My day, my rights: protecting children online

News & insights
November 20, 2025
Louise Holly
By -

World Children’s Day, celebrated each year on 20 November, is an opportunity to reflect on children’s rights and the actions needed to fully realize them. But are we doing enough to safeguard children’s rights online, asks Louise Holly.  

The theme for this year’s World Children’s Day, "my day, my rights", is about getting the basics right. In order to promote and protect children’s rights effectively, people – from parents to policymakers – are being encouraged to listen to children and understand what their daily lives are really like. 

Online childhoods

Online Childhoods

For many children, a large part of their day is now spent in front of a screen. Smartphones, tablets, internet-connected TVs and digital whiteboards increasingly mediate their interactions with other people and the wider world. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been concerted global efforts to expand children’s internet access at home and at school. Digital tools are also being scaled up within key sectors for children, such as education and health. 

While digital technologies and AI offer many opportunities to improve children’s lives, they also pose significant risks to their rights and well-being. The digital world was not designed for children and progress putting safeguards in place to protect them from harmful content and practices online has been slow. The features of many digital platforms deliberately encourage habitual and excessive use resulting in studies regularly reporting high levels of screen time and device use among children across the world.

Recentring children’s rights in the digital world

Recentring children’s rights in the digital world

While it has been established that children’s rights apply as much online as they do offline, too often children are an afterthought in the design and governance of the digital world. 

Recent research carried out for DTH-Lab continues to confirm this. In a forthcoming study on the policies and practices of big social media platforms, Erza Selmani found that tech companies are aware of how social media can expose young people to a range of harms, yet limited action is being taken to reduce online risks or fulfill children’s rights, including rights to health and protection. As part of his research on the digital determinants of health, André Thiombiano highlights how online environments can impact young people’s right to nutrition. 

Shajoe Lake reviewed national and international AI policies and found that children and their rights are rarely considered, echoing our previous research on children’s rights and digital health. His proposed Y5 Futures Framework encourages children’s protection and participatory rights to be fully integrated into AI, digital and data governance.  

Using digital technologies and AI has become a routine and integral part of children’s daily lives. It is therefore essential that children’s rights and well-being are prioritized at all stages of the digital transformation process, from technology design to digital governance. Continually listening to children and learning from their experiences is a necessary step to put child rights into practice.   

Over the coming months, DTH-Lab will announce a number of new projects exploring the diverse views and experiences of children and youth growing up in a digital world – part of our commitment to protecting and promoting children’s rights in the face of powerful digital determinants of health.

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References

Louise Holly has more than 20 years’ experience of global policy analysis, research and evidence-based advocacy focused on advancing the health and rights of children, adolescents and youth. Following roles with Save the Children and UNICEF, Louise worked as an independent consultant for several years supporting the Lancet and Financial Times Commission on Governing Health Futures 2030 and other organizations including Transform Health and PMNCH. In July 2023, Louise became the Policy and Research Coordinator at the DTH-Lab where she coordinates the consortium’s knowledge generation, analysis and policy influencing work.

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