Better Safe Than Sorry

Every day, children surf the internet for educational or social networking purposes but, in so doing, they are exposed to privacy-invasive, addictive and manipulative designs that are usually driven by commercial practices. Much of the responsibility for keeping children safe seems to fall on parents rather than on the companies which are using these practices. This is a feeling shared by most consumers: less than one in ten people (8%) feel that enough is being done to protect children in the digital sphere.

As evidence of the online world’s detrimental effects on children’s mental health and development, BEUC has put together a comprehensive set of policy ideas that the EU should adopt to provide a safer online environment for children, including on social networks, in the design of online services, or in the gaming world.

Among these ideas are:

1.    Setting all child accounts to private by default and safe by design. 
2.    Banning all surveillance ads online which target children (going beyond the measures affecting only online platforms under the Digital Services Act)
3.    Stopping addictive and manipulative features, such as infinite scrolling and the amplification of toxic content.
4.    Setting EU-wide influencer marketing rules.
5.    Properly enforcing all existing EU legislation, including the Digital Services Act. 

For too long, children’s safety has not been given the attention it deserves. Now is the time for the EU to change that.