20 August 2026: A cultural shift towards safety by design for technology accessed by children, new frameworks for chatbot safety and consistent parental controls, and a child safety certification program, are among the areas for action identified in a new paper exploring how to create a good digital childhood.
Growing up in a Digital World has been published by BSI, the UK’s national standards body, following a roundtable involving policy experts, officials and representatives from industry, advocacy groups and the third sector, which explored where standards could help support safety as tech transforms childhood.
The session followed BSI research showing that half of children have already had an AI enabled toy or learning device purchased for them. Yet as with social media, parents are concerned about areas including safety, security and privacy, with the specter of new threats including AI-generated child abuse imagery, deepfakes, sexual extortion and manipulative chatbots.
With the Government preparing to firm up its ban on social media for under 16s, as well as blocks to settings such as infinite scroll for older teenagers, the session covered the mixed messages being sent to children, with educational technology embraced while other tools are banned. Attendees rejected the idea of one model digital childhood, but called for a rights-based, child-centered framework, and for technology to support existing developmental stages, with tactics such as persuasive design, addictive engagement loops and streaks highlighted as problematic. Concerns were raised over "cliff edge" age barriers, with support instead for graduated access models, like those used in advertising.
Safety by design must become the norm
Those assembled agreed that despite industry suggestions that change is complicated or risks unintended consequences, a cultural shift to prioritize children’s safety is possible. Safety must be built into digital from the outset rather than addressed only after harm emerges. Children should not be prevented from accessing technology, but, as with physical products including toys, tools should be risk-assessed, tested and designed to mitigate foreseeable harms before deployment, with developers, platforms or service providers accountable for ensuring that products are safe by default. Attendees agreed the tech industry urgently needs to take a more active role now, avoiding the delays that we have seen with social media.
Dr Laura Bishop, Digital Sector Lead Artificial Intelligence & Cyber Security, BSI said: “A healthy digital childhood would empower children as well as protect them, giving them the skills, confidence and understanding to navigate digital environments, which they will have to do as adults. An overly protectionist approach reliant on access limits or blocking features risks creating children who are shielded from technology rather than prepared for it. We need a shift towards a culture of safety by design, alleviating pressure on parents or children to overcome industrial-scale behavioural design, and instead ensuring that child safety is built into digital from the outset rather than addressed only after harms emerge.”
Standards and certification can drive industry action
Attendees called for tougher incentives for industry action, recommending that BSI explore a certification or trust-mark model like the internationally-used cybersecurity scheme ISO/IEC 27001. This would encourage industry to demonstrate compliance with relevant standards, for example around age assurance, privacy or safety-by-design, while also giving consumers confidence products had been independently assessed.
Proposed actions for a safer digital ecosystem
The roundtable was held to mark BSI’s 125th anniversary this year, drawing on its heritage supporting consumer safety in areas from seatbelts, buggies, highchairs and car seats to button batteries. Now, BSI is keen to ensure standards are part of a digital ecosystem that protects consumers, including children. The paper sets out proposed actions, including standardizing consistent, simple and interoperable parental controls, and developing a fast-track standard for AI chatbot safety to establish minimum expectations around disclosure, safeguarding, escalation to humans, transparency of chatbot personas, risk assessment and testing. There was also support for an AI literacy framework for parents, educators, schools and children, and for further consideration to be given to standards in areas such as, manipulative design and dark patterns.
Research last year by BSI found that half of young people felt a social media curfew would improve their lives. Attendees emphasised the need for agency, with children aware of design approaches intended to maximise engagement, for example regular notifications, gamification, or infinite scroll, yet they still feel unable to control their experiences. This means that empowerment requires system redesign, not just education or placing responsibility onto children or parents.
Existing standards can support age assurance
BSI is urging the Government to draw on an existing internationally agreed standard, BS ISO/IEC 27566-1, Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection of age assurance systems to underpin its social media for children and teenagers under 16 and assuage concerns that restrictions are unworkable or could infringe people’s privacy.
The framework, published in February and with related guidance due to publish imminently, clarifies how to introduce age checks without this being overly burdensome for people or technology companies, or increasing risks to privacy and security through harvesting of data. The standard is already available for use and was initiated and developed with significant input from UK experts. If this approach is used by the government, it would mean social media users would not need to give up personal data to confirm they are old enough, while still protecting young people from content and services that aren’t suitable, and providing confidence in the age assurance system.
