RADAR 1.8: Identify, assess and address potential DSA infringements
CheckFirst is excited to announce the release of the latest version of RADAR (Regulatory Assessment for Digital Services Act), a practical framework designed to help stakeholders simplify and standardise the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Please note that all future updates on RADAR will be made on RADAR’s official website, Bluesky account and LinkedIn page.
Why RADAR?
The DSA sets out important obligations for online platforms, but identifying online harms caused by them isn’t always straightforward. That’s where RADAR comes in. It provides a structured, community-driven framework that enables a systematic and standardised way to document information about potential infringements of the DSA.
We believe that having a common DSA framework with standardised tags will enable the community to identify patterns, compare assessments, and build a comprehensive picture of potential violations. Crucially, it’ll help regulatory authorities prioritise enforcement actions based on structured and actionable evidence.
What’s New in This Release
This latest version, RADAR 1.8, builds on extensive feedback from practitioners and introduces several key improvements:
- Streamlined Categories – We found that certain categories like political advertisements and election integrity could be subsumed by other pre-existing categories in the framework. Essentially, we have now reduced the number of thematic categories to avoid duplication and confusion.
- Updated Observables – Updated practical, real-world case examples of infringements in relation to each thematic category.
- Category and Infringement Descriptions – Modified the language used to define and describe various online harms to ensure clarity and accuracy.
Who can use RADAR?
The framework is designed with flexibility in mind and can support a variety of stakeholders: regulators and oversight bodies, researchers and civil society organisations, and even companies and compliance teams.
How can you use RADAR?
Using RADAR has never been easier. As you all know, RADAR is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0, which means anyone can use it. Over the summer, CheckFirst developed a variety of free of cost automation tools to help easily integrate RADAR into your workflows. All the tools are powered by RADAR’s new API, which is also available to use for free on RADAR’s website.
You can use the RADAR Google Extension or the WordPress Plugin to automate tagging your reports according to the framework. We’ve also created a chatbot for you to be able to pose any DSA and RADAR-related questions and ask it to tag reports for you.
Google Doc Add-on 🔗
We’ve developed a Google Doc add-on that anyone can install free of charge and integrate into their workflows.
- This add-on is trained on the latest version of RADAR and has a smart-search functionality where you can search for potential violations using keywords.
- It also lets you browse all the thematic categories of the framework while showing the unique infringement ID related to each violation.
- Finally, it lets you select any number of potential infringements and automatically generate an annexure with all the relevant information as per the framework.
Follow our step-by-step guide below to install the add-on:
Step 1: Install from MarketPlace 
Step 2: Accessing the Framework within Google Docs 
Step 3: Using the Framework 
Step 4: Generate a RADAR Annexure
(Click on each image to see the steps)
ChatGPT Assistant 🔗
We developed a ChatGPT-powered AI assistant specifically trained on the RADAR framework to help you identify and categorise potential DSA violations. You can upload your report and ask it to generate the correct standardised tags using RADAR.
You can ask questions about the RADAR framework itself and ask it helpful questions.
WordPress Plugin 🔗
The free of cost WordPress plugin helps you categorise and document potential DSA infringements directly on your website. It is perfect for news organisations, fact-checkers, and digital rights advocates who document online harms.
When you publish articles or pages about platform violations, the plugin adds structured metadata that makes your assessments transparent and machine-readable.
(Click on each image to see them in full size)
We encourage you to explore the various tools, test them in your workflows, and share your feedback. Your insights are vital to ensuring RADAR remains practical, rigorous, and impactful!
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