The Digital Futures Commission has now concluded. Our new project is the Digital Futures for Children centre, joint with 5Rights Foundation and London School of Economics and Political Science.

The Digital Futures Commission is dedicated to placing children’s interests at the centre of the design of the digital world. Our ambitious research program, led by Professor Sonia Livingstone OBE, has been guided by a group of Commissioners with expertise in how children and digital technology intersect. Over the three-year duration of the Commission, our focus has been on driving real world change for children and young people.

Discover all our outputs, findings and resources on this website and join us in shaping a better digital future for children and young people. Read our final report here.

Beeban Kidron

Chair, 5Rights Foundation

Let Kids Wonder, Question, and Make Mistakes: How the Designers of Children’s Technology Think about Child Well-being

What practical issues arise when involving children in designing digital products and services, and what can be learned from practitioners’ experiences? Given the Digital Futures Commission’s commitment to Child Rights by Design, we are glad to repost this blog from one of our Commissioner organisations, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. by Rotem Landesman, Jenny Radesky, and Alexis Hiniker »

Digital Futures Commission - final report

The final report sums up the Digital Futures Commission's work in the areas of play, beneficial uses of education data, and guidance for innovators.

A Blueprint for Education Data

The Blueprint for Education Data sets out a baseline for data processing of pupil data in schools and other educational establishments.

Child Rights by Design

This report is for innovators of digital products and services likely to be used by or impact on children. It specifically includes 11 principles, each explained with practical advice on how designers should be conscious of children as they conceive, build and roll out digital products.

Education Data Futures: Critical Regulatory and Practical reflections

To mark World Children’s Day the DFC have launched an essay collection which offers reflections that identify possibilities for beneficial uses of children’s education data as well as tackling the exploitative uses or misuse of such data.

Download the Playful By Design report

The report looks at one of the most important aspects of a child’s development – free play – and how platforms succeed and fail in facilitating it. The purpose is to improve children’s opportunities for free play and overcome the inhibiting factors in digital services that children report.

Find out more about the DFC Commissioners

Find out more about more about the DFC Commissioners and the wide-range of expertise they are bringing to our work.

Play

Realising Playful by Design in practice

By Kruakae Pothong, Sonia Livingstone and Angela Colvert The Digital Futures Commission’s research on play in the digital world shows that, when it comes to play, children do not limit themselves to only the spaces, objects or products that adults provide. Children told us in our first consultation how they highjacked Zoom to create their »

Education

A step towards clarity: welcoming ICO’s new guidance for EdTech on the Age Appropriate Design Code

by Ayça Atabey, Louise Hooper, Sonia Livingstone and Kruakae Pothong We warmly welcome recently updated guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on how the Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC) applies to educational technology (EdTech). Key improvements include: The Digital Futures Commission has been in correspondence with the ICO throughout its work on the governance »

Innovation

Let Kids Wonder, Question, and Make Mistakes: How the Designers of Children’s Technology Think about Child Well-being

What practical issues arise when involving children in designing digital products and services, and what can be learned from practitioners’ experiences? Given the Digital Futures Commission’s commitment to Child Rights by Design, we are glad to repost this blog from one of our Commissioner organisations, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. by Rotem Landesman, Jenny Radesky, and Alexis Hiniker »