Privacy of a Child in the Digital Environment: New Risks Unaddressed (N.V. Kravchuk, журнал "Право. Журнал Высшей школы экономики", N 5, спецвыпуск 2022 г.)

Kravchuk N.V. Privacy of a Child in the Digital Environment: New Risks Unaddressed

N.V. Kravchuk - Senior Researcher, Candidate of Sciences (Law), Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences

Digital technologies have brought with them new possibilities for exercising and protecting human rights; however, their potential for violations of human rights has also grown exponentially. Use of ICT influences the daily lives of adults, but their impact on children is even greater, as the risks of harm they face are now mediated and exacerbated online. The importance of children's right to privacy has manifested itself anew in the context of digital technologies. In addition to concerns about safety, there are other considerations such as data processing and the "digital footprints" created by children themselves. Parents have traditionally been considered the primary agents for guidance and support of children's rights online as well as for the protection of their children, but they are now seen as their children's main publicity agents. Nevertheless, the problem of "sharenting" remains unaddressed at both the national and international levels. Measures developed to protect the privacy of the child follow a paradigm of rendering support to parents without stressing their obligation not to disclose information about their child. The General Comment on children's rights in relation to the digital environment adopted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2021 reflects this approach. Its stance demonstrates the power of traditional perceptions that reinforce seeing the child as an object incontestably cared for and ruled by their parents This precludes consideration of parents' online activities as potentially harmful to their children and also impedes the development of norms and remedies for protecting the right of the child to privacy against infringements by their parents.

Keywords: human rights; rights of the child; right to privacy; digital environment; parents; sharenting; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child