Having passed a Digital Services Act and an AI Act both with strong provisions for children, the outgoing EU legislators can be proud of their achievements in advancing children’s rights in the digital environment. The EU’s incoming leaders now have an even taller task: implementation, enforcement, and showing that regulation delivers practical change for young people. 5Rights sets out 4 priorities and 7 concrete deliverables for the next term.
The 2024-2029 legislature is a chance to build on the achievements of the last five years and turn children’s rights in the digital environment from policy priority into a reality across Europe. The Better Internet for Kids+ Strategy, the Digital Services Act and the AI Act – among many others– represent a leap forward but will only deliver for children if they are properly implemented, enforced and complemented by other rules, actions and reforms. The risks and harms that children face online keep evolving and so the need to protect and empower them, by design and default, is growing ever more urgent. In the next mandate, the EU needs to focus its action on four things:
First, effectively implement and enforce all policies and regulations that are in place with ambitious guidance and standards for compliance – from new rules like the DSA, AI Act and DMA to better application of the GDPR and existing consumer law, starting from the General Product Safety Regulation.
Second, fill the gaps and address instances that are not yet covered, ensuring that all children’s specific rights, vulnerabilities, needs and heightened risks are recognised and thus that all products and services likely to impact them meet the highest safety, security and privacy standards, by design and by default.
Third, working with civil society and industry to develop and incentivise solutions for the empowerment and participation of children online, notably promoting and investing in children’s rights by design with the development and uptake of technical standards on age-appropriate design and age assurance.
Fourth, streamline children’s rights in all EU’s work, establishing institutional roles and responsibilities to consider children’s rights in all digital policies, as well as mechanisms and instances to regularly ensure the participation of children and civil society representing their interests.
Next 6-9 June, as people head to the polls all over the EU, we hope they will think about future generations, about improving children’s lives and respecting their rights here and now, by design and default. To achieve this, EU institutions could focus on – at least – 7 concrete deliverables:
[Brussels, 23 May 2024]