Children are particularly vulnerable to the risks associated with the digital environment. For this reason, protecting children’s privacy online is a priority action for the Global Privacy Assembly (GPA) of data protection and privacy authorities and its Digital Education Working Group (DEWG) conducted by Marie-Laure DENIS as Chair, and the French CNIL.
In 2020, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has prepared a draft General Comment (GC) No. 25 (202x) on the rights of the child in relation to the digital environment and invited all interested parties to provide comments. The goal of this GC is to support the realisation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in the digital environment and provide guidance on measures to ensure full compliance by government, business and industry with their obligations to fully support children’s right in the digital environment. In this context, the DEWG has adopted a contribution to support the project’s orientations, made proposals with regard to the right to protection of children’s personal data. In particular, the contribution focuses on the exercise of the rights of children, profiling and automated decision making, commercial exploitation of children’s data, the consideration of child-related specificities by public authorities and the private sector and digital education. This contribution, which was unanimously supported by some 74 DEWG’s member Authorities, is made available in English and French (in Spanish-tbc), and has been be published on the website of the Committee of the Rights of the child (n°35 in the list).
As a matter of fact, the core of the DEWG’s mandate aims to promote digital education that respects the rights and freedoms of all, and raise awareness on the exercise of digital rights by children. The overarching objective is to allow children to develop the competences and skills needed to grow into responsible digital citizens. For this purpose, the DEWG has adopted several GPA resolutions over the years and conducted in 2019-2020 an international study regarding the legal frameworks applying to children and the exercise of the rights of minors, including an overview of various national initiatives by Data Protection Authorities on children’s rights online.
Any question related to this issue can be addressed to Pascale Raulin-Serrier at pserrier@cnil.fr as the DEWG Coordinator.