Big data and Childrens Rights: New Legal Challenges Alongside New Opportunities

The practices of Big Data, data collection, analysis and regulation usually bring to the surface major concerns for human rights, largely dignity and privacy. We maintain that one of the first rights that should be considered in this context is the right of children to digital dignity. We also maintain that discussion of Big Data should concentrate on its potential and value in designing. Thus, we put forward an alternative voice which calls for utilizing Big Data for the benefit and enhancement of human rights, and more specifically children’s rights. Digital data, we suggest, may be employed to get real-time feedback on children’s experience of the digital realm – specifically social networks, and to design efficient policies and legal norms. Thus, we believe that big data, as a practice, can be an opportunity for enhancing children’s rights. The chapter elaborates how such purpose might be achieved, while calling for recognition of children as stakeholders in the data chain, and acknowledgement of the responsibility of all societies and governments for harnessing big data tools to do good, to globally protect and enhance the rights of our children, born into a digital world.