Safety By Design

Understand why cyber safety matters

If you design online products and services, it is important to invest in risk mitigation at the front end and embed user protections from the beginning. Knowledge of user safety is crucial to help up-and-coming tech leaders prevent their platforms and services being unintentionally weaponised to carry out abuse.

Jointly developed by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner and RMIT University’s Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation, this four-week course will arm you with the tools and skills to design online products and services with online safety and user rights at the core.

Using the principles of Safety by Design, you’ll gain essential knowledge to minimise online threats by anticipating, detecting, and eliminating online harms before they occur.

Unpack transparency and accountability

You’ll start by exploring the three principles of Safety by Design: service provider responsibility, user empowerment and autonomy, and transparency and accountability.

You’ll discover how these principles can be used in your context to increase your online safety knowledge and reduce the risk of harm for your users.

Enhance your e-safety with industry self assessment tools

Next, you’ll put your knowledge into practice as you conduct an e-safety self-assessment on a mock online product or service.

This will help develop practical skills to ensure you can use the self-assessment tool outside of this course to promote user safety and rights.

Delve into cybersecurity research from RMIT University

Finally, you’ll explore the remaining key initiatives of safety by design and the resources available to you.

You’ll learn how these initiatives help to increase awareness of safety by design to ensure you finish the course with the skills to embed cyber safety into your organisational culture.

This course is suitable for:

• Anyone with an interest in designing and developing online products and services

• IT personnel involved in online product and service design and development

• Educators involved in upskilling students on technology design and online safety

• Anyone with an interest in technology policy

• Engineers, computer scientists, lawyers, ethicists, entrepreneurs working in the technology space.

• Why online safety matters
• Introduction
• The basics of user safety
• Introducing Safety by Design
• Key benefits and initiatives of Safety by Design
• Week 1 wrap up
• The three principles of Safety by Design
• Introduction
• Key principles of Safety by Design
• Principle 1: Service provider responsibility
• Principle 2: User empowerment and autonomy
• Principle 3: Transparency and accountability
• Putting the principles into practice
• Week 2 wrap up
• Industry assessment tools
• Introduction
• Safety by Design assessment tools
• Activity: Perform an assessment
• Week 3 wrap up
• A holistic approach to Safety by Design
• Introduction
• Applying Safety by Design as technologies evolve
• Investment, start-up and technology development
• Global application of Safety by Design
• Revisiting the big question
• Week 4 wrap up
• Final assessment