The Digital Futures for Children centre is pleased to announce the call for applications for the ICA 2026 pre-conference “Children’s rights under pressure in a digital world” organised in association with the ICA divisions Children, Adolescence and Media and Communication Law and Policy.

Children and young people are often the early adopters, the ‘canaries in the coalmine’ of digital innovation around the world. We are long past the early optimism that digital technologies would spur development and close global inequalities. Instead, today’s concerns focus on how dominant digital business models are fuelling societal transformations that increasingly undermine children’s rights. As digital connectivity expands across the global South, countries in the region are beginning to grapple with the same adverse effects of digital inclusion on children’s wellbeing that have already prompted concern in the global North. Growing evidence also shows that different groups of children experience these impacts unevenly, with new research highlighting the distinct challenges faced by indigenous children as connectivity reaches their communities.

Education and awareness-raising for a digital world are crucial, but they are insufficient on their own. Many now call for stronger regulation to rein in the power of big tech to commodify and reshape all aspects of everyday life in the interests of profit. This is proving contentious, with key rights – safety, speech, privacy, participation – appearing to conflict and with stakeholders debating the respective responsibilities of government, industry, civil society, families, and educators in safeguarding children’s rights within a fast-moving and complex digital landscape. 

This pre-conference brings together scholars and practitioners to explore how research can inform policy, regulation and design, and how global South perspectives can inform and shape international debates. The discussions will combine different perspectives, expertise and approaches under the umbrella of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General comment No. 25 on Children’s Rights in Relation to the Digital Environment.

Call for papers

We welcome original research studies addressing the theme of children’s rights in the digital environment, from all disciplines, employing empirical methods, relevant theory, and contributing to children’s rights in the digital environment.

We invite extended abstracts of up to 1500 words (excluding references and tables).

Possible topics include:

• Artificial intelligence, governance, privacy and safety
• Child rights-respecting AI design
• Intersectional perspectives on children’s digital lives
• Children’s participation in digital environments
• Children’s digital labour and the platform economy
• Commercial exploitation and children’s data
• Children’s activism online
• Children’s participation in digital governance
• Algorithmic childhoods
• EdTech and the right to education
• Child rights by design
• Age restrictions and age-appropriate design
• Measures for protecting children in digital environments
• Digital childhoods, parenting and rights