The University of East London (UEL) is helping shape the future of digital safety, with Professor Julia Davidson OBE contributing to a major new parliamentary White Paper proposing a product safety approach to regulating social media platforms, artificial intelligence and other digital technologies.
Developed by Tom Collins MP in collaboration with leading academics, industry experts and civil society organisations, the proposals build on UEL's internationally recognised expertise in child online harms, cybercrime and digital safeguarding. The White Paper aims to embed safety into digital products from the outset, shifting responsibility to technology companies to identify and mitigate risks before products reach the public.
Tom Collins, MP for Worcester and a former engineer, is calling for digital products to be regulated in the same way as cars, toys, boilers and other physical products are.
The White Paper goes beyond the Online Safety Act, considering not just illicit content, but also legal but harmful addictive algorithms and features that keep users hooked, disrupt their ability to function socially and undermine democracy. Collins argues that we need to act not just on harms facing children, but also those that impact adults and society generally.
Professor Julia Davidson OBE contributed to the White Paper as one of the UK's foremost experts on child online harms, cybercrime and digital safeguarding. Through her leadership of UEL's Institute for Connected Communities and the Child Online Harms Policy Think Tank, she has advised governments and international organisations on digital regulation, ensuring the proposals are informed by robust evidence and practical safeguarding expertise.
Titled Digital Product Safety , the White Paper launched in Parliament proposes:
Mandatory risk assessments and safety-by-design for digital products;
Independent certification for high-risk social media platforms and AI systems;
The recall or rollback of unsafe algorithms, models and features;
Criminal liability for serious safety failures;
A new fast-moving transitional regulator able to impose immediate commercial and technical sanctions.
The proposals are designed to end what Collins describes as “legislative whack-a-mole” -the cycle of waiting for evidence that a new technology causes harm before Parliament then attempts to regulate individual features, which are easily re-innovated to avoid bans.
Instead, technology companies would have a continuing legal duty to identify and control foreseeable hazards before releasing products to the public.
The framework would assess risks not only from illegal content, but from the ways digital products can distort information, undermine users’ autonomy, reshape relationships and damage institutions or democratic life. This would expand companies’ liability to assess features that are legal but harmful.
Digital product recalls
Under the proposals, regulators could order companies to withdraw or reverse dangerous digital features, including requiring an algorithm or AI model to be returned to its last compliant version.
A new Transitional Digital Product Safety Authority would be established to drive the change and take over relevant enforcement responsibilities during the transition. Designed to operate at the speed of the industry it regulates, the transitional regulator would, where companies refuse to comply, implement escalating sanctions.
Additionally, under the new proposal, higher-risk systems (including major social media platforms, AI companions, foundation models and large-scale AI assistants) could be required to undergo independent assessment, registration or licensing before being made available to British consumers.
This would require tech companies to allow licencing authorities to confidentially peak under to hood and inspect their safety-relevant code and independently test systems under non-disclosure agreements. This is an unprecedented move, where currently social media platforms fiercely guard both their technologies and their data – something physical product developers are simply not able to do.
Professor Julia Davidson OBE, Professor of Criminal Justice and Cybercrime at the University of East London and Director of the Child Online Harms Policy Think Tank, said: “A product safety standards approach provides a practical and proportionate framework for improving child online safety. By embedding safety requirements into the design, development and governance of digital products and services, policymakers can help drive greater consistency, accountability and innovation across the sector, while ensuring children's safety is considered from the outset rather than addressed as an afterthought.”
Tom Collins MP said: “It’s impossible to overestimate the impact that digital is having on our lives and society. This isn’t just a matter of protecting children - it’s a question of how we want digital to be shaping our culture, our minds and our relationships.
“As an engineer, I’ve seen how technical standards can help to navigate this complexity. And history has shown us how, across a range of powerful technologies, product safety legislation has been able to deliver safety, innovation and healthy market growth all at once.
“I felt I could see how this approach could be applied to the digital world and save us the great pain of political battles and new legislation around each and every technical development. This White Paper is my attempt to tell that story and show how we might get a fresh start on regulating digital - not through bans and targeted laws, but through the existing proven framework of Product Safety.
“It’s time for us as parliamentarians to build and execute a strategy that gets us to a situation where everyone is safe by default - empowered by more choices, not fewer - and with the burden of duty placed on providers, not consumers.”
Dr Laura Bishop, Digital Sector Lead for Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security at the British Standards Institution , said: “There is no responsibility greater than people’s safety. For over 125 years standards have played an important role in building trust that products are safe, secure and behave as expected. As technology becomes ever more embedded in the fabric of society, it is essential that the frameworks around them develop at the same pace and support safe, transparent and age-appropriate use. Psychological safety must be treated not as an afterthought, but as a principle by design and a default expectation.”