Further understand investment, export and domestic market access for safety tech products and services in the UK and beyond.
Background
Although there is already material evidence on the types of serious harms individuals encounter online, there still remain a number of emerging harms, where the evidence base is still yet to mature (e.g. epilepsy trolling, online animal abuse). SOH would like to close this significant gap in understanding the impact of encountering different types of serious harms online and understanding the best approaches to measuring the impact of the Online Safety legislation.
SOH highlights the importance of Media Literacy in the digital age and asks for further studies to uncover barriers to engagement as well as the effectiveness of DSIT programmes. This issue closely relates to Counter-Disinformation interventions, which requires evidence for its effect on bystanders, topic specific disinformation and what tools can be used to combat this issue.
Research on Safety Technology would greatly develop SOH’s understanding of the relationship that DSIT online safety objectives have with the technology market today. A primary focus lands on improving Age Assurance (AA) measures. This includes ensuring transparency and assessing opportunities for the sector.
Next steps
If you are keen to register your interest in working and connecting with DSIT Digital Technology and Telecoms Group and/or submitting evidence, then please complete the DSIT-ARI Evidence survey - https://dsit.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cDfmK2OukVAnirs.
Please view full details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-science-innovation-and-technology-areas-of-research-interest/dsit-areas-of-research-interest-2024
Source
This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:
Topics
Related UKRI funded projects
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Digital Consumer Product Safety Research and Innovation Network
UK digital/online trade is a £130 bn p.a. success story. This success is underpinned by the high quality of UK products. This quality is underpinned by world class consumer product safety regulation which makes the...
Funded by: Innovate UK
Why might this be relevant?
Partially relevant as it focuses on consumer product safety in the digital market, but does not directly address safety tech products and services.
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AGENCY: Assuring Citizen Agency in a World with Complex Online Harms
The online world is a curious but uncertain world. It enriches many facets of life but at the same time exposes citizens to a variety of threats that may cause harm to them, their loved ones and to wider society. Many of...
Funded by: SPF
Why might this be relevant?
Partially relevant as it focuses on complex online harms and citizen agency, not specifically on safety tech products and services.
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Crafting a Healthier Internet: People, Things and our Digital Society
The aim for this project is to explore how we can define and foster a healthy relationship between people, the internet and things using the ethos and practices of craft, informed by knowledge within the humanities, augm...
Funded by: AHRC
Why might this be relevant?
Partially relevant as it explores the relationship between people, the internet, and things, but not specifically focused on safety tech products and services.