UK MOD JSP 936 vs DoD Responsible AI

UK MOD and the US Department of Defense both publish official AI ethics principles and an implementation document. They are not the same document, and neither page we cite publishes a crosswalk to the other. For what Part 1 actually says to a supplier, see What JSP 936 Part 1 asks of industry partners and suppliers.

Status as of 14 October 2026: GOV.UK still dates JSP 936 Part 1 Published: 13 November 2024 (PDF still 41 pages) and still calls it the principal policy framework governing the safe and responsible adoption of AI in MOD. The live Tradewinds AIA Toolkit is still a self-evaluation resource aligned to DoW AI Ethical Principles, still names Program Managers, AI Developers, Acquisition Teams, Legal/Compliance, and End Users, and is still accessible in both IL2 and IL5 environments. The public AIPH remains Part 2-style guidance; the DAIC AI Assurance Framework is still dated Published: 27 February 2026.

What JSP 936 is

GOV.UK calls JSP 936 Part 1 the principal policy framework governing the safe and responsible adoption of AI in MOD, published 13 November 2024. It follows the Defence Artificial Intelligence Strategy and the Ambitious, Safe, Responsible policy.

The V1.1 PDF mandates the application of ambitious, safe and responsible practices relating to all Defence projects that include Artificial Intelligence. Must means a compulsory requirement. Those requirements must be implemented from the outset of all Defence Capability development where MOD requirements lead to the use of AI.

The five principles the JSP implements, copied verbatim from the ASR, are Human-centricity, Responsibility, Understanding, Bias and harm mitigation, and Reliability.

MOD’s AI Practitioners’ Hub is guidance and resources to help you comply with … JSP 936 Part 1. It is not a substitute for the directive. The Hub’s DAIC AI Assurance Framework (Published: 27 February 2026) Relates to: JSP 936 Part 1 – Section 9 and focuses on people, process, evidence and technology. See the AIPH listing.

What DoD Responsible AI is

The Department officially adopted a series of ethical principles for the use of AI in February 2020: Responsible, Equitable, Traceable, Reliable and Governable.

CDAO publicly released the RAI Toolkit on 14 November 2023 as a voluntary process that identifies, tracks, and improves alignment of AI projects to RAI best practices and the DoD AI Ethical Principles. The live Tradewinds page now titles it the AIA Toolkit and still calls it a self-evaluation resource aligned to DoW AI Ethical Principles. The older RAI Toolkit URL still resolves. The 2023 Tradewinds copy used a minimum-viable-product label; the current AIA page we fetched does not. The Department’s release says the toolkit offers guidance and an RAI standard to current and future DoD industry partners. We have not found a source that makes completing the toolkit a contractual or CMMC requirement. See the DoD Responsible AI explainer.

Side-by-side, using only what each source claims

The principle lists overlap in theme (responsibility, reliability, bias) and differ in wording and in extras: MOD names Human-centricity and Understanding; DoD names Equitable, Traceable and Governable. We have not found an official UK or US page that maps those lists to each other, so this page does not invent a map.

NATO as a third official baseline

Both countries are Allies. NATO’s 2021 AI Strategy sets six Principles of Responsible Use: Lawfulness, Responsibility and Accountability, Explainability and Traceability, Reliability, Governability, and Bias Mitigation. The 2024 revised strategy restates those six. NATO says the principles do not affect or supersede existing obligations and that some Allies already have national principles. The JSP cover note says Responsible AI processes increase the assurance between Allies in NATO. That is a UK statement about interoperability, not a claim that JSP 936 implements the NATO list.

See the NATO PRUAI explainer and UK MOD JSP 936.

What neither document is

Neither document is CMMC, neither is an aviation means of compliance, and neither is a functional-safety SIL method. JSP 936 does not provide a list of AI-enabled systems which are compliant or not. The DoD toolkit is voluntary.

Analysis, not sourced fact: a supplier on both a UK MOD and a US DoD program will have two national principle sets plus the NATO baseline. The sourced difference that matters first is force: JSP 936 Part 1 uses must for MOD staff; the RAI Toolkit describes itself as voluntary.

Questions

Does completing the DoD RAI Toolkit satisfy JSP 936?

No official page we cite says that. JSP 936 is UK MOD direction; the toolkit is a US voluntary process.

Are the five UK principles the same as the five US principles?

They are different official lists. Shared themes are not a published mapping.

Does NATO replace either national document?

NATO says its principles do not affect or supersede existing obligations.