Brazil is first Latin American country to enshrine age-appropriate design standards into law
With the ECA Digital’s adoption, Brazil leads Latin America in embedding children’s rights into the digital world.
Following over three years of research and campaigning by 5Rights and partners including Alana and Human Rights Watch, Brazil is the first country in Latin America to implement standards for children’s rights in the digital world set out in General comment No. 25 to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
As the region’s most populous country and largest economy, Brazil’s adoption of the Digital Statute of the Child and Adolescent – known as ECA Digital by its Portuguese initials – represents a major victory for Brazil’s 51 million children and for their rights.
Celebrating this achievement, Alana’s Programmes Coordinator, Maria Mello, declared:
“The approval of the ECA Digital marks a landmark victory for children and adolescents in Brazil. For the first time, digital platforms will be legally bound to uphold their rights through clear duties and obligations.”
What the ECA Digital delivers
In 2022 and in 2023, Human Rights Watch reported that educational apps and websites invisibly surveilled Brazilian children in their online classrooms during Covid-19 school closures using unavoidable invasive profiling and behavioural advertising techniques. In 2024, Human Rights Watch uncovered the misuse of Brazilian children’s personal photos to build AI tools that were then used to create abusive deepfakes of other children.
Following these pervasive violations, the Digital Futures for Children centre found that children in Brazil felt resigned to privacy risks they perceived as ubiquitous. This normalisation of data extraction highlights the pressing need for stronger protections holding tech companies accountable, which the ECA Digital responds to by mandating high privacy and safety by design and default.
Welcoming the law, Hye Jung Han, children’s rights and technology researcher and advocate at Human Rights Watch, said:
“Brazilian children are finally getting the protections they need and deserve to learn, explore, and play safely online.”
Moving beyond reactive measures, Brazil now prohibits online service providers from using children’s data in ways that violate their rights and best interests, and requires them to assess and mitigate the risks they expose children to. Key measures in the ECA Digital include prohibitions of manipulative design and other commercially exploitative practices such as behavioural profiling and emotional analysis, as well as expert supervision over AI tools and recommender systems to ensure safety.
Effective monitoring and enforcement will be essential to guarantee it’s impact, as Maria Mello from Alana added:
“Our work doesn’t end with the law’s adoption. We will keep pushing to ensure the ECA Digital achieves its intended objective: ensuring safer and more respectful experiences for children and adolescents in the digital environment, starting from the design stage.”
Building on Brazil’s achievement
Applauding years of tireless advocacy, 5Rights Head of International Affairs Marie-Ève Nadeau congratulates Brazil on this major advance:
“Brazil has set a resounding example, making clear that children’s rights are non-negotiable in the digital age.
By enshrining age-appropriate design into law, Brazil is granting its children the opportunity to engage in the digital world safely and with consideration for their rights and needs by design and default. Now, other countries must follow Brazil’s lead and extend these protections to build the digital world children deserve.”
Brazil’s achievement must be a starting point, not an end. Regional cooperation will be essential to build on this momentum, replicate best practices and establish coherent standards for tech companies across Latin America and the Caribbean. By collaborating, legislators can ensure innovation advances – rather than jeopardises – children’s rights.