UK report examines informal support for digital inclusion
The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has published a report examining how people rely on family, friends, and other informal supporters to access digital services.
The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) has published a report examining informal and proxy digital support in the United Kingdom.
The research found that 35% of UK adults had provided informal digital support to another adult during the previous year. It also found that people receiving support often depend on a single person, creating a fragile support system.
Based on a nationally representative survey of 2,261 supporters and other research, the report found that people receiving digital support tend to be older, with a median age of 70. Women accounted for 61% of those receiving support, compared with 38% men.
The main barriers were a lack of digital skills, reported by 55% of respondents, low confidence using the internet (53%), and fear of making a mistake (47%). These barriers were more pronounced among older people, women, and people with long-term health conditions or disabilities.
The report identifies three forms of informal support. Teaching support involves helping someone complete a task themselves. Proxy support involves completing a task on another person’s behalf, while advisory support provides checking or reassurance. Proxy support is more common for complex or high-stakes tasks, while teaching support is more often used for simple and repeatable tasks.
The report recommends that digital services be designed to accommodate supported access from the outset. It also proposes expanding community-based support, including Digital Inclusion Hubs, creating secure and permission-based forms of proxy access, and developing minimum inclusion standards across sectors.
The recommendations are linked to the UK government’s Digital Inclusion Action Plan 2025, which defines digital inclusion in terms of access, skills, support, and confidence needed to participate in digital society.
The report highlights the role of service providers and organisations in reducing the risks associated with informal digital support, including insecure practices such as sharing login credentials.
