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In Chile, the responsibility for the digital well-being of children and adolescents has fallen almost exclusively on families and schools. Parents and teachers are expected to be cybersecurity experts, to understand complex terms and conditions, and to anticipate malicious behaviors in a digital environment that evolves at a dizzying pace. This expectation is not only unrealistic but also imposes a disproportionate burden on those who lack the necessary tools or support. It is a burden that ignores the complexity of a digital ecosystem designed to capture attention, and not necessarily to protect the user.
Digital protection must, therefore, be a shared responsibility. It is an ethical and legal imperative for Companies and the State to guarantee that digital services are designed with privacy, data protection, and security by default. This proactive approach must be based on clear, shared principles. The first, and most fundamental, is placing the best interests of the child as the central axis of all action. From this, others follow, such as data protection and privacy in accordance with current regulations and international standards, and the promotion of age-appropriate design as a guiding principle in the development of any technology or service.
Initiatives such as the Age-Appropriate Design Code in the United Kingdom and California already require maximum privacy settings and limits on profiling “by design.” Chile can and must move in this direction, adapting these standards to our reality.
Facing this challenge, the first steps are already being taken in Chile. The Commitment for the Digital Well-being of Children and Adolescents has begun to take shape. This initiative seeks to bring together various organizations aware of the growing presence of digital technologies in the lives of children and adolescents, and the importance of guaranteeing a safe, inclusive, and respectful digital environment. The goal is to advance toward comprehensive digital well-being, recognizing that protection in the digital sphere is the duty of the State, technology service providers, civil society, families, and the educational community.
This effort is directly inspired by the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and, crucially, by General Comment No. 25 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (2021). This comment is key, as it establishes that digital access must be safe, inclusive, and co-responsible, involving all the aforementioned actors.
This new form of collaboration, driven by UAI and UC, is based on a simple but powerful idea: child protection must be a standard, not an add-on. This implies moving forward with concrete actions. On one hand, digital education and literacy must be strengthened as a tool for critical and conscious usage, carrying out awareness and training campaigns aimed at families and society in general. On the other hand, it is fundamental to generate scientific evidence on digital well-being to guide decision-making and the design of policies and programs.
As the Center for Studies of Policies and Practices in Education at UC (CEPPE UC) and the Digital Citizenship Training Program at UAI, the universities assume the role of monitoring and publicly reporting progress. The objective is clear: ensuring this agreement does not remain a symbolic declaration, but rather translates into concrete actions, measurable goals, and constant follow-up.
Protecting the digital well-being of childhood is not a private task or one for only a part of society, but a public and shared responsibility. It is time for the State, technology companies, and civil society to assume our leading role to make this commitment visible and open paths for future cooperation. The commitment is already underway and is a first step to building, once and for all, a safe and positive digital environment for future generations.
By Luis Enrique Santana (UAI) and Magdalena Claro (CEPPE UC)