Children born after 2013 are the first generation to grow up completely immersed in digital systems, which were not designed with them in mind. One-third of the world’s internet users are under 18, according to UNICEF, yet these programs that shape their daily lives are designed for adults. They were designed to be interactive and designed long before people understood the profound influence digital environments have on children.
For developers and technology professionals, cyber security is not an abstract policy debate. It’s a design challenge that requires rigor, systems thinking, and behavioral foresight.
Governments around the world are also starting to recognize this problem. Policymakers from across Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Indonesia, and the United States are responding to dangers developers have long understood: Addictive features, inappropriate content, murky data processes, and algorithmic systems shape user behavior in ways their creators never fully predicted. For years, technology has moved faster than governance. Now governance is trying to catch up.
Global Shift Toward Design Reform
The European Union and the United Kingdom have been among the first to take action, embedding age-appropriate digital design in their children’s rights agenda. Using IEEE technology and global best practices, Indonesia is the first country in Asia, and Brazil is the first country in Latin America, to adopt age-appropriate design principles. Australia aims to limit access to harmful content and addictive design features through age restrictions on certain platforms. And in the United States, in addition to federal efforts, states including California, New York, and Utah are enacting measures that include age-appropriate design principles.
In all these efforts, a shared awareness emerges. Protecting children online is not just about filtering content or adding parental controls. It requires rethinking the structure of digital systems in terms of how data is collected, how algorithms make decisions, how communication affects attention, and how AI interacts with the evolving minds of new users.
Engineers and technology professionals understand that design choices are not neutral. They include values, incentives, and assumptions. When the user is a child, those decisions carry more weight.
This is where IEEE’s work becomes most important.
Protecting Children Online
For more than a decade, IEEE has been building the technical and ethical foundations for secure digital information. The first IEEE standard on age-appropriate design in 2021 marked a turning point. It provides a systematic, principled approach to design with children’s rights in mind. InstitutionThe 2022 article “Use the New IEEE Standard to Design a Safer Digital World for Children” highlights how the standard helps translate those goals into engineering.
Today the IEEE Standards Association’s (SA) Trustworthy Digital Experiences portfolio provides a practical, technology-based framework for governments and industry. Combining design principles, data management, algorithmic visibility, and child-centered digital wellness, it has already started conversations with government stakeholders around the world. This work helps to bridge the gap between engineering realities and policy aspirations.
No single country can solve these challenges alone. Many policy makers do not have access to the combined knowledge of technology, governance, and children’s rights that is needed to act quickly and effectively. This collaborative effort helps bridge that gap.
The stakes are high. Without systematic action, public policy will continue to lag behind technology, leaving children exposed to risks that could be mitigated through thoughtful design. But with the right frameworks, governments can ensure that digital systems respect children’s rights, support healthy development, and promote well-being.
Emerging IEEE standards and collaborative technology policy work provide a way forward. By focusing national efforts on evidence-based, rights-aligned design principles, IEEE helps governments move from passive regulation to effective, coherent, and globally informed strategies for protecting children online.
Protecting childhood in the digital age is a moral imperative and an engineering challenge. And IEEE is helping to lead the way.
— Mary Ellen Randall
IEEE President and CEO
Please share your thoughts with me: president@ieee.org.
This article appears in the June 2026 issue.
From Your Site Locations
Related Topics on the Web
