Five years of General comment No. 25: From promises to progress
General comment No. 25 gave the world a roadmap to realise children’s rights in the digital world. Five years on, the progress is real but leaders must act to systematically hold tech companies accountable.
On 2 March 2021, the world made children a historic promise by affirming that their rights – enshrined in the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history – apply fully in the digital environment.
5Rights Foundation chaired the Steering Committee developing General comment No. 25 and has spent the years since fighting to make its promise real. What followed has been five years of hard-won impact and a reminder of how much further we must go to ensure children are safe in the digital world.
Landmark developments across the world – from the African Union to Brazil and Indonesia – have demonstrated that embedding age-appropriate design concretely improves children’s digital experiences.
Reflecting on the impact of UNCRC General comment No. 25, Prof. Dr. Sophie Kiladze – Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child – said:
“General comment No. 25 has already brought concrete, tangible results for children in every region of the world. Despite these positive developments, children’s rights in the digital environment continue to be under threat. Millions of children face risks every day, and the rapid pace of technological change means that our work is never finished.”
Children around the world are still growing up in a digital environment often deliberately designed to maximise profit at their expense. From educational technologies discriminatorily predicting children’s outcomes to AI-driven chatbots encouraging self-harm, tech companies continue to rush increasingly pervasive digital products and services to market without adequately assessing and mitigating risks to children.
International best practices from around the world outline a rights-based approach, providing a blueprint for realising the standards articulated in UNCRC General comment No. 25.
Reflecting this emerging global consensus, 5Rights has published Building a digital environment designed with children in mind – a new report setting out 10 regulatory principles that States should implement to protect children’s rights in the digital world.
This consensus is growing. Today, a broad coalition of over 55 leading organisations and experts from all world regions is calling on leaders to hold tech companies accountable to ensure that digital technology impacting children is rights-respecting and age-appropriate by design and default.
Joining the global campaign, Baroness Beeban Kidron – 5Rights’ Founder and President – concluded:
“The digital world we promised children five years ago will not be designed by accident. If we are to build the digital world children deserve, we must embed their rights into digital products and services from the start.”
Five years on, the question is no longer whether children’s rights can be respected in the digital world but whether leaders have the will to hold tech companies accountable for the promise they made to children.