A major three-year research project led by Heriot-Watt University has found that the rapid digitisation of essential services in the UK is deepening inequalities for minority ethnic communities.

According to the Protecting Minority Ethnic Communities Online (PRIME) study, without careful design, online services risk further excluding those already facing digital exclusion in essential areas, including healthcare, housing, and energy services.

To tackle the problem, the interdisciplinary research team, led by Professor Gina Netto at Heriot-Watt, examined the impact of digitalisation in four locations, including Glasgow, Bradford, Manchester, and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, with the results highlighting the particular issues that minority ethnic communities face when essential services move online.

Researchers found that poorly designed digital platforms combined with a lack of support and inadequate regulatory oversight can further marginalise already vulnerable groups, pointing to major gaps in how digital services are designed and regulated in the UK.

In healthcare, for example, the team found that although multiple regulatory bodies oversee digital systems, there is no clear framework to ensure fair access for minority ethnic communities, with many struggling to book appointments or access records online, with little accountability for how these digital inequalities affect health outcomes.

“While digital technology has enormous potential, it can also entrench existing inequalities,” said Professor Netto, at Heriot-Watt’s School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society.

“For those with limited English proficiency, digital literacy or access to adequate digital devices and internet connectivity, the barriers to navigating online systems can be insurmountable. And in areas like healthcare, where privacy and human interaction are crucial, over-reliance on digital services can actually create harm.”

In response, the PRIME team has developed a Code of Practice for service designers, urging them to embed racial and linguistic inclusivity into their platforms, as well as a suite of free-to-use technology tools, to counter discriminatory processes in digital services.

For example, the PersonaCreator app, developed by the research team, uses machine learning techniques on survey data to create personas of people from minority ethnic communities. 

According to the PRIME team, these personas can depict how people from minority communities feel or experience various online harms, discrimination and bias while using digital services related to health, energy and social housing.

While the project trained its machine learning algorithms on the PRIME survey and a survey from the UK Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity, the researchers claim that any survey anywhere in the world that collects similar, tabular data regarding ethnicity could potentially be used to populate the PersonaCreator app, revealing issues around digital services for minoritised communities around the world.

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Alongside these tools, the project has also published a series of policy briefs directed at the health, housing and energy sectors, as well as multilingual videos aimed at minority ethnic communities that it hopes will help raise awareness of online harms and the actions they can take to create safer online spaces.

Colin Lee, chief executive of the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations Scotland, said: “Digital services can reinforce discrimination through exclusionary design, biased algorithms and lack of sensitivity to the formidable challenges that minoritised ethnic communities face. 

“If we don’t address these issues, we risk deepening inequalities and losing out on valuable opportunities to help them benefit from these essential services.”