Research
Civil Society Reports
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2023 Youth Assembly on Digital Rights and Safety Report
The Youth Assembly took place in 2023, bringing together diverse youth from across Canada to have broad discussion on Digital Rights and engage with each other, academic experts, and policymakers on how to make online spaces safer for themselves and future generations.
Taking Online Rights Seriously: Ensuring Children’s Active Participation in Networked Spaces
The eQuality Project’s submission to the 5th/6th Review of Children’s Rights in Canada (Convention on the Rights of the Child) with recommendations on making online spaces safer for children.
Survey of Online Harms in Canada - The Dais
This new survey was conducted online in late October 2022 with a representative sample of 2,000 people in Canada aged 16 and older and provides up-to-date insights on Canadians’ experiences with harmful online content, and their views on the role of government and platforms in addressing those harms.
Young Canadians in a Wireless World, Phase IV | MediaSmarts
Young Canadians in a Wireless World (YCWW) is Canada’s longest-running, and most comprehensive research study on young people’s attitudes and behaviours regarding the internet. Phase 5 of the project focused specifically on online harms.
Synthesizing The Research To Promote Digital Safety In Canada
This is a literature review of current empirical research on technology-facilitated sexual violence among young people. The paper concludes with recommendations for policymakers and researchers to engage young people as research participants to better identify their needs and assess the effectiveness of prevention and intervention policies, programs, and laws.
Supporting Safer Digital Spaces
From a Canadian-based international think tank, Center for International Governance, on making digital spaces safer.
Children’s Safety and Privacy in the Digital Age
Canadian Standards Association’s report on children’s safety.
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Privacy First: A Better Way To Address Online Harms
The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers a privacy-first model, which is an alternative, practical way forward where the interests of the companies create technical platforms more aligned with human rights and civil liberties.
American Psychological Association Health Advisory on Social Media Use in Adolescence
The APA conducted a report on online harms for youth in America and offers recommendations to policymakers on how to make the internet safer for youth’s health.
Unfair Impacts: How LGBTQIA+ Youth are Disproportionately Harmed by Online Platform Design Decisions
The research looks at how LGBTQIA+ youth are especially vulnerable to online harms and makes recommendations on the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0) to help ensure that platforms are designed and operated in a manner that prioritizes children’s best interests.
Coming to Terms with Age Assurance
The Family Online Safety Institute looks at the capabilities of age assurance in keeping children safe online.
Kids Included: Enabling meaningful child and youth participation within companies in the digital era
This report, published by Kids Know Best and Lego, provides guidance and insights to organizations on enabling child and youth participation in the digital era.
Common Sense Media: 2021 State of Kids' Privacy
The 2021 State of Kids' Privacy report represents the culmination of our research over the past five years in evaluating hundreds of education and consumer technology‐related applications and services.
ITIF: How to Address Children’s Online Safety in the U.S.
The ITIF report on children's online safety in the U.S. discusses balancing protection with privacy and free speech. It emphasizes the importance of government, parents, and online services working in tandem to address online harms. The report recommends updates to existing laws like COPPA, supports the development of secure digital IDs, and advocates for industry-led efforts to improve online safety while avoiding overburdening businesses or infringing on rights.
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Open Rights Group: Briefing on UK Online Safety Bill
Open Right’s letter to the UK government’s Briefing On the (now passed) Online Safety Bill.
Vulnerable Children in a Digital World | Childnet
InternetMatters.org report looks at how some children’s vulnerabilities are exacerbated while others are simply under-prepared for the internet and suggests solutions to combat this.
Pathways: How digital design puts children at risk | 5Rights Foundation
This research project aimed to understand how the design of digital products and services shapes the experiences and behaviours of children and young people.
Ambitions for the Online Safety Bill
5Right’s report on the UK government’s proposed online safety bill. The report states that the “government must make good on its promise to protect children online by applying the duty of care to all digital services that impact on children, wherever they are and whatever the harm”.
But how do they know it is a child? | 5Rights Foundation
The report looks at Age assurance as a necessary part of broader action to build the digital world that young people deserve.
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Guidelines for policy-makers on Child Online Protection
To respond to the challenges posed by the rapid development of telecommunications companies and the child protection challenges they bring, the Child Online Protection (COP) Initiative was launched as a multi-stakeholder international initiative to bring together partners from all sectors of the global community to create a safe and empowering online experience for children around the world.
THE ONLINE SAFETY ACT A comparative legal analysis of the provisions for children
This report offers a comparative legal analysis of the UK’s Appropriate Age Design Code and the Online Safety Act.
Growing up in a connected world
This report summarizes the evidence generated from Global Kids Online national surveys in 11 countries from children.
