The Child’s Right to Protection against Economic Exploitation in the Digital World

Abstract

Children face significant consumer risks when surfing online, related to, inter alia, embedded advertisements and privacy-invasive practices, as well as the exploitation of their incredulity and inexperience resulting in overspending or online fraudulent transactions. Behind the fun and playful activities available for children online lie complex revenue models, creating value for companies by feeding children’s data into algorithms and self-learning models to profile them and offer personalised advertising or by nudging children to buy or try to win in-app items to advance in the games they play. In this article we argue that specific measures against these forms of economic exploitation of children in the digital world are urgently needed. We focus on three types of exploitative practices that may have a significant impact on the well-being and rights of children – profiling and automated decision-making, commercialisation of play, and digital child labour. For each type, we explain what the practice entails, situate the practice within the existing legislative and children’s rights framework and identify concerns in relation to those rights.

“Don't Gamble With Children's Rights”—How Behavioral Design Impacts the Right of Children to a Playful and Healthy Game Environment

“…Protection from economic exploitation of children is considered important because it does not contribute to the child's well-being and healthy development and can even be harmful, economically, socially and emotionally ( 48 ). Given the shift toward in-game monetization models and the commercial interests that go with it, online economic exploitation of children is increasingly becoming a focus of attention ( 48 , 52 ). Exploitation of children can take three, intertwined forms: (1) economic exploitation of children's personal data (see also next section), (2) economic exploitation of children's cognitive development (e.g., manipulating economic choices through marketing with respect to in-app purchases and in advergames that may increase the likelihood of unhealthy choices, such as buying candy offline), and (3) economic exploitation by having children engage in economic activities (think eSports and child influencers) if they are harmful to them ( 48 , 53 ).…”

“…This follows from their right to protection from economic exploitation as laid down in Article 32 CRC. This right aims to, among others, protect children from being abused by unfair methods of gaining commercial advantage ( 48 ). Such unfair methods may include deception and manipulation of children in ways that they are not aware of ( 49 ), as well as other forms of potentially exploitative design, i.e., design primarily or exclusively for an economic purpose.…”

“…Protection from economic exploitation of children is considered important because it does not contribute to the child's well-being and healthy development and can even be harmful, economically, socially and emotionally ( 48 ). Given the shift toward in-game monetization models and the commercial interests that go with it, online economic exploitation of children is increasingly becoming a focus of attention ( 48 , 52 ).…”

“…In the case of children, EU data protection law, i.e., the General Data Protection Regulation, provides an even higher level of protection which is certainly more difficult to comply with in the case of data-driven business models. As indicated in the previous section, the excessive use of personal data can be considered a form of economic exploitation of children ( 48 ).…”

“…Essentially, it is our impression that the majority of game companies profile, even the smallest studios, because they want to know who buys their products. Profiling of children by capitalizing on their personal data, and particularly on their inferred personality traits, preferences, gaming behavior or vulnerabilities, can amount to a form of exploitative design ( 48 ).…”