Joint submission: The recurrent and prominent systemic risks faced by children and measures for their mitigation

Together with ECPAT, Terre des Hommes Netherlands, COFACE Families Europe, and Child Focus, we prepared this joint submission to highlight the systemic and recurrent risks faced by children in the digital environment. This analysis identifies and assesses systemic risks, engages with best practices and risk factors, and provides insight for improvement.

The joint submission focuses on the actual or foreseeable negative effects on the exercise of children’s rights that are under-identified and under-analysed by very large online platforms (VLOPs) and very large online search engines (VLOSEs). Risks are directly linked to the design choices of platforms; however, many of the VLOPS and VLOSEs fail to recognise those crucial risk factors.

Therefore, we strongly recommend the use of child rights impact assessment as a tool to ensure the proper identification of risks, the recognition of design choices as risk factors and a detailed and evidence-based assessment of mitigation measures.