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Embed safety-by-design in policies and product development and use.
Children have the right to be protected online and offline. Safety in digital environments requires policy makers and business innovators to take preventive measures proportionate to the risks, remedies, support and care for victims.
This is one of 11 child rights principles applicable to the digital environment. Together they encompass the full range of child rights covered by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
Summary of the key evidence from ySKILLS
Summary of the key evidence from ySKILLS
Vulnerable children seem aware of online risks, and they have developed a variety of coping strategies. Still, finding a way out of difficult situations may be a lonely and uncertain endeavour and require trusted and secure points of contact for help and support.
Higher levels of digital skills (particularly content creation) are associated with more, not less, exposure to risky and potentially harmful online content, including racist and discriminatory content, self-harm and pro-anorexia content, for example.
Gaining digital skills means that children know better how to access and find risk online and yet they may be better able to avoid harm by protecting themselves, coping with what they find and/or building digital resilience.
Better digital skills are not linked to more harm, and may even reduce harm, possibly because children with better digital skills appear better able to cope with online risks.
· “To have digital skills means knowing how to stay safe on the internet, not visiting unsafe websites or sharing personal information with strangers as it is dangerous to surf the internet without security.” (teenager, Portugal)
“Playing video games online can be dangerous because you could be playing with people who are lying to you, they can be friendly online but try to meet you and kidnap you in real life.” (Syrian teenager, UK)
ySKILLS is an EC-funded research network aiming to identify the actors and factors that undermine or promote the wellbeing of children aged 12–17 in a digital age. More about ySKILLS
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