Conference Day Two - Wednesday 26th March 2025

Trust & Safety teams face the urgent challenge of responding to critical incidents in real-time. This panel will delve into the complexities of robust incident response frameworks and the challenges of cross-platform investigations. Developing and refining incident response protocols to effectively address high-stakes events, ensuring rapid detection, assessment, and mitigation

• Discussing current strategies and tools employed by platforms to counter threats, fraud and harms, and how these efforts adapt to new tactics and emerging threats
• Exploring the role of digital fingerprinting and hashing technologies in identifying and preventing cross-platform spread of known harmful content
• Addressing the legal, technical, and operational challenges that hinder seamless data sharing and collaboration between platforms, which is crucial for disrupting coordinated harmful activities and preventing "platform hopping."
• Highlighting the critical need for increased partnership between tech companies, law enforcement, government agencies, and civil society organisations to build a more unified and effective front against severe harms.

Jonathan Byrne

Global Director, Public Safety Operations
Uber

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Luke Mitsi

Global Manager of Law Enforcement Operations & Incident Management, Trust and Sa
Bumble

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Skip Gilmour

Director Trust & Safety Solutions
GIFCT

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For Booking.com, T&S extends beyond online safety, this means tackling threats that manifest offline – everything from protecting customers during travel to helping prevent human trafficking. This session will explore how they work with the wider ecosystem of enforcement bodies, NGOs, intelligence partners, regulators, and government agencies to address complex offline risks. Examining how cross-sector collaboration strengthens protections and helps keep users safe in real life.

• Distinguishing between online and offline safety challenges
• Building partnerships with enforcement, NGOs, and regulators to combat human trafficking
• Embedding proactive safeguards that extend protections beyond the platform
• Strategies for keeping customers safe throughout their real-world journeys

Neda Esser-Niazian

Director Group Trust & Safety
Booking

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For the third year in a row, this panel will delve in to what platforms are doing to protect young users online, and what more can be done. Discussing practical, scalable solutions to create safer digital spaces for children.

• Is the current approach to child safety fit for purpose? Where do we need to make changes?
• Navigating the fine line between safeguarding children and respecting their data privacy
• Identifying and removing harmful content at source across children’s platforms
• Educating children about online safety and empower parents to manage their child’s digital presence.
• Building partnerships to address child safety issues and streamline reporting mechanisms for cases across platforms.

Laura Higgins

Senior Director Community Safety & Civility
Roblox

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Mark Ferrell

Director of Online Community Operations (head of Trust and Safety)
Scratch Foundation

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Protecting children online isn’t just about - it is about creating digital environments where young people can actively thrive, and the value that can bring to you as a business. By embedding wellbeing into the design of products, platforms can go beyond compliance to foster resilience, creativity, and advocacy. This presentation will explore how to integrate wellbeing-by-design into the core of children’s digital experiences.

• Embedding wellbeing principles into product and feature design from the start
• Designing safeguards that reduce exposure to harmful content while promoting positive play and learning
• Exploring how inclusive design supports resilience, self-expression, and digital literacy in young users
• Aligning wellbeing-by-design approaches with evolving regulation and child safety frameworks
• Measuring success not just by harm reduction, but by outcomes in wellbeing, trust, and long-term user growth

Declan Henesy

Global Digital Child Safety Senior Manager
LEGO Group

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Caroline Hurst

Senior Manager, Digital Child Safety
The LEGO Group

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Marketplaces thrive on trust - yet bad actors continue to exploit loopholes, mislead customers, and erode confidence in online commerce. As fraudulent sellers grow increasingly sophisticated, platforms must evolve their Trust & Safety strategies to protect both buyers and brands while keeping the shopping experience seamless. This panel will explore how leaders are building resilient marketplaces that balance growth with safety.

• Seller vetting before onboarding, with robust identity and business verification plus ongoing compliance reviews
• Pre-listing protections, including restrictions on high-risk categories
• AI-driven and real-time monitoring of product listings, backed by automation and human oversight
• Enforcement measures: proactive removal of violating listings and, where necessary, sellers
• Rapid response capabilities and brand protection tools to resolve issues quickly
• Customer-centric safeguards, from convenient returns to transparent policies
• Educating and supporting sellers to maintain high standards and compliance

Mostafa Hassanin

Group CISO / CIO
Swiss Marketplace Group

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Sophie Walsh

Head of Trust & Safety
Depop

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Maria Alexandra van Nievelt

Senior Manager, Global Marketplace Risk & Business Strategy
Walmart

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A new generation of SafetyTech is emerging to tackle some of Trust & Safety’s hardest challenges - from real-time content detection to age assurance, fraud prevention, and child protection. Building agile solutions that help platforms meet regulatory requirements while advancing safety by design. This panel will spotlight the most exciting SafetyTech companies and explore how their work is shaping the future of the industry.

