Youth Summit on the Best Interests of the Child in the Digital Environment: Preliminary Report

February 2026 – Ottawa (ON)

Collaboration between the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada,
the eQuality Project at the University of Ottawa, and
the Kids Play Tech Lab at McGill University

Co-PIs: Valerie Steeves and Sara M. Grimes

Research Assistants: Celine Huang, Ashley Poon, Rhys Traynor, Amber Wahl, and Ella Whittall

Data visualization: Robbie Lariviere

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Introduction

In the summer of 2025, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) of Canada launched an exploratory consultation on a proposed Children’s Privacy Code. In keeping with Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which requires that adults take account of children’s views when making decisions that impact them, a team of researchers held a two-day youth summit in November 2025 to consult with 24 young people between the ages of 9 and 17 years from the greater Ottawa/Gatineau area about their experiences and opinions on a range of issues related to online privacy, best interests, and other rights in the digital environment.

Together, we came up with a list of 8 priority areas or “Key Interests” that the research team will use as the basis for a set of policy recommendations aimed at informing future Canadian laws, regulations, and guidelines that better reflect children’s voices and work to advance children’s rights online. This quick report provides a sneak peek of that list and other preliminary findings. A full report of findings and recommendations will be shared once the data analysis is complete.

Youth Summit

Each day included a mix of presentations, full group plenary discussions, creative activities, and small focus group discussions (each involving 6 participants and 2 members of the research team). The event was designed to answer three research questions:

1. What things do young people identify as in their best interests in the digital environment?
2. What things do young people identify as working against their best interests in a networked environment?
3. Do young people feel the four elements in the OPC’s description of a (potential) Children’s Privacy Code will help advance their best interests?

Day 1 focused on finding out what the participants considered their best interests when they use or encounter digital technologies: i) at school, ii) on social/streaming media platforms, and iii) in digital games and play. We discussed each one of these domains separately, followed by a “create and tell” activity aimed at summarizing their conclusions about what works (good experience or example) and what doesn’t (bad experience or example) in that particular domain (Illustration 1). Some participants also used the creative activities as a first draft of visuals to add to the graffiti wall (Illustration 2).

In the final session of Day 1, participants were asked to write down the most important keywords or themes of the day’s discussions on sticky notes and use them to create two “word clouds” to show which ones represented children’s “best interests” and which ones worked against their interests (depicted in Illustration 3).

Eight “Key Interests”

On Day 2, the research team presented 10 key recurring themes, based on a preliminary analysis of the Day 1 discussions and the sticky note word clouds. Participants then discussed the suitability of the 10 themes as possible priority areas for policymaking that support children’s privacy, rights and best interests; ranked them in order of importance, and in some cases proposed alternatives. The revised results were subsequently shared in a full group plenary session, where a list of 8 key themes or “interests” was finalized.

Eight “Key Interests”

Interest	Preliminary Description
1. Access to technology	Children need to be able to use digital technologies and learn how to use them, to develop technical skills, to build digital literacies, and to have fun and connect with other people. Access needs to be fair, equitable, and consistent, and should not be used as a reward/punishment.
2. Private spaces for personal relationships, thoughts, and exploration	There should be spaces, processes, or other options available for children to have private relationships with friends and family, as well as to express and explore private thoughts and identities. For example, settings, plugins, or other methods for making sure direct messages between friends or family members are completely private, so they should not be subject to data collection or corporate surveillance. Children also want to be able to think and talk about things before it becomes “public,” or collected and used by companies, or seen by others. They also want spaces where they can experiment with identities and communities of interest without being tracked and recorded. Some children associate this with having access to opportunities to engage with content and with other people anonymously. Lastly, choosing enhanced privacy modes or settings should not prohibit children from accessing products and services: they should retain access even when data collection is “turned off.”
3. Supervision not surveillance	Children are not unilaterally against all forms of digital surveillance. Our participants told us that there are some contexts and uses where it’s okay that certain people can see their data, content, and interactions (e.g., teachers reviewing and moderating classroom computer use, parents monitoring and limiting text messaging of younger children). Many of the younger children provided examples of situations where supervision by a trusted adult was warranted or even desirable. However, supervision must align with children’s evolving capacities and focus on guiding, monitoring and protecting in age-appropriate ways, not on surveillance.
4. Access to reliable information	Children need access to information and some way of knowing if that information is real, reliable, and accurate. Participants told us that someone needs to be responsible for this, including for flagging misinformation, propaganda, and deep fakes.
5. Children’s data must not be used to manipulate them	While participants had mixed opinions about whether, when, and how companies should be able to collect and use children’s data, they all agreed that companies, service providers and other adults need to stop using children’s data to manipulate them. Numerous examples were discussed, including recommender systems, notifications, persuasive design, advertising, and political propaganda.
6. Transparency about data practices and rules that is effectively communicated to children and young people	There needs to be greater transparency as well as more effective and accessible communication about privacy practices and rules. Participants agreed that companies and service providers must not only be more transparent about their data practices, but also describe and communicate them in accessible ways that advance children’s digital literacy and enable their informed consent. It should be obvious and easy to learn how and why data is being collected and used. Companies should be honest and comprehensive about how they are following privacy laws or “rules” (and about what those rules are).
7. Deleting data	Children should be able to delete their data, content, and interactions. Companies must comply with requests to delete children’s info when asked, even if it’s many years later.
8. Control and consent	Children need to be in control of who can see and hear them when they use technologies, when and how their data is used, who can track, record, store or exchange records of their communications and interactions. Some participants pointed out that an important part of ensuring that children have agency and control over their privacy is ensuring that they are informed about and consent to data collection and use.

