Children should feel as safe wandering the web as they do walking to their local library.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) is a comprehensive EU regulation adopted in 2022 to modernise the legal framework governing digital services across the European Union. Its primary goals are to create a safer online environment by preventing illegal and harmful content, combating disinformation, and protecting users’ fundamental rights. Fast forward two years, the DSA is no longer just policy jargon in Brussels; it is a concrete set of guard-rails that shape the feeds, ads and algorithms our children meet every day. Article 28, for example, compels platforms to take “appropriate and proportionate” measures to protect minors—banning targeted adverts based on their personal data, outlawing manipulative dark-pattern design and obliging services to build privacy-by-default settings.
Yet, not surprisingly, uptake is patchy. For educators and parents, this gap means we must stay alert: policy is progress, but enforcement is power. Rules protect, but confidence empowers. Children who understand why a pop-up asks for their birthday, or how an algorithm serves “suggested” videos, are far less likely to slip into unsafe corners of the internet. That is why we need to pair the legal “what” of the DSA with the practical “how”.
| DSA safeguard | Classroom & home translation |
|---|---|
| Ban on targeted ads to minors | Show learners how to spot (and report) personalised adverts; discuss why age matters. |
| No dark patterns | Practise navigation drills: can learners find privacy settings within 60 seconds? |
| Mandatory risk assessments | Encourage student councils to run their own risk audits on favourite apps, then discuss with peers, run awareness campaigns. |
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