Our Digital World, Our Say

This project brings together the UN Human Rights Office, 5Rights Foundation and the Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC) to meaningfully engage children in shaping how their rights are understood and protected in the digital environment.

Through child-friendly workshops delivered by partners around the world, children will share their experiences of going online, reflect on access, privacy, safety and participation, and offer clear recommendations for a more rights-respecting digital world. This project will deliver their messages directly to the UN, ensuring that children’s perspectives are heard where it matters most! Read about the project

If you want to join the project and conduct workshops with children please visit our project page and get in touch with Kim R Sylwander: k.g.ringmar-sylwander@lse.ac.uk. 

A better EdTech future for children

This project investigates how educational technologies (EdTech) are shaping children’s learning experiences and rights in diverse contexts, with a specific focus on AI. Through multidisciplinary research and direct engagement with children, families and educators, it explores the equity, design and governance of EdTech systems. The project aims to identify best practices, develop rights-based recommendations, and stimulate public debate over the best ways to achieve more inclusive, transparent and accountable digital learning environments. Read about the project.

Project team: Sonia Livingstone (DFC), Kim R. Sylwander (DFC) and Colette Collins-Walsh (5Rights).

Project lead: Sandra El Gemayel (DFC)

RIGHTS.AI

In this project, we talk to children and young people aged 13-17 about their experiences, expectations and imaginations of generative AI (GenAI). Engaging our EU Kids Online partners and other international partners in Brazil, Kenya, Thailand and India, we are conducting a qualitative, cross-country analysis. RIGHTS.AI will provide an international understanding of GenAI's impact on children around the world. Read about Rights AI

Project lead: Mariya Stoilova

Children in digital policies

Digital policies are designed to support and propel regions and countries into an era that is increasingly digital. Unfortunately, previous findings suggest that children are wholly excluded from these policies, which could exacerbate existing societal issues.

This project will collate and analyse digital policies from around the world to assess how children are referenced and will have three reports. Read more about the project.

Project leads: Shivani Rao and Ellen Helsper

Opportunities, Risks, and Harms in the Digital Gaming Ecosystem

This qualitative and exploratory study looks at the gaming ecosystem in Brazil and the UK, investigating opportunities and harms. 

The project aims to establish a framework for assessing the risks, harms and opportunities within the digital gaming ecosystem; define the variables that influence the progression from risk to harm and map the roles and responsibilities of actors. Read further.

Project lead: Ivelise Fortim

Mapping the impact of General comment No. 25

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General comment No. 25 was adopted in 2021 and the DFC are completing systematic tracking of the comment's impact.

This will provide valuable insight into the enablers and barriers of implementing such a comment, and how legislation effects the rights of children. Access the project page.

Project lead: Kim R. Sylwander

Children's rights by design

This work stream addresses the gap between policies, principles and design for children’s rights by prototyping and testing a child-rights-based design tool with approximately 30 designers and developers from both the Global North and South, drawing on the Digital Futures Commission’s Child Rights by Design.

The work stream also explores what factors shape digital developers' practices and considerations of children's rights when designing digital products and services used by children.

Project lead: Sonia Livingstone

Consultant: Kruakae Pothong

Global research database

The DFC have collected research from around the world that looks at children and digital environments. This project built a free-to-use database to make robust, global research accessible to all. Each entry is hand-picked and summarised in the notes section. The database is constantly growing, and we always welcome suggestions.

Access the database

Project lead: Gazal Shekhawat 

Children’s rights in relation to the digital environment: spotlight on Africa

The key challenges and opportunities that children on the African continent experience in relation to their use of a variety of digital platforms, services and apps is rarely explored. This qualitative project will bridge some of this gap by investigating the experiences of 199 children and young people living in six nations on the African continent (Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania).

Project leads: Amanda Third and Louisa Welland, Young & Resilient Research Centre, Western Sydney University

Children's visions of digital futures

This project engages 5Rights Global Youth Ambassadors around the world to explore their visions of child rights respecting digital futures. The project adopts a co-design participatory futures methdology to amplify children's voices to impact research and policy.

Project Lead: Kim R. Sylwander

A child rights audit of GenAI in EdTech: Learning from five UK case studies

This project uses a child rights framework and a mixed methods approach to examine case studies of prominent AI-embedded EdTech products used in UK classrooms, assessing how these products can impact children's rights. Read further.

Consultant: Ayça Atabey

Impact of regulation on children's digital lives (2) 

The second stage of the research further explores the earlier report of Impact of regulation on children's digital lives, to assess how regulation impacts on children's experience of the digital environment; incorporating the technological and regulatory advances of the last year. 

Consultant: Steve Wood