The DRCF is made up of the Competition and Markets Authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, Ofcom and the Financial Conduct Authority. It is intended to support consistency between the different regulatory regimes and responsibilities in relation to digital markets.

As the DRCF Chief Executive, Gill Whitehead, explains in a CMA blog post, the DRCF’s work requires it to “look over the horizon as to what might be coming next” and to advance its knowledge as to what the implications may be. However, Ms Whitehead says, to understand where the DRCF can really add value, it needs to know what has already been done. This means having full awareness of the knowledge of its own organisations and those it partners with.

Accordingly, the DRCF has launched a new digital regulation research portal that brings together over 80 pieces of recent research on emerging and future digital developments from eight regulatory bodies, including the DRCF members, and the Intellectual Property Office, the Bank of England, the Advertising Standards Authority and the Gambling Commission.

Ms Whitehead says that by ensuring that this body of knowledge is publicly available, fully accessible and easily discoverable via the DRCF Gov.uk webpage, the DRCF hopes to “better equip all who are interested in contributing to the shape of digital regulation in the UK, and to the debate on how society can best harness the best of the internet without the worst”. To read the blog post in full and for a link to the portal, click here.