What is the status of digital children’s rights?
In this Digital Child Rights Monitor we give insight how the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) addressed digital child rights in its 2022 Concluding Observations on Germany. The priority scale reflects how strongly the CRC highlights an issue in its recommendations — the higher the score, the bigger or more pressing the problem. This scale helps visualize which digital child rights issues the CRC considers most urgent and where Germany faces its greatest challenges. If a country gets a low priority score it does not necessarily mean the country is doing good, it just means the CRC made little to no mention to it.
Summary
Priority
Violence & Exploitation Online (18), Infrastructure & Capacity (17), and Online Safety & Protection (15) emerge as the most pressing areas. These themes show consistently high priority scores, indicating significant concerns around children’s exposure to online harm, the robustness of digital systems, and the effectiveness of safety measures. Immediate and sustained action is required to strengthen protections, enforcement capacity, and system resilience.
Priority
Digital Health & Well-Being (8) falls into the medium-priority category. While issues such as mental health impacts and screen time are present and recurring, they are assessed as less acute than direct safety and infrastructure risks. Ongoing monitoring and preventive policies remain important.
Priority
Privacy & Data Protection (2) and Digital Access & Participation (0) are assessed as low priority. This suggests that privacy issues are either less frequently raised or currently addressed through existing frameworks, while access-related concerns may be underreported. Despite their lower urgency scores, both themes remain structurally important and should continue to be monitored.
Overview themes
- Digital Access & Participation
- Digital Health & Well-Being
- Infrastructure & Capacity
- Online Safety & Protection
- Privacy & Data Protection
- Violence & Exploitation Online
Overall, the data shows a strong focus on protecting children from online violence and exploitation, alongside the need to strengthen digital infrastructure and safety mechanisms. High urgency is concentrated around immediate risks in online environments and the systems meant to protect children. Digital health and wellbeing concerns are present but treated as secondary to direct safety threats. Privacy and digital access receive lower urgency ratings, indicating either relative stability or gaps in available data rather than a lack of relevance.
Violence and exploitation
- Discriminatory violence
- Online harassment and bullying
- Online sexual exploitation / CSAM
- Trafficking & exploitation
The data shows that online sexual exploitation / CSAM is the most prominent concern, carrying the highest combined urgency score and appearing repeatedly across assessments. Online harassment and bullying also emerge as a significant issue, indicating ongoing risks to children’s safety and well-being in digital spaces. Trafficking and exploitation through digital platforms are present with moderate urgency, suggesting clear concerns but less frequent reporting than sexual exploitation. Discriminatory violence receives little to no urgency, which may reflect underreporting rather than an absence of risk.
Infrastructure and capacity
- Cybercrime and cybersecurity laws
- Digitalized systems
- Training of professionals on online offences
The data indicates that training of professionals on online offences is the most urgent priority, with the highest cumulative urgency score, highlighting the need to strengthen skills and capacity among those responsible for prevention and enforcement. Cybercrime and cybersecurity laws show a moderate level of urgency, suggesting that legal frameworks exist but may require updates or stronger implementation. Digitalized systems receive comparatively lower urgency, pointing to fewer immediate concerns but still reflecting an ongoing need for maintenance and improvement. Overall, the pattern suggests that investing in human capacity and professional training is more pressing than purely technical or legislative measures in this area.
Digital health and wellbeing
The data shows that online/gaming addiction and screen time issues carry the highest urgency within digital health and wellbeing, indicating growing concerns about children’s online habits. Mental health impacts are present but show a lower urgency level, suggesting they are acknowledged but not consistently prioritized. Support and rehabilitation services receive some attention, yet their moderate score points to a need for further strengthening access and capacity.
Online safety and protection
The data indicates that safeguarding policies in digital media receive the highest urgency, showing strong policy attention to protecting children online. Awareness campaigns on safe internet use are also prioritized, reflecting efforts to promote prevention and digital literacy. In contrast, complaint and reporting mechanisms show no recorded urgency, suggesting a gap in accessible or emphasized avenues for children to report online harms.
Privacy and data protection
The data shows that children’s digital privacy rights receive limited urgency, indicating some recognition but relatively low prioritization. Artificial intelligence, data protection, surveillance and profiling, and extraterritorial jurisdiction for online crimes show no recorded urgency, suggesting these areas are currently under-addressed. Overall, this points to a gap in forward-looking and cross-border digital governance for children, particularly in emerging and complex digital rights issues.
Digital access and participation
There is no recorded urgency across the themes of digital access and participation, including access for children with disabilities, civic participation, digital divide, and IT infrastructure. This suggests that these areas are not currently framed as pressing concerns within the available data. However, a positive note is made regarding e-learning, indicating that despite the lack of urgency, there are constructive developments or good practices in this area.
Concluding Observations CRC
- “Improve the collection and analysis of data on violence against children, including abuse and neglect, sexual exploitation and online violence, and the situation of children in disadvantaged situations, including children in alternative care, children without regular residence status and children of incarcerated parents;”
- “Allocate sufficient technical, financial and human resources to the newly established Federal Agency for Child and Youth Protection in the Media and ensure that it develops regulations and safeguarding policies to protect the rights, privacy and safety of children in the digital environment and to protect them from harmful content and online risks;”
- “Nonetheless, the Committee remains seriously concerned about the high prevalence of violence against children, including sexual exploitation and online violence.”
- “Develop, with the involvement of the Länder, municipalities and children, a comprehensive national strategy for preventing, combating and monitoring all forms of violence against and among children, including neglect, sexual exploitation, online violence, emotional violence and bullying, with a view to ensuring complementarity and coherence across all measures and programmes addressing violence against children;”
- “The Committee is concerned about:The prevalence of gaming disorders and other forms of online addiction among children in the State party.”
- “Ensure that adolescents who are at risk of or already have gaming disorders and other forms of online addiction are aware of the health risks associated with excessive media use, and receive appropriate support.”
- “Expand the scope of the Media Youth Protection Act to encompass all online applications and services used by children and expand the definition of illegal content to the production of sexual abuse material of children between 14 and 17 years of age;”
- “Take all necessary measures to prevent, prosecute and eliminate the exploitation of children online and in travel, tourism and prostitution, including by: Requiring the digital business sector to put in place child protection standards;”
- “Ensuring that Internet service providers control, block and promptly remove online sexual abuse material;”
- “Strengthen the implementation of laws that protect children in the digital environment, including the reformed Youth Protection Act and the Act to Enhance the Assertion of Legal Rights on Social Media Networks, such as by providing for mechanisms to prosecute violations of children’s rights in the digital environment;”
- “Enhance the digital literacy and skills of children, parents and teachers, including by incorporating digital literacy into school curricula.”
- “… the Committee urges the State party to: Ensure the effective investigation of and intervention in all cases of sexual exploitation and abuse of children in and outside the home, in the digital environment, in religious and educational institutions and in child and youth welfare facilities, including by designating specialized law enforcement and prosecution services to investigate such offences against children;”
- “The Committee commends the State party for its efforts to expand the inclusive education system, address learning gaps experienced by children during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, expand digitalization in schools…”
- “Continue efforts to combat bullying in schools, including cyberbullying, and ensure that they encompass prevention, early-detection mechanisms, intervention protocols, mandatory training for teachers, harmonized guidelines for the collection of case-related data and awareness-raising about the harmful effects of bullying;”
Germany
2022
Digital Child Rights Network
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