Deloitte was commissioned by the Online Safety Technology and Innovation Team of the UK Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to conduct research exploring how different internet companies use people, processes and advanced technology to keep users safe from online harm.
We surveyed several Trust & Safety leaders across the internet and digital economy to understand their needs and challenges. From the research, a number of actions emerge for T&S leaders to consider, which we’ve taken directly from the final report and set out below. The full report can be found here.
Prepare for long term compliance: Recent regulations impacting Trust and Safety teams create on-going and annual obligations for the industry. It is expected that other global regulatory regimes will soon follow suit with additional legislation. Trust and Safety teams need to collaborate and partner with the Compliance function quickly to adapt to the newly regulated environments that evolve regularly. Developing scalable procedures and methodologies that solve for multiple regulations and provide sustainable compliance will save time, effort, and money in future years.
Leverage external scrutiny: Regulations can be leveraged to demonstrate how Trust and Safety operations provide valuable risk mitigation and controls. Effective Trust and Safety increases user confidence and enhances the user experience, tying it to platform growth. It also serves as protection again financial fines and penalties, some of which are as significant as 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue or even court orders for business disruption measures for the most serious cases of non-compliance. This provides Trust and Safety with a strong business case for executive sponsorship, resourcing, and additional investment.
Build strong cross-functional partnerships: A strong Trust and Safety internal brand across functional teams will not only support maturity of Trust and Safety skills and capabilities but will also embed Trust and Safety in the culture of the organisation. This will make Safety by Design easier to socialise and implement, as well as other cross-functional activities such as risk assessments.
Engage with external experts: New threat vectors will continue to emerge at a rapid rate. Engaging with researchers, academic, NGOs and other industry experts will help Trust and Safety functions to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to emerging threats. This will also support compliance with regulatory obligations around engaging with external parties to inform risk assessments and appropriate mitigations.
Prioritise accountability: Accountability is critical to effective governance over Trust and Safety operations. The ability to identify relevant parties and hold them accountable is supported by increased cross-functional socialisation of the Trust and Safety value and employee training of good practice.
For more information, please get in touch with a member of the team.
Read the full report here