Notably, the initial proposed list of ten overarching themes included a separate entry for “education,” as many participants expressed concern about what they saw as a widespread lack of awareness and literacy about the data practices of companies and other organizations and about privacy laws and children’s privacy rights, on the part of children, parents, teachers, and—significantly—companies themselves. Notably, education and literacy were also associated with various other themes and interests, particularly those that hinged on users knowing about their rights and how to exert them (e.g. deleting data). This complex theme will be revisited in the data analysis stage. In the meantime, it might be considered a “cross-cutting” interest that was clearly important to many of the children who participated in the summit.

Data Visualization

Throughout the Youth Summit, the participants’ insights, artwork and suggestions were represented or summarized visually (illustrations) by a local artist in the form of a “graffiti wall” that participants could see unfold and contribute to over the course of the two days. The resulting community-art mural serves as a data visualization of the children’s high-level contributions to the Summit and will eventually be displayed in the lobby of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (see Illustration 4).

Alignment with Resolution on the Best Interests of the Child

OPC’s call for public feedback on a Children’s Privacy Code includes references and principles articulated in the 2023 Resolution of the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Privacy Commissioners and Ombuds with Responsibility for Privacy Oversight on “Putting best interests of young people at the forefront of privacy and access to personal information,” and its companion document. On Day 2 of the Summit, participants were introduced to the four provisions in the Resolution, including proposals to restrict i) tracking and ii) deceptive practices, to iii) limit third party disclosure, and to iv) ensure that children can delete their online content when they wish to do so.

1. Turn off tracking and profiling: Children “have a right to not be tracked or profiled without justification, knowledge or consent.”
   
   While participants had not identified “no tracking” among their top concerns, they did think that a rule prohibiting covert tracking would contribute to the advancement of 6 of the 8 agreed upon “Key Interests,” including #3 (Supervision not surveillance), #1 (Access to technology), #2 (Spaces for private relationships and thoughts), #5 (Children’s data must not be used to manipulate them), #6 (Transparency), and #8 (Control and consent).
   
   
2. Reject deceptive practices: “Young people must not be influenced or coerced into making privacy-related decisions contrary to their interests.”
   
   This principle shares important commonalities with Key Interest #5 (Children’s data must not be used to manipulate them). During the yarn mapping activity, participants linked the “no deception” principle to this and to five other “Key Interests,” including #2 (Spaces for private relationships, thoughts, identity), #3 (Supervision not surveillance), #4 (Access to reliable information), #6 (Transparency), and #8 (Control and consent).
   
   
3. Limiting disclosure of children’s information: “There must be clear limits to sharing and uses of young people’s personal information.”
   
   This principle similarly reflected many of the experiences and questions raised in our small group discussions, with some participants expressing feeling uncomfortable, uninformed and/or unable to control how their data was shared with third parties or for secondary uses. The participants linked this principle with 6 of the Key Interests, including #8 (Control and consent), #2 (Spaces for private thoughts and identity), #3 (Supervision not surveillance), #4 (Access to reliable information), #5 (Children’s data must not be used to manipulate them), and #7 (Deleting data).
   
   
4. Allow for deletion or deindexing and limiting retention: Children “should have the ability to correct errors with their personal information and a means to reinvent themselves as they mature and enter adulthood.”
   
   This principle relates directly to Key Interest #7 (Deleting data), which similarly asserts that children should be able to delete their data. However, summit participants expressed wanting even broader rights to deletion, with some proposing that companies should be required to comply with requests to delete children’s data when asked, even if significant time has passed since the data was collected. Participants in the yarn mapping activity also link this principle with 5 other Key Interests including #1 (Access to technology), #2 (Spaces for private relationships, thoughts, and identity), #3 (Supervision not surveillance), #4 (Access to reliable information), and #8 (Control and consent).

Overall, the principles were well received by the participants and reflected a majority of the themes identified as Key Interests of children in regard to privacy, best interests, and other rights in the digital environment. Notably all 8 of the Key Interests were linked by participants to at least two of the four principles.

Next Steps

A detailed (full) report of our findings will be shared once the data analysis is complete. We also plan to translate relevant findings and insights into a set of policy recommendations that reflect the participants’ diverse experiences, priorities, and concerns. We will share these recommendations with the OPC, as well as other policymakers and stakeholders, in the form of an open-access downloadable PDF that will be distributed online and across relevant networks when ready.