- The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child includes rights for children to access information, including online. Other laws protect you while you’re online
- If you know what your rights are and what the law says about being online, you can make better decisions about what you do online
- Some of your rights online involve a balance to make sure what you do doesn’t affect other people rights
You have rights as a child that are helpful and are there to protect and support you when you’re online. These include your right to have access to a wide range of information, your right to privacy, and your right to be protected from things that could harm you and your development.
Being online is a big part of life. It’s where we communicate with friends when we’re not with them, and where we often go to find things out, and to access entertainment. While we’re doing all this, there are opportunities for others to harm us, or to discover information about us which they can use. Some people use the online space to bully or control. You have a number of rights as a child which affect the time you spend online.
You have a right to information.
You have the right to express yourself freely – as long as you don’t impact on other people’s rights.
You have a right to privacy which affects how the websites you use can collect and use information you share with them when you are online.
You have a right to be protected from things that can harm you and damage your development – so you should be kept safe from people who would try and use the internet to bully or abuse you, and images and content that could be harmful to you.
The law in Wales is the same as in the rest of the UK. There are laws that cover how organisations can use your information. There are laws that mean that certain types of information should not be shared. These laws can protect you from seeing things that might upset you, but also restrict what you can post online. There are also laws so that people who try and harm you online, or who use online platforms to harm you in the real world, will be punished.
We want you to be safe when you’re using the internet, and confident so that if something happens that isn’t right, you will know what to do to get help. We’ve put together information sections about your rights and how the law works in Wales, on the following subjects: