Research: How people are helped online: informal and proxy digital support

A research project commissioned by DSIT and delivered by The Social Agency. This research combines interviews with people giving and receiving informal digital help across the UK, a UK‑wide survey, and expert input.

It looks at informal support, which means digital help from family, friends, neighbours, colleagues or others (outside formal volunteering or paid roles), and proxy support, where someone carries out online tasks on another person’s behalf. The research explores how this support works, who provides and receives this support and why, and the pressures or risks faced by both parties.

The findings help DSIT understand the role informal support plays in digital inclusion and identifies where targeted action could make this support safer, more effective and more sustainable.

Around 1 in 3 UK adults (35%) have acted as an informal digital supporter in the past year, and over half of supporters (53%) have provided proxy support. This support is vital but structurally fragile as many excluded people depend on a single person for all their digital access.

There are also risks: without safe, official ways to let someone act online on their behalf, people resort to informal workarounds like sharing their login credentials. Almost a third of supporters (31%) have used someone else’s log-in details to manage their online banking or financial accounts.