Designing Digital Global Governance With Children’s Best Interests And Their Rights As A Priority

Prioritizing children’s rights in digital governance is essential for a fair digital present and future. Going beyond self-regulation, G20 has the opportunity to collectively reimagine the regulation and design of digital platforms, prioritizing the safety and well- being of all young users, anticipating risks, and promoting democratic values within an intergenerational rights perspective. Despite representing 5 of internet users, children face unique vulnerabilities, including digital inclusion barriers, online commercial exploitation, literacy challenges and inadequate public infrastructure design, limiting their ability to exercise rights equally or influence platform governance. This is worsened by regulatory disparities and the focus of global platforms’ safety investments on larger markets, sidelining Global South children. Previous G20 initiatives (eg. “G20’s High Level Principles for Children Protection and Empowerment in the Digital Environment” and “G20’s Toolkit on Cyber Education and Cyber Awareness”) have laid groundwork for addressing these issues by setting collective commitments based on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and mapping out member states’ efforts to mitigate online risks. Significant gaps remain, notably, the absence of an enforceable child rights framework across G20 nations and the need for mechanisms to monitor progress. This calls for a strategy that connects digital economy objectives with the enhancement of child rights and the closing of digital divides, advocating for a child rights-by-design (CRbD) approach, a broader commitment against commercial exploitation of children and greater child participation in technology governance. This approach aligns with G20’s past commitments and with the current Brazilian leadership, whose Federal Constitution mandates prioritizing children’s rights as an absolute priority for all country’s initiatives.