Huffelen's work agenda offers opportunities for Code for Children's Rights

Waag is pleased to see that the protection of (digital) children's rights has been given a prominent place in the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations' Work Agenda for Value-Driven Digitisation. State Secretary Van Huffelen's plans include making a Child Rights Impact Assessment - a child rights test - mandatory for developers, developing parental control tools and launching a national awareness campaign on child rights in technology.

In the Code for Children's Rights, Waag Futurelab and Leiden University have formulated ten principles, which designers and developers can use to safeguard children's fundamental rights in digital services. The Code is based on existing laws, which unfortunately are still insufficiently respected and applied in digital technologies.

To increase compliance and recognition of this Code, Waag, Leiden University and NICAM recently presented the Code for Children's Rights impact programme to the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.

This impact programme perfectly matches the ambitions of the State Secretary presented last week. We propose to work together on:

1. The Basics: keeping the Code up-to-date by a team of experts.
2. The Application: the development of tools to test digital products/services (with a Children's Rights Impact Assessment), make children's rights central to the design of new products/services (with design methods) and make the Code recognisable to the general public (with a Children's Rights Guide)
3. The Endorsement: a broad campaign on the Children's Rights Code.

Already 28 partners from the cultural sector, the creative industry, knowledge institutions and education have expressed their support for the impact programme through a signed letter. Among them are Kennisnet, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the Consumers' Association and VPRO. They want to actively contribute to a world in which children's rights are guaranteed in all digital products and services.

We invited the ministry to join this movement and support the Impact programme Code for Children's Rights.