The Blog of the European Association for Digital Transition
Social awareness on the risks minors face in the digital world is growing stronger. After years of taking uncritical positions, public opinion is increasingly aware that access by children and adolescents to the Internet, especially with mobile phones, involves characteristics that must be taken into account.
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Spanish society is increasingly more aware that improper use of the Internet and social networks by minors is a growing problem that must be faced resolutely. This is why the issue has entered the electoral campaign debate for the upcoming elections on July 23rd.
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Six civil society entities – the European Association for Digital Transition (EADT), promoter of the initiative, joined by Save the Children, the ANAR Foundation, iCMedia, Dale Una Vuelta and UNICEF – with institutional support from the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) have presented a proposal for a state pact to protect minors on the Internet and social networks. The initiative forms part of the start of Spain’s presidency of the European Union and before the upcoming general elections on July 23rd, which will result in a new legislature.
Read moreToday the European Association for Digital Transition is launching the campaign ‘A un click de ayudarles‘ (‘Just a click away from helping them’) in collaboration with the Atresmedia Foundation, the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) and the ANAR Foundation (helping children and teenagers at risk). The aim of this initiative is to encourage parents to take a more active role in the online activity of minors, alerting them to its risks – such as cyberbullying, isolation or self-esteem problems – and also to the characteristics of certain business models on the platforms and social networks, which are based on profiling the minor’s data for Its subsequent commercialisation via advertising.
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Being a child or teenager in the digital age is a very different experience from what previous generations had. From a very early age, minors are exposed to the fact that, through the Internet and social networks, their personal data is commercialized, and this use of private information can have consequences for the future that we barely perceive. And, like adults, they also suffer from some of the most harmful effects of the Internet, such as false information or the creation of information bubbles. In this, the big tech companies do not discriminate: the algorithm knows virtually nothing about being of legal age.
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Development of the fourth industrial revolution, with the continual expansion of big data, artificial intelligence and algorithms, poses enormously important challenges that far transcend the world of technology. A new society is being shaped that requires a new social pact, based on an ethical commitment in the use of algorithms, with full respect for fundamental human rights and adaptation of these basic protections to the digital environment.
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We had no choice: Starting in spring 2020, with the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, children all over the world continued their schooling via online classes. And it was, in this dramatic context, a solution; undoubtedly, much better than being away from schooling for months and months due to a lack of means and connectivity.
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In the digital economy we are all, several times a day, a product. Because if the product is free, the product is us. We’re all more or less aware of this reality, which years ago went unnoticed. But we are still acting as if we were blindfolded. An Internet search engine, our favourite social network, the blue dot we follow on the map when we visit another city… we think everything is free, but it isn’t. Paying with data is paying, and with our data large technology platforms, from the United States or China, are building empires that now border on monopolies.
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The Fundación ANAR (abbreviation for Ayuda a Niños y Adolescentes en Riesgo, a group that helps at-risk children and adolescents) has been working for more than half a century to ensure promotion and defence of the rights of children and adolescents within the framework of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. In recent years, our work has been transformed by the impact of technology, which has a transversal effect on all the problems found in childhood and adolescence.
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The digital environment should be friendly and safe for minors. However, reality shows that websites and social networks have become a risk for children and adolescents, who suffer online from harassment, violence, intimidation… and are exposed to all kinds of content, from inappropriate advertisements to extreme pornography. Meanwhile, their data is commercialised by the large platforms that make up the Internet, who take little action to control these serious problems.
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