Digital skills and literacy for children's rights

How do children's rights apply in a digital world? 

Is there a role for digital skills and literacy? What is the evidence?

This ySKILLS interactive report identifies the evidence on children's digital skills and maps it onto 11 child rights principles. It is designed to support policymakers, researchers, child practitioners and advocacy and child rights activists to implement children's rights in a digital world. 

The 11 principles are underpinned by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and by the Committee on the Rights of the Child's General comment No.25 on children's rights in relation to the digital environment. They were originally formulated by the Digital Futures Commission and further developed by the ySKILLS project. 

For each of the 11 principles, we provide: 

How to fulfil children's rights? Our video explains. 

Children's rights principles

Click on any of the 11 principles to find out more

Treat all children equally and support vulnerable children

Make children’s best interests a primary consideration

Meaningfully consult children 

Develop age-appropriately by design and consider age assurance

 Review and comply with laws and policies relevant to child rights 

Enable children's participation, expression and access to information

Adopt privacy-by-design in product development and use

Adopt safety-by-design in product development and use

Enhance, not harm children’s physical and mental health 

Enable children’s learning, imagination, play and belonging

Reduce compulsive and exploitative product features

Learn more about our evidence-based recommendations

About this interactive report

This interactive report was developed by Sonia Livingstone, Mariya Stoilova and Rita Baptista as part of the ySKILLS project. 

You can read more about the process of mapping children's rights to the evidence and the development of the interactive report here.  

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme under Grant Agreement no. 870612. Our website reflects only the authors’ views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.