Data: a new direction” - a child rights response

In responding to the UK government’s recent consultation on “Data: a new direction,” LSE’s Professor Sonia Livingstone and 5Rights Foundation researcher Dr Kruakae Pothong drew on their separate research on Children’s Data and Privacy Online and The Internet on Our Own Terms respectively, and on their research together for the Digital Futures Commission. Their child-rights perspective led them to recommend to DCMS that the Data Protection Act and UK GDPR should not be watered down in the interests of business but, rather, strengthened in children’s best interests. The consultation asked lots of detailed and technical questions – here is an edited version of some of their answers.