Safety Tech Challenge: link sharing of Child Sexual Abuse Material
Overview
Overview
The aim of this competition is to enhance UK capabilities in protecting all users online, but in particular preventing harm of children online.
Your proposal 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.
Project size
Your project’s grant funding request must be between £70,000 and £120,000
Who can apply
Your project
All projects must develop new approaches, adapt existing technologies or scale up tools to identify and take further action on CSAM links.
Your project must:
- have a grant funding request between £70,000 and £120,000
- start by 1 June 2023
- end by 29 February 2024
- last between 6 months and 9 months
- carry out its project work in the UK
- intend to exploit the results from or in the UK
- demonstrate transparency, data protection and protect user privacy
They encourage projects from diverse sectors including communications, advertising and finance.
You must only include eligible project costs in your application.
You will be made ineligible if you exceed the Minimal Financial Assistance limit. You must submit a complete declaration as part of your application.
Lead organisation
To lead a project your organisation must be a UK registered business of any size, academic institution, charity, not-for-profit, public sector organisation or research and technology organisation (RTO).
More information on the different types of organisation can be found in their Funding rules.
Subcontractors
Subcontractors are allowed in this competition.
Subcontractors can be from anywhere in the UK and you must select them through your usual procurement process.
You can use subcontractors from overseas but must make the case in your application as to why you could not use suppliers from the UK.
You must also provide a detailed rationale, evidence of the potential UK contractors you approached and the reasons why they were unable to work with you.
They expect all subcontractor costs to be justified and appropriate to the total eligible project costs. They will not accept a cheaper cost as a sufficient reason to use an overseas subcontractor.
Previous applications
You cannot use a previously submitted application to apply for this competition.
They will not award you funding if you have:
- failed to exploit a previously funded project
- an overdue independent accountant’s report
- failed to comply with grant terms and conditions
Minimal Financial Assistance (and De minimis where applicable)
Grant funding in this competition is awarded as Minimal Financial assistance (MFA). This allows public bodies to award up to £315,000 to an enterprise in a 3 year rolling financial period.
In your application you will be asked to declare previous funding received by you. This will form part of the financial checks ahead of Innovate UK making a formal grant offer.
To establish your eligibility they need to check that their support added to the amount you have previously received does not exceed the limit of £315,000 in the ‘applicable period’.
The applicable period is made up of:
(a) the elapsed part of the current financial year, and
(b) the two financial years immediately preceding the current financial year.
You must include any funding which you have received during the applicable period under:
- Minimal Financial Assistance (previously referred to as Special Drawing Rights)
- De Minimis Regulation
You do not need to include aid or subsidies which have been granted on a different basis, for example, an aid award granted under the General Block Exemption Regulation.
Further information about the UK subsidy control requirements can be found in:
EU Commission rules now only apply in limited circumstances. Please see their general guidance to check if these rules apply to your organisation.
Further information
If you are unsure about your obligations under the UK’s International Obligations to Subsidy Control or the De minimis rules, you should take independent legal advice. They cannot advise on individual eligibility or your legal obligations.
If there are any changes to the above requirements that mean we need to change the terms of this competition they will tell you as soon as possible.
Funding
They have allocated up to £700,000 to fund innovation projects in this competition.
You can request 100% funding for your eligible project costs up to a maximum of £120,000.
For more information on company sizes, please refer to the Company accounts guidance. This is a change from the EU definition unless you are applying under European Commission De minimis.
If you are applying for an award funded under European Commission Regulations the definitions are set out in the European Commission Recommendation of 6 May 2003.
Scope
Your proposal
The aim of this competition is to enhance UK capabilities in protecting all users online, but in particular preventing harm of children online. The competition seeks to further develop a 'safety by design' culture in the UK in advance of upcoming regulatory changes.
Your project must develop new approaches, adapt existing technologies or scale up tools to prevent and block sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) links on the clear web. They particularly encourage projects that seek to scale solutions or address barriers to scaling up solutions.
