Britain is considering setting up a satellite navigation system to rival the European Union's Galileo project amid a row over attempts to restrict Britain's access to sensitive security information after Brexit, the Financial Times reports.
The Galileo satellite program is the EU's 10 billion euro ($A17.1 billion) program to develop a rival to the US Global Positioning System.
The FT also said Britain's business minister Greg Clark was taking legal advice on reclaiming the 1.4 billion euros it has invested in Galileo since the project started in 2003.
The European Commission has started to exclude Britain and its companies from sensitive future work on Galileo ahead of the country's exit from the EU in a year's time, a move which UK business minister Clark said threatened security collaboration.
"We have made it clear we do not accept the Commission's position on Galileo, which could seriously damage mutually beneficial collaboration on security and defence matters," he said in an emailed statement.
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Britain has played a big part in Galileo so far, carrying out about 15 per cent of the work on it. Clark said if Britain was excluded it could result in years of delays and higher costs for the project "stretching into the billions".
He promised to ensure that Britain's space industry was not deprived of future opportunities.
