How can society realise children’s rights in a digital age? This question is gathering increasing attention from policymakers and researchers. Professor Sonia Livingstone is leading the Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC) with 5Rights Foundation, an exciting research collaboration that supports an evidence base for advocacy, facilitates multidisciplinary dialogues and amplifies children’s voices. This builds on, and takes as its remit, our previous work with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to consult on and draft its General comment on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment (2018-2021).
The DFC created the Child Rights by Design Toolkit to support policymakers and digital developers realise children’s rights when designing and creating digital products. This toolkit is grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and contains 11 principles to ensure digital environments promote the wellbeing of children (see below).
- Livingstone, S. & Pothong, K. (2025). Child Rights Impact Assessment: A policy tool for a rights-respecting digital environment. Policy & Internet. 17(3), e70008. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/poi3.70008
- Livingstone, S., & Kidron, B. (2025). The evolution of children’s rights in the digital era. In J. Zermatten, et al. (Eds.), Paving the way! Institutional, Legal and Human Journeys. 30 Years of the International Institute for the Rights of the Child. Institute International des Droits de L’Enfant. https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/138682/
- Livingstone, S. & Sylwander, K. R. (2025). Conceptualizing age-appropriate social media to support children’s digital futures. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 44, 300–312. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.70006
- Livingstone, S., Lievens, E., Graham, R., Pothong, K., Steinberg, S., & Stoilova, M. (2025). Children’s Privacy in the Digital Age: US and UK Experiences and Policy Responses. In: Christakis, D.A., Hale, L. (eds) Handbook of Children and Screens. Springer, Cham.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69362-5_67
- Livingstone, S. and Sylwander, K. (2025). There is no right age! The search for age-appropriate ways to support children’s digital lives and rights. Journal of Children and Media, 19(1), 6-12. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2024.2435015
- Children’s rights in the digital age. (2024). Andrea Millwood Hargrave interviews Sonia Livingstone. Intermedia, 52(1) [Text]
- Livingstone, S. (2024). Reflections on the meaning of “digital” in research on adolescents' digital lives. Journal of Adolescence, 96(4), 886–891. http://doi.org/10.1002/jad.12322 [Text]
- Colvert, A., Pothong, K., and Livingstone, S. (2024). Playful by Design: Embedding Children's Rights into the Digital World. ACM Games: Research and Practice. [Text] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678469
- Livingstone, S. and Sylwander, K. (2024). Children’s rights and the UN Global Digital Compact. Academy of Social Sciences [Text]
- Pothong, K., Colvert, A., Livingstone, S., & Pschetz, L. (2024). Applying children’s rights to digital products: Exploring competing priorities in design. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference, Delft, Netherlands. [Text] https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3628516.3655789
- Livingstone, S., Third, A., and Lansdown, G. (2024). Children vs Adults: Negotiating UNCRC General comment No.25 on children's rights in the digital environment. In Puppis, M., Mansell, R., and Van den Bulck, H. (Eds), Handbook of Media and Communication Governance. Edward Elgar Publishers. https://www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap-oa/book/9781800887206/book-part-9781800887206-42.xml
- Livingstone, S., Pothong, K., Atabey, A., Hooper, L., & Day, E. (2024). The Googlization of the classroom: Is the UK effective in protecting children's data and rights? Computers and Education Open. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2024.100195
- Livingstone, S., Ólafsson, K., & Pothong, K. (2023). Digital play on children’s terms: A child rights approach to designing digital experiences. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231196579
- Stoilova, M., Bulger, M., & Livingstone, S. (2023). Do parental control tools fulfil family expectations for child protection? A rapid evidence review of the contexts and outcomes of use. Journal of Children and Media, 18(1), 29-49. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2023.2265512
- Day, E., Pothong, K., Atabey, A., and Livingstone, S. (2022). Who controls children’s education data? A socio-legal analysis of the UK governance regimes for schools and EdTech. Learning, Media and Technology, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2022.2152838
- Livingstone, S., Third, A., and Lansdown, G. (2020). Children’s rights in the digital environment: A challenging domain for evidence-based policy. In Green, L., Holloway, D., Stevenson, K., Leaver, T, and Haddon, L. (Eds.) Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children (378-389). London: Routledge. https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/103006/
- Livingstone, S. (2020) Can we realise children’s rights in a digital world? A provocation paper. The British Academy.
- Livingstone, S. (2020). Erasmus Medal Lecture 2018 AE GM Barcelona: Realizing Children’s Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment. European Review, 1-14. doi:10.1017/S106279872000054X
- Livingstone, S. (2019) Claiming rights and righting wrongs: children’s rights in the digital environment. In Donohue, C. (Ed.). Exploring key issues in early childhood and technology: Evolving perspectives and innovative approaches (pp.42-48). New York: Routledge.
- Lievens, E., Livingstone, S., McLaughlin, S., O’Neill, B., and Verdoodt, V. (2018). Children’s rights and digital technologies. In T. Liefaard and U. Kilkelly (Eds.), International Children’s Rights Law. Berlin: Springer, doi: 10.1007/978-981-10-3182-3_16-1.
- Livingstone, S., and Third, A. (2017) Guest editor for special issue, ‘Children and young people’s rights in the digital age’. New Media & Society, 19(5).
- Livingstone, S. and Third, A. (2017) Children and young people’s rights in the digital age: An emerging agenda. New Media & Society, 19(5): 657–670.
- Livingstone, S. (2017) Children’s rights in the digital age. In Tumber, H., and Waisbord, S. (Eds.), Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights (pp. 104-113). London: Routledge.
- Livingstone, S. (2016) Reframing media effects in terms of children’s rights in the digital age. Journal of Children and Media, 10(1): 4-12.
- Stoilova, M., Livingstone, S. and Kardefelt-Winther, D. (2016) Global Kids Online: researching children’s rights globally in the digital age. Global Studies of Childhood, 6(4): 455-466.
- Livingstone, S., Carr, J., and Byrne, J. (2015) One in three: The task for global internet governance in addressing children’s rights. Global Commission on Internet Governance: Paper Series. London: CIGI and Chatham House.
- Livingstone, S. (2015) Children’s digital rights. InterMedia, 42 (4/5): 20-24.
- Livingstone, S., and Bulger, M. (2014) A global research agenda for children’s rights in the digital age. Journal of Children and Media. DOI: 10.1080/17482798.2014.961496
- Livingstone, S., and O’Neill, B. (2014) Children’s rights online: challenges, dilemmas and emerging directions. In van der Hof, S., van den Berg, B., and Schermer, B. (eds), Minding Minors Wandering the Web: Regulating Online Child Safety (pp.19-38). Berlin: Springer.