Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg recently that he was going to “close loopholes” in the Online Safety Act and went on to talk about the importance of building in safety into the online world in order to ensure the opportunities of tech can be realised. He said that as far as he was aware, the tech sector was the “only sector .. that can release products in to society without proving they’re safe before release”; he wanted to take steps “to try and make sure safety is there at the start, not picking up the pieces afterwards” promising that increasingly the Government would be working with the US and others “to make sure safety is proven before the release of products”.

Though he didn’t say it in so many words, this sounded very much like the Secretary of State is beginning to think about the Online Safety Act regime in terms of “safety by design” rather than primarily as a takedown-focused regime, centering on individual pieces of content.

A few days later, the joint agreement from the UK and US governments on online safety included a statement that set this out more explicitly:

“Both countries acknowledge that risk-based and safety, privacy, and inclusivity-by-design approaches throughout design, development, and deployment are fundamental to children’s safety and wellbeing online, alongside increased transparency and accountability from online platforms.”

These new signals from the Government are welcome - and long overdue in the context of the UK’s approach. At a late stage in the Online Safety Bill’s passage through Parliament, the Government conceded to cross-party pressure in the House of Lords and added a new Introduction section to the legislation which included the objective that “duties imposed on providers by this Act seek to secure (among other things) that services regulated by this Act are safe by design” (s 1 3(a)).

But, to date, there has not been much in Ofcom’s consultation documents that looks explicitly at how regulated services might take steps to deliver this objective.

In a new explainer, Prof Lorna Woods takes a detailed look at how this “safety by design” requirement might work in the Online Safety Act’s regulatory regime.

Despite the prominence of “safety” in the Act’s name, it’s not as obvious as it sounds.

As Prof Woods sets out, there are different approaches and principles put forward for “safety by design” in online environments, depending on the context or the harm that is under consideration or the jurisdiction that is proposing it. There are models for “by design” frameworks already in operation in other tech- or data-based regimes, including “privacy by design”. Many other industrial and business sectors have long-established rules and regulations for product safety and testing, which - adapted for an online regulatory environment - could provide a fundamental component of a “by-design” regime.

So, coming to a shared understanding of what “safety by design” means with regard to social media platforms is therefore vital to delivering what the Secretary of State appears to want to achieve.

It’s not an entirely new concept for the Government, however. DSIT’s predecessor department - DCMS - produced a very useful and accessible set of principles for online safety by design while the legislation was on its stop-start journey through Parliament; and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has produced its own set of cyber security design principles.

Just last month, the UK Government - a member of the Global Partnership for Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse - signed a call for action on gendered disinformation that urged “technology and other private companies to take appropriate action to respond to this threat, including a commitment to a Safety-by-Design approach to the development and deployment of platforms and technologies”.

And, internationally, there are many models in existence, including the OECD’s work on Digital Safety by Design for Children and the set of “safety by design” principles that the Australian e-Safety Commissioner has been working to for many years.
A further detailed document was recently published by the Australians setting out how “safety by design” can be adopted across industry to address gendered violence:

“By applying a gendered lens to Safety By Design, companies would examine every feature and design aspect to minimise risks for women and girls at the design phase, engineering out potential misuse before launch.”

So, while there’s lots to do - and little time to waste - there’s lots of existing good work to build on. And a political and regulatory shift in the UK towards treating the major social media platforms as product developers and manufacturers, with the same regulatory responsibility for the safety of those products as you’d find in any other industry, has to be welcome.

You can download Prof Woods’ paper as a PDF below.