The rights of children and young people on digital platforms
As children and young people today increasingly live their lives in digital environments, it is of utmost importance that their freedoms and rights are safeguarded there, as much as they are protected in the physical world.
Children and young people move quickly and expertly between various platforms, but this does not always mean that they realise the risks or understand the consequences – consequences that may be far away in the future.
Regulating the internet is often difficult. The legislation is sometimes complex, the language is far from the language used normally by those affected by the legislation, and the perspectives are rarely as holistic as they may need to be, when considering an event from a child’s perspective. However, these things we are obliged to do as the Convention on the Rights of the Child was incorporated into Swedish law on 1 January 2020.
Thus, we three Government Agencies in Sweden with special responsibility to protect children and young people and safeguard their rights, have decided, based on our separate areas of expertise, to jointly publish this guide.
The aim of the guide is to provide general support, primarily based on an integrity perspective (where the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, is a central legislation) and a child rights perspective (based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child). The guide also contains advice based on the intentions of the legislator in terms of protecting children from harmful media influence.
With this guide we primarily aim to reach stakeholders who create and operate various digital environments where children and young people regularly spend time. Whether you own or create websites, Swedish-language platforms, or have your own YouTube channel, we hope that you will find this guide useful.
We are convinced that by working together and putting the best interest of the child first, we can create safe and secure digital environments adapted to the needs of children and young people.
