Letter on children’s rights in the Digital Services Act to Council

5Rights, alongside leading child rights organisations, has released a joint letter urging the Council of the European Union to strengthen safeguards for children within the Digital Services Act (DSA).

This publication outlines key concerns regarding the current draft of the DSA, highlighting potential gaps that could leave children vulnerable online. The letter emphasises the need for robust measures to protect children from harmful content, manipulative practices, and data exploitation.

The letter proposes concrete recommendations, including:

• avoiding references to “minors”. The use of the term “minor” is likely to lead at the national level to conflation with the varying “ages of consent” as established under GDPR;
• ensuring that children’s rights are upheld irrespective of platform size. Most children spend most of their time on services not designed specifically for them: this shouldn’t affect whether their rights are respected.

By prioritising these measures, the Council can deliver on EU values, and fight for all children, and for the full realisation of their rights, in the digital world.