"Health, Privacy, and Trust in a Digital World What do Children & Young People Think?", December 2019

Unicef UK advocates for the full realisation of children’s rights in a digital world, including the right to privacy... The Children’s Rights and Business Principles, published by UNICEF, the UN Global Compact, and Save the Children, further clarify that businesses have a specific responsibility to respect children’s rights... To ensure that children’s voice are reflected in this work, Unicef UK spoke to 19 children... [Here they found]: 

• Being online can hurt mental health and make you feel depressed and anxious or lower your self-confidence by seeing unrealistic photos. It can also make you feel pressured to conform... Cyberbullying and fights can happen online... There can also be predators, abuse, harassment, grooming, and inappropriate content.
• [C]hildren are not wholly willing to forego their privacy in order to access services. Indeed, many care deeply about their data rights.
• Both groups expressed a strong appetite to learn more about how their data is used and how to manage their privacy online.
• Parents and schools and teachers were overwhelmingly the most trusted, while advertisers, the media, and tech companies were the least trusted by many

Four major asks [changes the children would like to see] emerged [including]: The option to opt out of sharing personal data should be easily accessible... People should be able to find out exactly where their data is going, how it is being used, and why... Reassure people that their information is secure and protect it from cybercrime... Make sure to educate people so that they can understand what they are being asked to consent to...