The United Nations human rights office has published new guidance on keeping children safe online, setting out ten steps it wants governments to build into regulation. Released on 29 May 2026 and titled Getting Children’s Safety Online Right, it argues that the harms children meet online come largely from how platforms are designed and run, and that blocking children from social media does little while the platforms themselves stay unsafe.
The High Commissioner, Volker Türk, said states should require companies to “embed safety into their platforms by design,” rather than leaving parents to manage the risk app by app. The guidance does not oppose age limits, but treats them as one tool among several, warning that bans are easily circumvented and can push children towards smaller, less moderated apps. It grounds its case in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world.
The ten steps
- Make the platforms safer by design. Put the duty on companies rather than parents: rein in addictive features like infinite scroll, autoplay and constant notifications, and tightly limit marketing aimed at children.
- Build the rules around children’s rights. Children’s rights apply online just as they do offline, including the right to find information, express themselves and take part, alongside the right to protection.
- Make strong privacy the default. Maximum data protection should be automatic, profiling children for advertising should be off the table, and any data collected should be kept to a minimum, with real control for children and parents.
- Require companies to check the impact before they launch. Platforms should assess how new features affect children before releasing them, report publicly on the effect, and face consequences if they fall short.
- Put guardrails around age checks. Where age verification is used, it must protect privacy, be transparent about any outside providers, avoid discrimination, and offer a route for children who have no formal ID.
- Aim age limits at specific harms. Restrict access to clearly identified risks, the way pornography and gambling already are, rather than imposing blanket bans; newer concerns such as AI chatbots may need their own targeted limits.
- Ask children what they think, and listen. Children should have a say in how digital spaces are designed and governed, and their experience of the rules should be gathered once those rules are in place.
- Require transparency. Platforms should open up their design and data practices to independent scrutiny, including how content is moderated and how feeds decide what children see.
- Back it with oversight and accountability. All of the above needs regular reporting, independent oversight, proper remedies, and legal consequences with real teeth.
- Follow the evidence. This is a fast-changing area, so companies should give independent researchers access, and regulators should keep adjusting as the evidence comes in.
For parents, nothing changes today. This is a set of recommendations to governments, not a rule that platforms have to follow. Its main use for now is as a signal of where children’s online regulation is heading worldwide.
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