New report reveals UK as world leader in online safety innovation

The UK’s safety tech sector is helping make the online world safer for millions of people. A study published this week shows significant growth of ‘safety tech’ businesses and their importance in plans to make UK the safest place to be online The independent study, ‘Safer technology, safer users: The UK as a world leader in Safety Tech’, highlights significant growth within the sector, with the number of dedicated online safety firms doubling in the last five years and investment increasing more than eight-fold in 2019, making it a record year. It shows there are almost two thousand people working in more than 70 companies across the UK, including in London, Leeds, Cambridge and Edinburgh have a quarter of global market share for safety tech products. Examples of companies and the products and services they provide include: Cyan Forensics are working closely with law enforcement on ‘digital forensics’ – the automated identification, location and removal of illegal child sexual abuse and terrorist material Crisp, Qumodo and Spirit AI are assisting moderators of social media and gaming platforms to actively identify and respond to bullying, harassment and abuse on their platforms Yoti and Trust Elevate are providing tools that verify the age of users and ensure phones, tablets and the apps on them are safe and appropriate for children South West Grid for Learning, Smoothwall and Opendium are filtering, blocking or blacklisting harmful content across school, business or home internet Full Fact, Factmata and Astroscreen are tackling false, misleading or harmful online narratives, by providing fact-checking services or promoting trusted news and information.