: Stand up a shared AI evaluation repo and nominate a product owner.
- Partnerships: Lock in two cross-border peers for code and standards exchange.
- Roadmaps: Rewrite one service outcome in measurable, citizen-facing terms.
- Policy shifts: Update your treaty risk register and confirm contingency owners.
Skills and training
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