The Digital Futures Commission has recently completed an important programme of work dedicated to placing children’s interests at the centre of the design of the digital world. Led by Professor Sonia Livingstone OBE and linked to the work of The 5 Digital Rights Foundation, this work is a collaboration of organisations, children, parents, content creators policy-makers, regulators, academics and civil society.
Over the three-year duration of the Commission, the focus has been on advocating change for children and young people in three main areas: play in a digital world, beneficial uses of education data, and guidance for innovators. The work has been informed by the voices of children and has some highly useful insights for the children’s film sector, especially those working in film exhibition and film education, policy makers and funders.
All the reports from the project are available online and they are published in an accessible format which makes acting on the recommendations clear and easy. I highly recommend Child Rights by Design which is a design guide to enable those creating content for children to design with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) at the heart of their decision-making. Whether you are a film-programmer, film-maker, script editor, creating a website or designing new immersive digital content, this guide enables you to imagine how well your work serves the rights of children. It was devised by child’s right activists and academics and informed by research with children. There are useful summary illustrations such as the one below, but I really encourage you to take a look at the detail which gives highly practical, actionable advice and guidance.
Introduced by Becky Parry