Global Kids Online: Comparative Report | UNICEF Office of Research
In bringing children’s own voices and experiences to the centre of policy development, legislative reform and programme and service delivery, we hope the decisions made in these spheres will serve children’s best interests.
Children's Experiences Online: Building global understanding and action
An impact study was conducted in 2019 to understand ways in which the research has been taken up and used in partner countries and internationally
Investigating Risks and Opportunities for Children in a Digital World: | UNICEF Innocenti
This report identifies, evaluates and synthesizes what has been learned from the most recent research about children’s experiences and outcomes relating to the internet and digital technologies.
Child Online Safety: Minimizing the Risk of Violence, Abuse an Exploitation Online
The report was produced by the Broadband Commission working group on Child Online Safety. This cross-sector working group (WG) is dedicated to addressing child online safety as a global issue.
Driven into Darkness Amnesty International
Examining further risks of TikTok’s content targeting, Amnesty International’s research shows that TikTok’s ‘For You’ feed can easily draw children and young people who signal an interest in mental health into “rabbit holes” of potentially harmful content, including videos that romanticize and encourage depressive thinking, self-harm and suicide.
Government Reports
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Canadian Commission on Democratic Expression Report
Focuses on various policies debated worldwide to make online systems more transparent and accountable to the public interest
Recommendations to strengthen Canada’s response to online dis-information
What We Heard Report
This 2022 report details the findings from a series of roundtable discussions hosted by the Minister of Canadian Heritage on key elements of a legislative and regulatory framework for online safety. -
This Advisory describes the current evidence on the impacts of social media on the mental health of children and adolescents. It explores whether social media can be deemed sufficiently safe for children and adolescents and outlines immediate steps that can be taken to mitigate the risk of harm.
Department of Commerce: Initiative To Protect Youth Mental Health, Safety & Privacy Online
The initiative seeks to prevent and mitigate any adverse health effects from use of online platforms on minors, while preserving benefits such platforms have on minors' health and well-being.
Senate Judiciary Committee Report: Protecting Our Children Online
This report summarizes the 2023 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on protecting children online. The hearing focused on the challenges of keeping children safe online and aimed to identify the online threats and harms they face. It also highlighted the testimonies of witnesses, including experts on child safety, mental health, and social media.
Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule: Final Rule Amendments
Also known as COPPA Rule Amendments, presents a set of regulations enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States. These amendments aim to protect the privacy of children under 13 years old who use websites and online services.
Federal Trade Commission: Combatting Online Harms Through Innovation
The Federal Trade Commission’s report explores the use of AI to address various online harms, such as scams, deepfakes, and illegal content. It emphasizes that while AI tools are improving, they still face significant limitations. The report calls for more transparency and accountability in AI usage, and for balancing innovation with protections against misuse, especially in content moderation.
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This review focuses on addressing trends to understand recent developments and anticipate emerging issues; online risk of harm to children and implications for safety policy and practice; and key findings, linking to original reports, highlighting useful graphs and including verbatim quotes from children where available.
Child Safety Online: A Practical Guide for Providers of Social Media and Interactive Services
This guide, published by the UK government, helps social media companies and online platforms create a safer environment for children. It offers social media platforms clear steps and best practices, showcases successful strategies used by other platforms to promote child safety, and educates platform providers on the different threats and harms children might encounter online.
UK Government: End-to-end encryption and child safety brief
This summary acknowledges the potential conflict between strong encryption and protecting children online. It defines end-to-end encryption (E2EE), defines its risks, and emphasizes the need for social media companies to implement measures.
The report from the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee reviews the government's approach to online safety, including the Draft Online Safety Bill. It discusses the Bill’s objectives, including requiring platforms to manage harmful content and ensure child protection. Concerns about the Bill’s impact on freedom of expression, the definition of "harm," and its potential regulatory overreach are also addressed, with recommendations for clearer definitions and balanced implementation.
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EU Kids Online employs an approach to understanding children’s online experiences defined by four C’s – comparative, contextual, child-centred and critical – to inform research and policy agendas.
The updated BIK+ strategy is the digital arm of the rights of the child strategy and reflects the recently proposed digital principle that ‘Children and young people should be protected and empowered online. It considers the European Parliament Resolution on children’s rights, the Council Conclusions on media literacy and the Council Recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee.
RESOLUTION 179 (REV. DUBAI, 2018) ITU's role in child online protection
This document by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), outlines its commitment to protecting children in the online world. The resolution acknowledges the importance of the internet for children's education and entertainment. It also recognizes the growing number of children using the internet without proper guidance and highlights the urgent need to safeguard them from online dangers.