After establishing a fresh website safety working group to share knowledge and data, the UK and US governments have announced a joint commitment to work more closely on the issue of children’s safety online.
According to the governments, there is now little research and evidence on the possible effects of social media on children and young people despite “near general” smartphone ownership among UK and US teenagers.
Therefore, US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo and UK technology secretary Peter Kyle have agreed to share knowledge and information about the effectiveness of various safety technologies, promote greater transparency among online platforms, and take into account the effects of more recent technologies like generative artificial intelligence ( GenAI ).
Once established, the combined children’s online safety working group will take into account access to privacy-preserving social media data by researchers in order to better understand the effects and risks of the modern world on young people.
” The online world enriches fresh people’s educational and social lives by providing amazing benefits for them.” However, these encounters must occur in a place where safety has been a priority from the beginning, no as a last-ditch omission. Delivering this goal is my priority”, said Kyle.
Working with our international partners, including the US, one of our closest allies and home to the largest tech firms, is necessary because the online world has no boundaries. Our traditional partnership will be reflected in this joint statement, which aims to make the internet safer for the next generation.
This historic agreement will help us expand resources to support children and young people’s success electronically, both domestically and overseas, according to Raimondo,” We continue to fight against youth website exploitation.”
According to a report from the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology ( DSIT ), the US and the UK have the first and second largest safety technology sectors, respectively. In the UK, businesses contributed more than £600m to the economy last year.
It said the sector saw a 37 % total revenue increase in 2023 and will hit £1bn in annual revenues by 2025/26 if the current growth rate is maintained. Additionally, procurement data suggests that the UK public sector has commissioned a total of 326 contracts in relation to” trust and safety” and online safety, with a contract value of £76m.
Important buyers include DSIT, Ofcom, the Home Office and the Department for Education, relating to both the procurement of services, products and commissioning of research.
The UK’s safety tech sector generated £226 million in annual revenues in 2019, according to a past regional analysis by the UK government that was published in May 2020.
The Online Safety Act in the UK places obligations on online platforms to safeguard children’s safety, establish risk mitigation strategies, and actively combat the most obscene unlawful content and activity.
This requires social media companies to ensure that their systems and procedures are designed to minimize how much improper content is available electronically, minimize its availability, and remove it as soon as possible once they become aware of it.
In May 2024, the UK’s online safety regulator, Ofcom, released draft website child safety regulations for tech companies outlining how it anticipates that digital services that children can access conduct rigorous age checks, set their algorithms to filter out the most dangerous content from these children’s feeds, and implement content moderation procedures that ensure timely action is taken against this content.
The US government’s Kids Online Health and Safety Taskforce, which creates and reviews best practice guidelines for industry and caregivers, aims to advance the health, safety, and privacy of children online.
In July 2024, the taskforce’s second report was released, outlining both the dangers and advantages for younger social media users. It recommended designing age-appropriate experiences, putting in place privacy protections as a standard, improving online systems to combat bias and discrimination, and using data-driven techniques to detect and stop cyberbullying and various forms of harassment and abuse.
