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5 resolutions for online safety 2020
Moving away from surveillance and control and toward a child rights framework honored all over the world
For 20 years now, all around the world, governments, child advocacy groups, corporations, schools and parents have actually been trying to uphold children’s rights of protection by ignoring their participation rights online (those of expression, conscience, participation, association, access to information and being consulted on matters that concern them). I’m referring to two of the three categories of rights enshrined in the 30-year-old UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the third category being their rights of provision.
Until now. There is growing awareness of how facile, fear-driven and unethical that old approach is. We’re seeing more and more signs that 2020 will be the year we stop defaulting to surveillance and control and start getting creative about upholding the full range of our children’s rights in balance.
Signs of momentum include…
- The Committee on the Rights of the Child — the UN body that monitors implementation of the Convention worldwide, will shortly issue a General Comment on children’s digital rights. That’s a big deal because this will be the first such statement from the Committee about the digital part…