WIREDGOV

The GovTech Fund has launched a competition to find tech solutions to help with identifying Daesh still-imagery online.

Earlier this month the Government announced the first round of competitionsfor tech specialists to tackle social challenges at the government’s flagship digital conference, Sprint 18. The competitions will be delivered using the £20m GovTech fund launched by the Prime Minister in November 2017.

Applications are now open for the first of these competitions, finding innovative tech solutions to identify, catalogue and analyse terrorist still imagery online.

Terrorist group Daesh uses both video and still imagery to recruit and radicalise people online. The Home Office has a tool that allows them to identify this video content with up to 99.995% accuracy, but has not been able to achieve that with still images.

Home Office research shows that more than two-thirds of terrorist propaganda disseminated online is still imagery. And so this competition is seeking solutions from innovative tech companies to meet this challenge. The winning companies will be awarded up to £50,000 to develop their ideas, with a further £500,000 available to continue development and test solutions.

Companies interested in the Home Office’s ‘Identifying Daesh still imagery’ challenge can pitch using the Innovation Funding Service, which has all the details on how to apply, funding, project scope and challenge context. Registration for this competition closes on 20 June.