• Showcasing cutting-edge start-ups addressing harms from AI-generated content to grooming and fraud
• Exploring how SafetyTech solutions are being integrated into platform workflows and product design
• Discussing the challenges and opportunities of scaling new safety tools in complex enterprise environments

The gaming industry operates a unique and dynamic ecosystem, presenting distinct Trust & Safety challenges and opportunities compared to other platforms. In this panel, we delve into how gaming companies approach user safety, moving beyond reactive measures to build proactive safety ecosystems. Exploring the intricacies of player experiences, discuss how safety is woven into game design for effective interventions, and share insights on fostering thriving communities where fun and safety coexist.

• Exploring the components of safety in gaming, from in-game moderation and community management to platform-level protections and external partnerships.
• Understanding player interactions and behaviours to design safety measures that enhance the overall player experience
• Embedding proactive safety features and intervention mechanisms directly into game design, allowing for early detection and mitigation of harmful behaviours and content.
• Navigating the challenge of enabling creative expression and dynamic social play while implementing robust safeguards against toxicity, harassment, and other forms of abuse unique to gaming.

Nate Sawatzky

Head of Player Care (T&S + Player Support)
Supercell

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Laura Higgins

Senior Director Community Safety & Civility
Roblox

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Matthew Soeth

Executive Director
Thriving in Games Group

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Today’s teams need to blend technical expertise, regulatory fluency, operational resilience, and cultural awareness to meet rising expectations. This lunch and learn will unpack the evolving skillsets required for modern T&S professionals, and how organisations can build and nurture them.

• Identifying the new core competencies for T&S, from AI literacy to risk modelling and data analysis
• Exploring the growing importance of regulatory, policy, and legal expertise within safety teams
• Highlighting operational skills such as risk & crisis management, escalation protocols, and cross-functional collaboration
• Building pathways to attract, train, and retain T&S professionals with the diverse skills needed for the future

Matthew Soeth

Executive Director
Thriving in Games Group

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The digital landscape is fertile ground for increasingly sophisticated bad faith actors, from deepfakes to large-scale AI-driven scam operations. This panel will bring together leading experts in Trust & Safety to uncover the latest tactics used to identify and respond to fraud. Exploring how these deceptive activities manifest across various platforms, examine the vulnerabilities of young people to online scams, and share actionable insights on how platforms can evolve their defences to stay ahead of the curve.

• Exploring the evolving threat landscape
• Developing and deploying advanced techniques to identify, track, and disrupt bad faith actors in real-time
• Protecting vulnerable populations susceptible and discussing tailored approaches to education, platform features, and intervention strategies to safeguard them.
• Discussing the critical balance between automated detection systems and human intelligence in investigating complex fraud schemes
• Working with law enforcement to respond to and apprehend bad faith actors

As one of the world’s most widely used information sources, Wikipedia plays a critical role during election cycles. Ensuring knowledge integrity against coordinated manipulation and bad-faith actors has become an urgent challenge. This session will explore how Wikipedia building safeguards into its processes and products to safeguard future elections, and what other platforms can learn from its approach.

• Protecting knowledge integrity within high-stakes election contexts
• Anticipating and countering coordinated campaigns from bad-faith actors
• The role of AI - both as a potential threat and as a tool for defending integrity
• Lessons platforms can take from Wikipedia’s model of open, community-driven trust

Jan Eissfeldt

Director, Global Head of Trust & Safety
Wikimedia Foundation

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Law enforcement operations are being forced to adapt as online harms escalate in scale, complexity, and speed. This session will explore how law enforcement operations are transforming to meet the realities of digital risk and what this means for the wider Trust & Safety ecosystem.

• Shifting from reactive investigations to proactive, intelligence-led operations in online safety
• Adapting operational models to tackle cross-border crime, jurisdictional challenges, and digital evidence collection
• Integrating new capabilities to address AI-driven harms, synthetic media, and emerging forms of abuse
• Balancing rapid operational response with accountability, transparency, and user rights
• Building stronger operational frameworks for collaboration with platforms, regulators, and global partners

From the influence of online personalities to the impact on attitudes to women, self-identity, and health, platforms must grapple with how their ecosystems shape a generation of young men. This session will bring these challenges to the forefront.

