A new white paper from the World Economic Forum’s Global Coalition for Digital Safety navigates the intricacies of measuring digital safety amid evolving technological advancements and regulatory frameworks.
Co-chaired by DTSP and the United Kingdom Office of Communications (Ofcom), the white paper “Making a Difference: How to Measure Digital Safety Effectively to Reduce Risks Online” takes a data-driven approach to digital safety, proposing examples of specific metrics to “measure the immeasurable.”
In an increasingly digital world, comparable and agreed-upon digital safety metrics allow companies, policymakers and other stakeholders to understand risks, allocate resources and demonstrate compliance with regulations.
The white paper explores the most salient approaches to metrics and measurements in the field of digital safety, categorizing digital safety metrics into three groups:
- Impact: metrics that illuminate the impacts on individuals and provide insights into characteristics and patterns of lived experiences
- Risk: metrics that enable the detection and mitigation of potential harms
- Process: metrics that cover the approach, implementation and outcomes of systems relating to digital safety
Consensus-driven metrics for digital safety enable informed decision-making, facilitate policy development and enhance stakeholders’ awareness of online safety issues, allowing for the harmonization of benchmarks.
Read the full white paper here along with a World Economic Forum blog post from David Sullivan and Ofcom’s Collin Kurre on “Why measuring digital safety can protect us online — and how we do it.”