It’s time to #MakeTechSafe

Why does it feel like almost every industry that interacts with children has clear safety rules and standards, while the digital world still feels largely unregulated by comparison?

When we think about physical products designed for children, safety is built into the system from the very beginning.

Toy manufacturers in the UK are legally required to meet strict safety standards before products ever reach the market. Companies must assess foreseeable risks, test products properly, provide age guidance and warnings, maintain traceability, and quickly remove unsafe products if problems emerge.

If a toy contains choking hazards, toxic materials, overheating batteries or dangerous defects, there are consequences. Products can be recalled. Companies can face enforcement action. Public trust can be lost overnight.

Most importantly, toy safety laws are not based on the idea that children will always behave perfectly.

The question regulators ask is not:“ Did parents supervise properly?”

The question is:“ Did the company properly anticipate how children actually behave?”

Children are naturally curious. They explore. They take risks. They push boundaries. They ignore warnings. They make mistakes. Because of that, responsibility sits heavily with the companies designing the products and environments children interact with. And this principle already exists across countless industries.

Children’s car seats are heavily regulated. Playgrounds are inspected against safety standards. Food and drink products must meet hygiene and allergen requirements. Children’s clothing has rules around flammability and strangulation risks. Advertising aimed at children is controlled and monitored.

Across all of these industries, there is a shared understanding that children are still developing and deserve additional protections.

Importantly, many of these regulations only exist because children were seriously harmed before society decided enough was enough.

Toy safety laws, car seat regulations and playground standards were often introduced after preventable tragedies. As a society, we recognised those harms as unacceptable and demanded stronger safeguards and accountability. But when it comes to digital spaces, the same urgency still feels missing.

Today, children are spending huge parts of their lives inside online platforms and digital environments specifically designed to maximise attention, engagement and emotional investment. Yet compared to physical industries, many of these systems have historically faced far less scrutiny before being placed in front of young users.

And we are already seeing the consequences.

There have been growing numbers of cases linked to cyberbullying, online exploitation, grooming, financial manipulation, eating disorder content, self-harm content, compulsive platform use and AI-generated abuse imagery.

Families around the world have also spoken publicly about losing children following harms linked to social media platforms, dangerous viral challenges and unsafe AI chatbot interactions.

Can you imagine if a toy physically encouraged compulsive behaviour linked to anxiety, sleep deprivation, spending pressure, bullying, extortion or inappropriate contact with unknown adults? There would rightly be outrage.

Yet in digital spaces, many of these harms have become normalised.

Now, artificial intelligence is rapidly introducing an entirely new layer of risk.

Children are increasingly interacting with AI systems capable of simulating emotional relationships and generating advice or responses without clear safeguarding standards in place.

At the same time, AI-generated deepfakes and “nudify” apps are already being used to create fake explicit images of girls and young women with devastating emotional consequences.

Just this month, schools in the UK have reported being blackmailed by individuals using publicly available images from school websites and social media pages to generate harmful and illegal AI content. The issue has become serious enough that schools and youth organisations, including ours, are now being advised to reconsider how they share images of young people online.

To be absolutely clear, this is not an argument against technology. At TECgirls, we believe technology can create incredible opportunities for young people. Every day, we help girls engage with AI, cyber security, engineering and digital careers.

We want girls and women shaping the future of technology, not excluded from it.

But innovation cannot come at the expense of safety. And we already know that technology industries are capable of operating within strong regulatory frameworks when governments decide safety matters.

Medical technology is a perfect example.

Health apps, connected medical devices and digital healthcare systems are often subject to extensive regulation, testing, compliance processes and ongoing monitoring before they ever reach the public. Companies are expected to demonstrate safety, risk management and accountability because when health and wellbeing are involved, society expects safeguards.

The issue is not whether regulation is possible.

The issue is where we have collectively decided regulation matters.

That does not mean the technology sector is completely unregulated. In the UK, the Online Safety Act is beginning to introduce stronger responsibilities around harmful content and child protection. This is an important step forward, but many organisations and experts believe enforcement and accountability still do not go far enough.

Right now, there remains a huge gap between the way we regulate physical child safety and digital child safety. In most physical industries, companies are expected to identify and reduce foreseeable risks before harm occurs. Products cannot legally enter the market unless they meet safety standards. In the digital world, platforms are often allowed to self-police and patch problems only after harm has already happened.

That needs to change.

Through our TECgirls #MakeTechSafe campaign, we are calling for technology companies to be held to the same standards we expect from every other industry affecting children’s lives.

We are calling for:

• Stronger safety-by-design standards

• Meaningful age-appropriate protections

• Independent testing and accountability

• Greater transparency around algorithms and platform design

• Stronger regulation around AI systems used by children

• Proper enforcement when companies fail to protect young users

• Regulation that prioritises child wellbeing alongside innovation and growth

• Greater investment in long-term independent research into AI and child development

  
  

Most importantly, we are calling for a shift in responsibility.

Children should not be expected to navigate highly sophisticated digital systems entirely alone. Parents and schools cannot carry the full burden of protecting young people inside platforms intentionally designed to maximise engagement and influence behaviour.

The billion and trillion-pound companies building these systems must take responsibility too. Every other child-facing industry starts with safety by design.

The technology sector should be no different.

So stand with us as we #MakeTechSafe again.