The rights of children in the digital environment
Eurochild position paper on children's rights in digital environments.
This paper synthesises Eurochild’s vision and recommendations for safeguarding children’s rights in digital spaces. While digital environments offer educational and social benefits key for the development of children, they also pose significant risks like cyberbullying, abuse and exploitation, and negative mental health outcomes, among others. The paper calls for a nuanced approach based on the prevention and protection from harm with the empowerment of children by realising their rights online. A narrow focus limited to prevention and protection risks leaving out of the conversation considerations on the right to participation, privacy, information, and freedom of expression. A balanced, rights-based approach is key to ensuring children’s right to participate in the digital environment while guaranteeing their best interests, privacy, safety and healthy development.
This requires that:
- Policy-makers adopt and enforce robust legal frameworks for the protection of children; and
- Companies design their digital services with child rights in mind, including listening to and respecting their views.
