UN rights chief calls for protecting children online, urges tech giants to cooperate

United Nations on Friday (May 29) raised concerns over the impact of digital world on children. UN rights chief Volker Turk said that it is important to make digital world safe for children and on an urgent basis. For this, Turk said states have to force tech giants to embed child safety.

Business practices and design choices directly cause harm to children he further said.

“The digital world that connects children to learning, community and creativity also exposes them to real risks to their safety, privacy and well-being,” Turk said in a statement.

“Enhancing protection of children online an urgent priority”

“Online harms to kids’ safety, privacy and well-being are not innate or inevitable. They result from design choices and business practices that undermine safety, including addictive design features, such as infinite scroll, autoplay and persistent notifications from apps,” he said.

Turk called the need for enhancing protection of children online a priority that needs to be done quickly.

“Enhancing protection of children online is an urgent priority that we need to make sure not only gets done – but that it gets done right,” he said.

The UN rights chief called for tougher measures like better regulation, oversight and accountability to be taken by countries and tech firms to make online platforms safe places for children.

“Blanket social media bans are not a one-off panacea,” Turk said and added, “Simply limiting access to platforms that remain unsafe cannot stand as the endpoint in effectively protecting children.”