Government Report

General Comment No. 25 (2021) on Children's Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment

Mar 2021 🌐 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

General Comment No. 25, adopted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on March 2, 2021, is an authoritative interpretation stating that the rights children hold under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child — including privacy, protection from exploitation, and freedom of expression — apply fully in digital spaces. Beeban Kidron sat on the small expert drafting group, and her 5Rights Foundation chaired the steering committee that developed the text over roughly two years of consultation with children, governments, and industry. The comment sets out standards governments are expected to apply when regulating online services children use. TechKids Foundation cites General Comment No. 25 as a global policy outcome directly tied to Kidron's advocacy, framing digital design and data practices as children's-rights issues for national regulators to act on, rather than as a medical or diagnostic finding.

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CITATION

UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. General Comment No. 25 (2021) on Children's Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment. Adopted March 2, 2021.

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Nov 2021 🇺🇸 Harvard Kennedy School / The Harvard Gazette

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Apr 2025 🇺🇸 The Wall Street Journal

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Aug 2018 🇩🇪 The New York Times (syndicated via New York Times News Service / WRAL)

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Sep 2022 🇺🇸 Crooked Media

RELATED EVIDENCE

Reporter Details Dark Inner Workings of Facebook — Jeff Horwitz at Harvard Kennedy School

Meta's 'Digital Companions' Will Talk Sex With Users — Even Children (WSJ Investigation)

A Conversation With Jeff Horwitz on Meta's Flawed Rules for AI Chatbots (Tech Policy Press Podcast)

Where Countries Are Tinderboxes and Facebook Is a Match

Facebook Fueled Anti-Refugee Attacks in Germany, New Research Suggests

The Inside Story of How Silicon Valley Rewired Our Brains — Offline with Jon Favreau

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