As more than 175,000 children go online for the first time every day – a new child every half second – UNICEF, the UN Children’s Agency, warned today that digital access means they are exposed not only to a wealth of benefits and opportunities, but also to a host of risks and harms. These risks include access to harmful content, sexual exploitation and abuse, cyberbullying, and misuse of their private information.

“It is of utmost importance that we protect children’s digital footprint,” said Tony Stuart, CEO of UNICEF Australia. “The reality is children and young people often understand the opportunities and risks offered by the internet better than adults. So we need to ensure that they, and their parents, are in the room with industry and government when we are formulating policies and solutions.”

UNICEF is calling for renewed urgency and cooperation among governments, civil society, United Nations agencies and other international children’s organizations, and, most significantly, the private sector to put children at the center of digital policy by:

Coordinating global, regional and national response. We must deepen collaboration between policy makers, law enforcement and the technology industry to embed principles of safety in the design of technology, and to work together to find solutions to keep pace with digital technology that can enable and conceal illegal trafficking and other online child sexual abuse.

Safeguarding children’s privacy. We need a much greater commitment by the private sector and government to protect and not misuse children’s data and to respect its encryption; the full application of international standards in collecting and using data about children online; and to teach children how to protect themselves from threats to their own privacy.

– UNICEF

Read more: UNICEF Calls For Urgent Action to Protect Children Online

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