This 2025 UNICEF Innocenti working paper examines how the “best interests of the child” principle should be applied in the digital environment. It reviews existing legal and policy approaches across different jurisdictions and discusses tensions between protection, autonomy, participation, access, skills, wellbeing, and commercial interests. A central argument is that children’s best interests cannot be reduced to safety alone: policies and digital services should consider the full range of children’s rights, their evolving capacities, inequalities in access and literacy, and their right to be heard. The paper also stresses the need for meaningful child participation in policymaking and technology design.
This 2025 UNICEF Innocenti working paper examines how the “best interests of the child” principle should be applied in the digital environment. It reviews existing legal and policy approaches across different jurisdictions and discusses tensions between protection, autonomy, participation, access, skills, wellbeing, and commercial interests. A central argument is that children’s best interests cannot be reduced to safety alone: policies and digital services should consider the full range of children’s rights, their evolving capacities, inequalities in access and literacy, and their right to be heard. The paper also stresses the need for meaningful child participation in policymaking and technology design.
- childrens-rights