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The importance of strong legislative frameworks to guarantee children's privacy, agency and safety in the digital environment has been emphasised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its most recent general comment. Both the EU and China, who(se Member States) are Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, have adopted their own legislative frameworks for protecting children's rights to privacy and data protection in recent years. This article compares how these two distinct legislative frameworks safeguard these rights. The analysis focuses on the constitutional protection as well as on a comparison of the legislation that is currently in place, such as the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU and the Personal Information Protection Law, the Provisions on Online Protection of Children's Personal Data and other relevant regulations in China. More specifically, the article zooms in on the responsibilities emerging from these regulatory frameworks for private companies and platforms that process children's personal data. It ultimately aims to draw conclusions as to whether and how the child's rights to privacy and data protection are protected in different parts of the world where children use similar commercial apps and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vast amounts of personal data of children are collected and processed in today's increasingly digital, connected society by public and private actors. Children do have a right to the protection of their personal data and, according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), even merit specific protection. Children should be clearly informed of and understand what happens with their data when it is collected, processed, stored and transferred. To that end, specific transparency standards require the provision of information in a clear and plain language that the child can easily understand. In this article, after having mapped these existing requirements, the privacy policies of Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok — services which are very popular with children — are evaluated. The findings suggest that such policies are still complex, long and primarily text based. In order to improve this, possible practical ways of enhancing transparency for children such as legal visualization, co-design, co-creation techniques and participatory design methods which focus on presenting legal information in a transparent and clear manner are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]