Who can apply to the Sandbox?

The Sandbox is a free service for organisations who intend to or are in the process of developing innovative products and services using personal data, operating under UK data protection law.

Please see Our key areas of focus for the Regulatory Sandbox, for further information about the kinds of innovative projects we are interested in working with in the Sandbox this year.

We welcome expressions of interest from start-ups, small or medium organisations and large organisations, across private, public and voluntary sectors. Expressions of interest are also welcome from organisations whose innovations are at different stages of development, from proof-of-concept stage to the scaling of existing developments. We ask that organisations applying to enter the Sandbox are at least able to demonstrate the practical feasibility and viability of their proposed innovation, although the innovation or development should not already be processing personal data (with the exception of product testing in some cases) - see Can I enter the Sandbox with a product/service that is already processing personal information? for more information.

We are only accepting applications from organisations whose data processing comes under the remit of UK data protection law.

If you are applying as a consortia or as joint controllers, please ensure your Expression of Interest is completed by a single, nominated ‘lead organisation’ for your sandbox participation. They will take responsibility for managing the input of the other organisations and their compliance with the terms and conditions.