Abu Dhabi, February 13, 2025: A first-of-its-kind children’s digital wellbeing pact was signed by various authorities, companies and social media platforms in a bid to keep youngsters in the UAE safe online. From ensuring they know how to browse safely to protecting them from harmful content, the pact is designed to ensure children are protected.

“Digital literacy initiatives will be detailed with the pact members and could range between community-wide to school-based initiatives,” said Fatima Al Melhi, Director of Special Projects at Early Childhood Authority. “We will be focusing on long-term collaboration to drive research and development initiatives, fostering innovation and continuous improvement in digital wellbeing strategies.”

The UAE Children’s Digital Wellbeing Pact, which was signed during the World Government Summit (WGS) 2025 in Dubai, is designed to promote a safe and appropriate online environment, minimising exposure of children to harmful content and protecting them from cyberbullying. A 2019 research showed that approximately 33 percent of children in the UAE have reported being bullied online.

In line with the Year of Community, Lt-Gen Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, and Chairman of the Digital Wellbeing Council, stressed the importance of the pact. “Protecting children in the digital world is a shared responsibility that requires efforts between various sectors,” he said. “More and more people are relying on technology in daily life so it has become necessary to establish clear frameworks and effective implementation mechanisms to protect children from harmful content and increasing digital challenges.

Clear mechanisms

The pact will develop clear mechanisms to protect children from physical and psychological harm, and enhance supervision of digital content targeting them. It will also protects children's data and ensure their privacy and safety within the digital ecosystem. This includes promoting transparency through continuous reporting and evaluation mechanisms and focuses on developing effective strategies to reduce the promotion of harmful content.

The pact will also support digital literacy programmes and educational initiatives that help children and their parents with the needed skills to browse safely. It will also help the exchange of expertise and investment in research, to address the emerging risks posed by technological advancements.

The pact will support exchanging information on advanced technological methods that contribute to providing a safer online environment for children, like developing and using effective tools to verify the user's age before displaying content. It also includes identifying incident response mechanisms and reporting protocols to address emerging cyber threats and immediately manage incidents affecting children. The aim of the pact is to develop policies that enhance children's digital quality of life.

It was facilitated by the Digital Wellbeing Council and the Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority. Strategic partners of the pact were the Office of International Affairs at the Ministry of Interior, the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority, the Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications. Social media platform Snapchat is the leading member of the pact for the first year while others like Meta, Google, TikTok, X, Yango, Samsung, e& and du also partnered for the pact.