Special measures to protect children in digital environment

Experience of UK, US, China,

Singapore, and EU

In April 2024, UK published priorities for 2024-2025 on protection of children personal¹ data in the digital environment , and the US has a draft of Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act , (another bill was introduced in March) ; Brazil approved a Decree on the Rights of Children and Adolescents in the Digital² Environment. Moreover, in January 2024,³ China's online child protection regulations came into force, and Singapore adopted guidelines on the protection of children's personal data in the⁴ digital environment in March 2024. Thus, there is a trend towards greater protection in the digital environment for children by clarifying regulatory measures.

These measures demonstrate an expansion of the scope of regulation in part of:

а) age of users (USA, Singapore, China, France). For example, age verification, restriction to online services/social networks based on age, restriction of personal data collection;

b) products: one bill in the U.S. proposes to extend the duty to protect minors to online and mobile app providers.

Measures in various countries and regions are broadly similar and include:

1. Prohibited (e.g. involving children in increasing online service traffic - UK, USA, China) and restricted practices (e.g. displaying unhealthy content - UK, China; targeted advertising - UK, USA; controlling service usage time - China, France).

However, approaches to implementing restrictions vary from prohibitive in China to relatively lenient in Europe and the United States. For example, in China, the use of online games is limited to specific times (e.g., weekends), while in France a system is envisioned that regularly notifies the user of the duration of social network operation. In the EU, it is prohibited to use children’s data for personalized advertising.

Approaches to parental control also differ: in China it is mandatory for online audio and video services and social networks, whereas in the UK it is an option where the provider must inform the child;

2. Higher standards towards confidentiality, etc.:

а) Data protection is embedded at the product design stage (UK, Singapore, China, EU plans);

b) Assessing the impact of online protection (UK, China), risks of child rights violations (EU) - e.g. what information is collected and exactly how it is used;

c) Protection of children's data should extend not only to products designed specifically for children, but also to other products to which children have real access, i.e., social networks, EdTech, online games (USA, Singapore);

d) Disabling geolocation by default, to limit the ability to determine the child's location, e.g. on social networks (UK, US, Singapore);

e) Age-appropriate language for using information about users’ data (UK, Singapore);

f) The age to submit data to online services is usually 13, but in Singapore operators can set a higher age threshold, and in⁵ France it is 15 for social media accounts ;

3. Increased requirements to data security, including minimization of collection and dissemination of minors' data (UK, USA, Singapore, China), possibility to change and delete such data (USA, China).

Russia’s experience

In Russia, the Law “On Protection of Children from Information Harmful to their Health and Development” prohibits dissemination of information among children that incites harm to health or life, encourages participation in gambling, and justifies violence and cruelty.

Certain information, for example, causing fear or panic, is restricted to age categories. These requirements apply to Internet. At the same time, measures to protect children are broader than restrictions on the dissemination of information, and in this sense, Russia lags behind the most significant global trends. For example, there are no measures against cyberbullying, tracking children through geolocation (e.g., disabling geolocation for children's social media accounts).

From the monitoring issue No. 4, April 2024. Download the full issue (PDF) · issue page at the Gaidar Institute