Open Standards for Government Technology
Summary
The UK Central Digital and Data Office maintains guidance on open standards selected for use in government technology. The page lists 19 specific open standards covering areas including beneficial ownership data, cyber threat intelligence exchange, document sharing, and character encoding. Government bodies are expected to apply these standards consistently across technology implementations.
What changed
The Central Digital and Data Office maintains an updated index of open standards approved for use across UK government technology. The standards cover data exchange formats, document handling, cybersecurity, location data, and international identifiers. Updates were made on 29 January 2026 to the listing page.
Government technology projects and suppliers should ensure compliance with these open standards when developing or procuring systems for public sector use. The standards aim to ensure interoperability, data exchange consistency, and security across government technology implementations.
What to do next
- Monitor open standards requirements for government technology
- Refer to specific standards relevant to technology projects
Archived snapshot
Apr 16, 2026GovPing captured this document from the original source. If the source has since changed or been removed, this is the text as it existed at that time.
Guidance
Open standards for government
Information about the open standards chosen for use in government technology.
From: Cabinet Office, Central Digital and Data Office and Government Digital Service Published 27 September 2013 Last updated 29 January 2026
— See all updates Get emails about this page
Documents
Collect, use and exchange beneficial ownership information
HTML
Record and share information about public services in local authorities
HTML
Identifying property and street information
HTML
Exchanging Cyber Threat intelligence
HTML
Publishing grant data
HTML
Formatting dates and times in data
HTML
Publishing contract data
HTML
Publishing international development data
HTML
Publishing job vacancies
HTML
Share information between emergency services with MAIT
HTML
Exchange of location point
HTML
Use consistent country codes
HTML
Tag content with international language codes
HTML
Encoding characters
HTML
Persistent resolvable identifiers
HTML
Sharing or collaborating with government documents
HTML
Publishing government documents
HTML
Exchange of contact information
HTML
Exchange of calendar events
HTML
Details
The UK government selects open standards for use in government technology. The aim is to apply these consistently across government bodies, making our services more integrated and better for users.
These profiles include the open standards chosen by peer review and public comment through the Open Standards for government process.
The Open Standards Board endorsed the first set of open standards for government technology in September 2013.
Published 27 September 2013 Last updated 29 January 2026 show all updates
1.
29 January 2026
The "Publishing grant data" guidance has been updated to ensure alignment to the current 360Giving brand and the work that 360Giving do. Changes include updating of the 360Giving name throughout (previously was "ThreeSixtyGiving"), updating hyperlinks to ensure the correct webpages are linked, and enhancing the information provided in bullet points throughout.
2.
9 August 2022
Updated "Collect, use and exchange beneficial ownership information" to reflect the release of version 0.3.0 of the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS).
3.
16 March 2022
Added "Collect, use and exchange beneficial ownership information" and "Record and share information about public services in local authorities" attachments
4.
4 December 2020
PDFs on GOV.UK must either become HTML, or have an HTML or other OpenDocument version to meet accessibility standards.
5.
1 July 2020
Addition of new profile for 'Identifying property and street information'. Please note that the publication date for this profile will appear on all the profiles but there are no changes to any other profiles at this time.
6.
19 June 2020
The open standards profile for 'Publishing contract data' has been rewritten into plain English. There are no changes to the content or the standard.
Please note that the new publishing date will appear on all of the open standards profiles, but these have not been changed at this time.
7.
19 June 2020
The open standards profile for 'Formatting date and times in data' has been rewritten into plain English. There are no changes to the content or the standard.
Please note that the new publishing date will appear on all of the open standards profiles, but these have not been changed at this time.
8.
9 June 2020
The open standards profiles for 'Encoding characters' has been rewritten into plain English. There are no changes to the content or the standard.
Please note that the new publishing date will appear on all of the open standards profiles, but these have not been changed at this time.
9.
5 May 2020
The open standards profiles for 'Exchange cyber threat intelligence', 'Publishing grant data' and 'Use consistent country codes'
have been rewritten into plain English. There are no changes to the content or the standards.
Please note that the new publishing date will appear on all of the open standards profiles, but these have not been changed at this time.
10.
27 April 2020
The open standards profiles for 'Exchange of location point', 'Sharing or collaborating with government documents' and 'Tag content with international language codes'
have been rewritten into plain English. There are no changes to the content or the standards.
Please note that the new publishing date will appear on all of the open standards profiles, but these have not been changed at this time.
11.
27 March 2020
The MAIT open standards profile has been rewritten into plain English. There is no change to the content or the standard.
Please note that the new publishing date will appear on all of the open standards profiles, but these have not been changed at this time.
12.
10 March 2020
Publishing job vacancies has been rewritten into plain English. There is no change to the content or the standard.
Please note that the new publishing date will appear on all of the open standards profiles, but these have not changed at this time.
13.
19 February 2020
Rewrite of Publishing international development data into plain English
Rewrite of Publishing government documents into plain English with addition of information about PDF/A
14.
18 October 2019
Re-write of the profile for exchange of contact information into plain English.
15.
10 October 2019
Content for the Calendar Exchange profile rewritten for clarity.
16.
27 March 2019
Addition of the profile for the open standards STIX 2 and TAXII 2. These standards are for analysing and sharing intelligence between government departments, industry and international partners.
17.
27 February 2019
Addition of the open standard 'Data standard for grant making' recently approved for use in government by the Open Standards Board.
18.
15 January 2019
Updated language for greater clarity.
19.
16 August 2018
We now use Unicode 11 as the standard for character encoding.
20.
7 August 2018
Updating the Unicode standard for cross platform character encoding
21.
31 January 2018
Addition of the approved Time and Date standard for use by the government.
22.
29 August 2017
This page was updated to reflect clarification recommendation that were suggested on Alphagov open standards page
23.
8 August 2017
Open contracting data standard changed from OCDS V 1.0 to OCDS V 1.1.
24.
26 January 2017
Open contracting data standard added.
25.
5 January 2017
Added open standards for international development data
26.
20 May 2016
Added publishing vacancies online standards profile and multi agency incident transfer.
27.
7 March 2016
Added standard: exchange of location point
28.
6 August 2015
Added open standards for country codes and language tags
29.
17 March 2015
Added open standards for sharing calendar events and contacts information.
30.
22 July 2014
Added 2 new standards: Viewing government documents and Sharing or collaborating with government documents.
31.
27 September 2013
First published.
Get emails about this page Print this page
Related content
Related changes
Get daily alerts for Uk Central Digital And Data Office
Daily digest delivered to your inbox.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
Source
About this page
Every important government, regulator, and court update from around the world. One place. Real-time. Free. Our mission
Source document text, dates, docket IDs, and authority are extracted directly from CDDO.
The summary, classification, recommended actions, deadlines, and penalty information are AI-generated from the original text and may contain errors. Always verify against the source document.
Classification
Who this affects
Taxonomy
Browse Categories
Get alerts for this source
We'll email you when Uk Central Digital And Data Office publishes new changes.
Subscribed!
Optional. Filters your digest to exactly the updates that matter to you.