About the Safety Tech Challenge

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Home Office and GCHQ are investing over £350,000 in innovation projects that enhance UK capabilities in protecting children online. This will be delivered by Innovate UK via the UK Safety Tech challenge fund.

The aim of this challenge fund is to enhance UK capabilities in protecting all users online, but in particular preventing harm of children online.

Project proposals must help in identifying and disrupting the sharing of child sexual abuse links to further develop a ‘safety by design’ culture in advance of upcoming regulatory changes.

The effectiveness of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) blocking access to illegal sites is deteriorating due to increased encryption of web traffic.

The fund will focus on:

• content moderation of the sharing of links to child sexual abuse material (CSAM)
• detecting and disrupting the modification of links to CSAM
• locations facilitating CSAM access, including gateway and torrent sites

The term ‘links’ encompasses original URLs and shortened or modified URLs.

This competition has now closed.

For more details about eligibility and scope, please click here.

Competition briefing event

On 23 February 2023, Innovate UK KTN hosted an online briefing event for the Safety Tech Challenge: link sharing of Child Sexual Abuse Material. 

The event, in partnership with Innovate UK, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Home Office and GCHQ discussed in detail the scope for the competition, the eligibility criteria, technical background and provided an opportunity for audience members to ask any questions directly to the competition funders.