They also encourage applicants working in wider innovation areas and diverse sectors to apply, as well as multidisciplinary teams and approaches.
Your project must also be able to demonstrate transparency, data protection and protect user privacy.
They expect you to include user-centred design approaches to help achieve solutions that are impactful and are usable.
Portfolio approach
They want to fund a variety of projects across different competition themes. They call this a portfolio approach.
Specific themes
Your project must focus on one or more of the following:
- identifying CSAM links shared in public spaces, particularly on social media, forums and gaming platforms
- identifying CSAM links in private spaces, including those within an end-to-end encryption (E2EE) environment, particularly text-based chat or messaging platforms for 1 to 1 or group communications
- detecting and disrupting CSAM link shortening or modification
- onwards reporting and action to block access to CSAM links
Supporting information
Due to a change within the UK Government on 07/02/2023 the name of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has changed to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
This competition is jointly operated by Innovate UK and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) (each an “agency”).
Any relevant information submitted and produced during the application process concerning your application can be shared by one agency with the other, for its individual storage, processing and use.
This means that any information given to or generated by Innovate UK in respect of your application may be passed on to DSIT and vice versa. This would include, but is not restricted to:
- the information stated on the application, including the personal details of all applicants
- scoring and feedback on the application
- information received during the management and administration of the grant, such as Monitoring Officer reports and Independent Accountant Reports
Innovate UK and DSIT are directly accountable to you for their holding and processing of your information, including any personal data and confidential information. Data is held in accordance with their own policies. Accordingly, Innovate UK, and DSIT will be data controllers for personal data submitted during the application. Innovate UK’s Privacy Policy is accessible here.
Innovate UK complies with the requirements of GDPR, and is committed to upholding the data protection principles, and protecting your information. The Information Commissioner’s Office also has a useful guide for organisations, which outlines the data protection principles.
Find a project partner
If you want help to find a project partner, contact Innovate UK KTN.
Support for SMEs from Innovate Edge
If you receive an award, you will be contacted about working with an innovation and growth specialist at Innovate UK EDGE. This service forms part of our funded offer to you.
These specialists focus on growing innovative businesses and ensuring that projects contribute to their growth. Working one-to-one, they can help you to identify your best strategy and harness world-class resources to grow and achieve scale.
They encourage you to engage with EDGE, delivered by a knowledgeable and objective specialist near you.
Next Steps
If you are successful with this application, you will be asked to set up your project.
You must follow the unique link embedded in your email notification. This takes you to your IFS Set Up portal, the tool that Innovate UK uses to gather necessary information before we can allow your project to begin.
You will need to provide:
- the name and contact details of your project manager and project finance lead
- a redacted copy of your bank details
- an exploitation plan
In order to process your claims, they need to make sure that the bank details you give to them relate to a UK high street bank that is regulated by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). The account must have a BACS clearing facility and be in the same company name as your application.
If you have any doubts that your bank account will not meet Innovate UK's funding criteria, you can use the sort code checker. If you input the sort code and find a tick next to the ‘BACS Direct Credit payments can be sent to this sort code’, this will give you an indication that the bank account you hold is acceptable.
Finance checks
They will carry out checks to make sure you are an established company with access to the funds necessary to complete the project.
You must check your IFS portal regularly and respond to any requests they have sent for additional information to avoid any delays.
Failure to complete project setup may result in your grant offer being withdrawn.
Your Grant offer Letter (GoL)
Once you have successfully completed project setup, they will issue your GoL.
The GoL will be made available on your IFS portal. You will need to sign and upload this before you start your project.
Your GoL will show the start date for your project, do not start your project before this date. Any costs incurred before your start date cannot be claimed as part of your grant.
If your application is unsuccessful
If you are unsuccessful with your application this time, you can view feedback from the assessors. This will be available to you on your IFS portal following notification.
Your application may score well and receive positive feedback from the assessors but be unsuccessful. This can be because your average score has not reached the funding threshold for this competition or your project has not been selected under the portfolio approach if applied to this competition.