Google has struck a wide-ranging agreement with the UK government to provide free technology to the public sector — including the NHS and local councils — in a move critics have described as “dangerously naive”. Reports Technology News
Under the deal, the US tech giant will “upskill” tens of thousands of civil servants in areas such as artificial intelligence, without charging the government. Whitehall insiders see the arrangement as giving Google “a foot in the door” amid the rapid digitisation of public services.
The agreement has raised concerns over the security of UK public data, particularly the risk of it being stored on US-based servers under the possible future presidency of Donald Trump, whose stance on data privacy and international cooperation has proven volatile.
According to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Google Cloud — which supplies databases, machine learning tools and computing power — has agreed to support the UK in moving beyond outdated and often insecure legacy IT contracts, which have long hampered progress and exposed services to cyber threats.
Google’s tools are seen as more nimble and efficient compared to older rivals, but some in Whitehall’s digital and tech community worry this could create a new form of dependency — trading one kind of vendor lock-in for another.
Other major US tech players, including Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic, are also increasingly involved in supporting civil servants, as the government looks to harness cutting-edge technology to improve productivity across struggling public services.