• Understanding the online pressures shaping boys’ and young men’s ideas, attitudes, and behaviour
• The health implications of exposure to harmful content and unhealthy online cultures
• The role of influencers, gaming ecosystems and online communities in shaping male identity and expectations
• Strategies for building more supportive, protective online environments for boys and young men

Sarah Sternberg

Director - Global Reimagining Masculinities Initiative
Movember

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Caroline Hayes

Senior Technical Specialist on Digital Strategies
Equimundo

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Kenya Fairley

Planning & Partnerships Associate Director, Trust & Safety Business Unit
Bumble

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Women and young girls face some of the most pervasive and persistent harms online, from gender-based violence to the growing threat of nudification apps and non-consensual intimate imagery. Platforms, regulators, and law enforcement are under increasing pressure to respond with systems that protect victims, reduce exposure to harmful content, and deliver real-world justice. This session will bring those challenges — and emerging solutions — into focus.

• Tackling gender-based violence and violence against women and girls (VAWG) online
• Identifying and responding to new challenges such as nudification apps
• Reducing exposure to harmful content, including eating disorders, suicide, and mental health risks
• The “Take It Down” Act and the role of automated reporting/takedown mechanisms in addressing NCII
• Protecting victims: bridging the gap between online response and offline justice

David Wright

CEO
SWGfL

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The persistent and evolving threats of Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) and Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) demand a unified and proactive approach from all stakeholders. This critical panel, featuring leaders from the Tech Coalition, the Internet Watch Foundation, will explore actionable strategies for tech companies and the wider safety community to effectively combat these harms. We will delve into what leadership can do, the pathways for new professionals entering this vital field, the tools available for prevention and response, and how we can collectively future-proof our defences against emerging challenges like AI-generated CSAM.

• Leadership in Action: Tackling OCSEA and CSAM: What concrete steps can senior leaders within tech companies take to prioritize, resource, and drive effective initiatives against online child sexual exploitation and abuse?
• Reviewing technologies, resources, and best practices available to platforms and organizations for identifying, preventing, and removing CSAM, including the power of digital fingerprints.
• Understanding the evolving landscape of legal and ethical requirements for child online safety, and how companies can meet and exceed these mandates.
• Addressing the challenges posed by AI-generated CSAM and other emerging technologies, and the strategies required to develop effective safeguards and proactive prevention measures.

Hannah Swirsky

Head of Policy and Public Affairs
Internet Watch Foundation

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Katia Potapov

Vice President of Membership Development
Tech Coalition

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Iain Drennan

Executive Director
WeProtect Global Alliance

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Dating platforms face a dual responsibility: protecting users in digital spaces and responsibly facilitating the connections that extend into the real world. To effectively meet this challenge, Trust & Safety teams must be embedded into product and operational decision-making, ensuring safety is not an afterthought but a core principle. This panel will explore how leading platforms are tackling these complexities.

• Embedding T&S teams cross-functionally to prioritize safety by design
• Addressing the unique challenges of online interactions within dating
• Balancing user experience with proactive safeguards against harm
• Leveraging data, reporting tools, and partnerships to detect and mitigate risk
• Future directions in dating safety: what innovations and collaborations are needed next

Simon Newman

CEO
Online Dating and Discovery Association

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Dan Skolovy

Director of Product Management, Trust & Safety – Evergreen & Emerging Brands,
Match Group

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The launch of the HMD Fuse, in partnership with Safetonet and VodafoneThree, represents a new frontier in embedding safety directly into devices. By integrating AI directly into the OS, content filtering at the camera and screen level, and new parental control mechanisms, device manufacturers are reframing what “safety by design” could look like. This session will unpack the opportunities and challenges of this approach.

• What does “safe tech” look like at the device level?
• The challenges of gathering online data - how to address harms when visibility is limited, and the role of effective partnerships
• Integrating AI into the operating system: content filtering, camera, and screen rendering
• The power and problems of parental controls, including conflict in the household
• Navigating the privacy problem: protecting children while safeguarding identity and data
• Working with platforms to understand the value and limits of device-level safety

Richard Pursey

Executive Chairman & Co-Founder
SafeToNet

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As AI continues to evolve and integrate into our daily lives, building user trust and ensuring safety is paramount. This panel will explore the critical strategies for developing AI products and services that users can trust, focusing on how to create enriching experiences while mitigating potential risks.

• Developing a comprehensive AI strategy that inherently weaves in trust and safety from the outset, rather than as an afterthought
• Building Trust in Generative AI: Creating generative AI services and products that foster user trust and prevent misuse or unintended consequences
• Navigating unique trust and safety challenges in conversational AI and avatars, and how to effectively manage content, context, and user interactions to ensure a secure environment
• Implementing scalable solutions and proactive measures to identify and address potential misuse of AI technologies, as user bases grow
• What are the key trade-offs and considerations when striving to innovate with AI while simultaneously ensuring robust user protection and ethical guidelines?

Katia Potapov

Vice President of Membership Development
Tech Coalition

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David Miles

Director of Safety Policy at Meta - Europe, Middle East and Africa
Meta

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Vincent Courson

Trust & Safety Strategic Partnerships
Google

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