Collection

Open standards for government data and technology

Using open standards to improve how government shares data and provides services.

Published 12 July 2017
Last updated 7 August 2020 — see all updates

• From: Government Digital Service

The government uses a fair and transparent process to select open standards for use across all government organisations.

Anyone can get involved in helping to set standards for software interoperability, data and document formats in government IT.

The chosen open standards follow the open standards principles and government organisations can use them to make services better for users.

Selecting and using open standards

Find out about the open standards principles, how open standards are used in the Technology Code of Practice and how you can get involved in selecting more open standards for government.

1. Open standards principles
   • 5 April 2018
   • Policy paper
2. Choosing open standards for government
   • 30 July 2020
   • Guidance
3. Open Standards Board
   • 27 April 2020
4. Make use of open standards
   • 6 November 2017
   • Guidance

Open standards for exchanging information

The open standards in this group are mandated for government use in the relevant projects, programmes and services. They are for improving how government organisations exchange information.

1. Exchange of calendar events
   • 9 July 2020
2. Exchange of contact information
   • 9 July 2020
3. Exchange of location point
   • 9 July 2020
4. Exchanging Cyber Threat intelligence
   • 9 July 2020
5. Share information between emergency services with MAIT
   • 9 July 2020

Open standards for formatting and describing information

The open standards in this group are mandated for government use in the relevant projects, programmes and services. They are for improving how government organisations format and describe information.

1. Encoding characters
   • 9 July 2020
2. Formatting dates and times in data
   • 9 July 2020
3. Persistent resolvable identifiers
   • 9 July 2020
4. Tag content with international language codes
   • 9 July 2020
5. Use consistent country codes
   • 9 July 2020

Open standards for publishing information

The open standards in this group are mandated for government use in the relevant projects, programmes and services. They are for improving how government organisations publish information.

1. Identifying property and street information
   • 9 July 2020
2. Publishing contract data
   • 9 July 2020
3. Publishing government documents
   • 9 July 2020
4. Publishing grant data
   • 9 July 2020
5. Publishing international development data
   • 9 July 2020
6. Publishing job vacancies
   • 9 July 2020
7. Sharing or collaborating with government documents
   • 9 July 2020

Recommended open standards

The open standards in this group are recommended for government use for the relevant project, programmes and services.

1. Describing RESTful APIs with OpenAPI 3
   • 6 August 2020
2. Tabular data standard
   • 6 August 2020
3. Using metadata to describe data shared within government
   • 6 August 2020
4. Using metadata to describe tabular data for publishing
   • 6 August 2020
5. Using metadata to describe CSV data
   • 6 August 2020

Published 12 July 2017
Last updated 7 August 2020 + show all updates

1. 7 August 2020

   Addition of 3 new profiles for 'Using metadata to describe tabular data for publishing', 'Using metadata to describe data shared within government' and 'Using metadata to describe csv data'. Please note that the publication date for these profiles will appear on all the profiles, but there are no changes to any other profiles at this time.

2. 31 July 2020

   This collection has been amended to make it easier to find the current mandated and recommended open standards.

3. 12 July 2017

   First published.