Online-Offline Diversions Project

⁠⁠⁠Overview

The Department of Home Affairs is seeking a supplier to deliver the Online-Offline Diversions Project. The Supplier will be required to identify innovative approaches to early intervention that reduce the likelihood of individuals progressing toward harmful outcomes, up to and including the commission of terrorist or violent extremist acts.

Scope

The scope includes:

• Development of a solution that is ideologically agnostic, focusing on observable behaviour and risk indicators rather than targeting or prioritising any specific ideology, group, or movement
• Basing the solution on behavioural indicators of vulnerability to radicalisation
• Partnering with a centralised, off-platform support and referral capability, such as Step Together, to divert identified individuals vulnerable to radicalisation to violent extremism for support services, including by qualified CVE practitioners, or alternatively establishing the Supplier's own off-platform support and referral capability for these diversion purposes
• Deploying the solution across multiple digital platforms, including social media, gaming, and gaming-adjacent environments
• Ensuring the solution is scalable and adaptable for implementation in like-minded international jurisdictions

Behaviour-Based Identification Capability

The Supplier must develop and implement methodologies to:

• Develop, test, and validate behaviour-based risk indicators and detection methodologies, without relying solely on keyword or search-term approaches
• Apply these methodologies to identify individuals online who exhibit behavioural indicators associated with vulnerability to radicalisation, including on gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms, considering behavioural indicators such as patterns of engagement, escalation, or intensification, interaction with high-risk content, communities, or networks, and changes in online activity consistent with progression along a radicalisation trajectory
• Ensure all methodologies are ideologically neutral, proportionate, and non-discriminatory
• Develop scalable behavioural segmentation models, including the use of advanced analytics and/or artificial intelligence where appropriate
• Validate proposed methodologies through testing, sampling, and ongoing refinement to ensure accuracy and minimise false positives, bias and unintended impacts
• Maintain appropriate human oversight of behavioural identification methodologies, particularly where advanced analytics or artificial intelligence are used

Intervention Design and Delivery ("Diversions")

Following identification of target individuals, the Supplier must design, develop, and implement interventions ("Diversions") intended to divert individuals away from pathways towards radicalisation, terrorism and violent extremism, delivered through either of the following models:

• Platform Partnership Model: establishing and maintaining partnerships with one or more technology platforms for the duration of the project to deliver Diversions within platform environments
• Non-Platform-Dependent Model: proposing and delivering alternative mechanisms that achieve the Diversions objective without direct partnership with a technology platform

Interventions must:

• Be implemented directly on-platform, where applicable
• Provide a graduated range of intervention options rather than relying solely on law enforcement referral pathways, seeking to divert, disengage, or build resilience among vulnerable individuals before they progress to more violent extremist or terrorist activity
• Be evidence-informed and may include behaviour change communications, nudge or friction-based mechanisms, and redirect strategies

The Supplier must:

• Map the full range of diversion approaches available for the target audience
• Assess likely behavioural responses, risks, and unintended consequences associated with proposed interventions
• Deliver interventions that interrupt radicalisation pathways at an early (upstream) stage, disrupt harmful behavioural trajectories, encourage safer and more positive patterns of online engagement, and support progression toward sustained positive behavioural change

Platform Engagement and Integration

Where a platform partnership model is adopted, the Supplier must:

• Secure and maintain partnerships with one or more technology platforms until 30 June 2028, ensuring that at least one partnered platform is a gaming or gaming-adjacent platform
• Support partner platforms to identify behavioural indicators associated with vulnerability to radicalisation, capture and share relevant data for measurement and evaluation purposes, develop and implement targeting methodologies, and deploy Diversion interventions within platform systems
• Work within existing trust and safety, moderation, and recommendation frameworks, ensuring Diversion interventions complement and operate alongside existing enforcement mechanisms

Measurement, Data Collection and Evaluation

• Design and implement a robust impact measurement and evaluation framework to assess the effectiveness of Diversion interventions, including measures relating to engagement (such as click-through rates and interaction rates), uptake of intervention pathways, referrals to support services, changes in behavioural indicators associated with vulnerability to radicalisation where measurable and appropriate, and the effectiveness of different intervention approaches and cohorts
• Collect and report data, where available, appropriate and lawful, including age, gender, geographic location, behavioural indicators associated with vulnerability to radicalisation, and platform actions and interactions with Diversion interventions, in compliance with applicable privacy, legal, and ethical requirements

Off-Platform Support Capability

• Establish, or partner with, a centralised, platform-agnostic and ideology-agnostic support service to provide advice, triage and referral capability to identified individuals, including exploring integration with the Australian Government's Step Together service over the course of the project
• Provide a consistent service pathway across online platforms involved in the Diversions project, supporting initial outreach and engagement, trust-building and informed consent, and structured triage and needs assessment, including, if required, referral to an Australian CVE program
• Coordinate referrals to appropriate practitioners and support services, including relevant state and territory CVE programs and other appropriate services, and facilitate warm handovers to support providers
• Support engagement, retention and progression through referral pathways

Contractor Requirements

• All delivery partners must meet appropriate quality, safeguarding, and professional standards, including to support children and young people
• All delivery partners must be appropriately qualified, trained and vetted for their roles

Eligibility

For a Potential Supplier's Response to be eligible for consideration, the Response must comply with the matters addressed in clause A.B.4.2 of the Commonwealth ATM Terms.

Contract Terms and Conditions

• The solution is to be delivered over a two-year period ending 30 June 2028, with two possible 12-month extensions built into the contract, incorporating pilot, refinement, and scaling phases
• Proposed start date: 16 November 2026
• Proposed end date: 30 June 2028
• Timeframe for delivery: 16 November 2026 to 30 June 2028

Instructions to Tenderers

• Tender process: open tender
• Electronic lodgement via AusTender at www.tenders.gov.au