5Rights Foundation
5Rights researches how digital design, platform policy, and regulation affect children’s privacy, safety, and rights online. Through its joint Digital Futures for Children research centre with the London School of Economics (LSE), it audits named platforms’ compliance changes against child-protection law and commissions original field research (e.g. test-account/avatar studies) into how design features expose minors to harmful content.
- Type
- International NGO — children’s digital rights advocacy and research
- Based in
- Brussels, Belgium
- Focus region
- UK/EU regulatory focus, with global platform scope
Notable projects
Co-runs the Digital Futures for Children centre with LSE, which produced ‘Impact of regulation of children’s digital lives’ (Phase I, May 2024, and Phase II, May 2026), tracking platform-level child-safety design changes under the UK Age Appropriate Design Code, UK Online Safety Act, and EU DSA. Also produced ‘Pathways: How digital design puts children at risk’ (2021, with Revealing Reality), which traced how Facebook, Instagram and TikTok exposed newly created child accounts to harmful content.
5Rights’ distinguishing angle is naming specific platforms (Meta, Google, TikTok, Snap) and counting/coding their actual design changes over time against three parallel child-protection regimes at once — the UK Age Appropriate Design Code, the UK Online Safety Act, and the EU DSA — rather than treating any one law in isolation. States it has never accepted and will never accept tech-company funding.
- Investigations
- 3
- Platforms tracked
- 4
- Active since
- 2021
- Latest report
- May 2026
Topics covered
- Algorithmic Harm & Recommender Systems3
- Child Safety & Minors3
- Platform Compliance & Governance2
Researchers
Current
- Steve WoodResearch Consultant, Digital Futures for Children centre (LSE); founder, PrivacyX Consulting; former UK Deputy Information Commissioner2
Reports
Full database2026
1 report- May 2026Cross-platformMetaTikTokSnapchat
Impact of regulation of children’s digital lives – Phase II
Researchers recorded 108 child-safety/privacy design changes across 70 platforms between 2024 and 2026, but only 5 of the platforms contacted directly responded to information requests. The four largest platforms (Meta, Google, TikTok, Snapchat) have shifted away from protective ‘by default’ design changes toward optional end-user tools such as parental controls, reversing the trend identified in the Phase I report.
Child Safety & MinorsPlatform Compliance & GovernanceAlgorithmic Harm & Recommender SystemsArt. 28 — Protection of minorsBy Steve Wood
2024
1 report- May 2024MetaTikTokGoogleSnapchat
Impact of regulation on children’s digital lives
Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap made 128 documented child-safety and privacy changes between 2017 and 2024, peaking at 42 changes in 2021 when the UK Age Appropriate Design Code took effect; Meta alone accounted for 61 of the changes. Only 8 of 50 companies contacted with information requests responded.
Child Safety & MinorsPlatform Compliance & GovernanceAlgorithmic Harm & Recommender SystemsArt. 28 — Protection of minorsBy Steve Wood