Safety Tech Principles

Dr. Jacqui Taylor and the Security and Online Harm Directorate’s working group developed these ten Principles. These were a by-product of 2021’s Skills and Capabilities Report.

Principle 0 - context

Prevent online harms

Create a trusted experience for all users, anticipating any likely unintended consequences. Help users understand complex issues around online harms. Design deliberately to keep children safe from online harms.

Principle 0 - Context

Public interest focus

Design technology which protects users online, particularly vulnerable users. Realise the opportunity to make a difference and change outcomes at pace. Your work should create a human solution to remove online harms.

Principle 1 - ethical

Public interest focus

Principle 2 - collaborative

Transdisciplinary approach

Make sure co-design and collaboration is at the core of all service design. Develop partnership commercial models, including with institutions and authorities across different jurisdictions.

Principle 3 - impact driven

Design for impact

Impact should be measurable, accountable and transparent and advance online safety. Identify unacceptable behaviour . Recognise and promote behaviour which reduces online harm.

Principle 4 - inclusive

Value all voices online

Understand and recognise the diversity of communities online and the issues they face to make their voices heard. Address issues of bias, ethics and discrimination in the data and training of DeepTech.

Principle 5 - transparency

Entire value chain

Understand the user’s entire experience across the entire value chain. Use sharing principles to meet transparency objectives. Decide what can be made open without any online harm or unintended consequences.

Principle 6 - privacy preserving

Respect privacy

Understand the privacy needs of all users, particularly the vulnerable and children. Design to preserve privacy without exposing users to online harm.

Principle 7 - adaptable

Be adaptable and flexible

Ensure human oversight. Use an Intelligence driven approach which identifies emerging challenges at speed. Implement objective independent review mechanisms to continuously measure and improve.

Principle 8 - user focused

User focused

Understand all user journeys and champion the individual. Include all user voices in your design.

Principle 9 - security minded

Security-minded

Secured data and services to protect users from bad actors. Focused on building capability and amplifying capacity to enable faster, more efficient and effective safety online.