Children’s well-being online starts with safety

With so much going on in the kids’ tech policy world, including a mention during the State of the Union address, we are back with thoughts on recent developments. We also have several events to share, so please read on.

The legislative and regulatory landscape addressing children’s experiences in digital environments can feel vast, with the FTC, Congress, and state legislatures across the country wrestling with a variety of ways to approach these challenging issues.

The academic community continues to develop our understanding of the impact of the online world via high-quality longitudinal research with children of diverse backgrounds, including projects funded by the CAMRA Act, which passed last year. The research is critically needed but also takes time, and can lag behind the pace of tech platforms and how young people use them.

At the same time, policymakers across the country have been raising important questions about these impacts. How can we best support our children’s healthy development in such a rapidly evolving landscape?

As mentioned in our previous newsletter, one key piece of proposed legislation is the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which broadly focuses on improving privacy and safety settings for kids online, and has ignited a lively conversation  among privacy experts, kids’ experts, civil society, tech companies, gaming companies, and hundreds of families and advocacy groups.

In the Senate, the bill has secured more than 60 co-sponsors, enough to pass should it come to a floor vote. Democrats and Republicans are both well-represented in a true bipartisan effort that is rarely seen in tech policy. If passed, KOSA would represent the first child protection and privacy bill to pass in decades.

We appreciate that this process and the work happening across government has encouraged so many to think about what kind of digital world we want for our kids and the possible ways to shape it through law.

In comments we recently submitted in response to the FTC’s proposed updates to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), we highlighted the importance of not only laying a strong foundation for protecting kids and empowering parents online, but also driving a movement where companies consider the unique needs of kids from the outset of product design.

As the work continues to find a way forward, we urge policymakers to consider an approach that puts children at the center of digital design that is evidence-based and considers how to balance keeping kids safe while enabling their growth and healthy development, which includes enabling them to explore, play, and connect in meaningful ways.

Smart government policies can have a significant role in setting standards, applying pressures and creating incentives for actors to develop a digital world where children are not only safe but can also thrive.

We’ll continue to follow these developments and encourage you to do the same. In the meantime, we’ll continue our work to better understand what well-being in a digital world looks like for kids, how to achieve it, and to help designers apply those learnings to their work.

art government policies can have a significant role in setting standards, applying pressures and creating incentives for actors to develop a digital world where children are not only safe but can also thrive.

We’ll continue to follow these developments and encourage you to do the same. In the meantime, we’ll continue our work to better understand what well-being in a digital world looks like for kids, how to achieve it, and to help designers apply those learnings to their work.