There is a lack of clarity on the meaning of Physical Assistant Robots (“PAR(s)”), and limited research on this topic. The ISO 13482:2014 standard, which outlines safety requirements for personal care robots, provides a vague definition, using terms such as ‘physical assistance’ and ‘personal capabilities’ without adequate elaboration. While the standard primarily focuses on exoskeletons as PARs, other robots, such as feeding robots or clothing assistants, are not explicitly considered, complicating the interpretation of what qualifies as a PAR. Further, the scope of the standard and its exclusion of industrial and medical robots, which can perform similar tasks to PARs, causes additional uncertainty. For instance, the same exoskeleton robot intended to provide back-support can be used in industrial, medical and personal care contexts.Clarifying these aspects is essential to understanding the scope of the regulation and ensuring sufficient consideration of the safety aspects of PARs. This systematic review addresses these gaps by analysing 243 scholarly works that discuss robots in the context of physical assistance and examines how PARs (and similar terms) are defined and mentioned in the literature. Given the challenges identified in categorising specific robots as PARs, this paper proposes a flowchart to navigate ISO 13482:2014 and ease this categorisation, enabling stakeholders such as manufacturers, regulators and researchers to determine whether a robot is a PAR. Finally, as ISO 13482:2014 will be replaced by a new version, this paper examines how the revised standard reshapes the scope of PARs.

The rapid advancement of service robotics has outpaced regulatory frameworks, leading to gaps and inconsistencies that hinder effective governance. While evidence-based policymaking is well-established in health and consumer protection fields, robotics regulation remains fragmented and reactive. This paper proposes Science for Robot Policy, a structured, evidence-driven model that bridges the disconnect between robotics innovation and regulatory adaptation. Using a Constructive Research Approach, the model integrates scientific experimentation, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge brokering to generate policy-relevant data and transform it into actionable regulatory insights. The model follows a five-step process, beginning with risk identification and prioritization, followed by controlled experimentation in simulators, testing zones, living labs, and real-world markets. The ambition is that insights generated are then translated into policy-relevant information and further refined into knowledge for policymakers, ensuring that empirical evidence informs that robotics regulation is dynamic, anticipatory, and informed. This approach contributes to ongoing discussions on science-for-policy methodologies and fosters iterative regulatory refinement in service robotics. If successful, such a model could allow policymakers to address emerging risks proactively, reduce regulatory uncertainty, enhance user safety, and promote responsible robotics innovation by embedding scientific insights into the policy cycle.

Over a decade after the Article 29 Working Party first stated that data controllers should refrain from the processing of children’s data for the purpose of behavioural advertising, children are still profiled at scale for commercial purposes, including behavioural advertising. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (‘UNCRC’) Committee urges States parties to prohibit profiling children for commercial purposes, as the practice is associated with a panoply of potential children’s rights violations and may cause children significant harm. Yet little scholarship is devoted to seeking granularity in defining what “profiling for commercial purposes” entails. The present article seeks to fill this gap and presents a new taxonomy of the various manifestations in which the commercial profiling of children occurs. This is followed by a children’s rights-based assessment of the six distinguishable manifestations of children’s commercial profiling, highlighting the importance of nuance in the academic and regulatory discourse on the subject. Whereas profiling children to directly monetise their personal data interferes with several children’s rights and likely causes children significant harm (although full scientific evidence thereupon is still lacking), in certain use cases profiling children for indirect commercial purposes may contribute to the exercise of their rights and wellbeing. The article subsequently assesses the EU regulatory framework governing the various manifestations of children’s commercial profiling through the prism of the precautionary principle, a general principle of EU law that justifies the regulation of a practice in the face of scientific uncertainty on the (long-term) harm it may cause. In the field of children’s rights, a strong precautionary approach is the norm, mandating the prohibition of practices that pose (unacceptable levels of) risk to children. The analysis dissects the relevant provisions in the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’), the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (‘UCPD’), the Digital Services Act (‘DSA’) and Artificial Intelligence Act (‘AI Act’), to conclude that primarily, yet merely in theory, the GDPR is adequately equipped to uphold children’s rights in this regard, as the fairness and transparency principles that are cornerstones to the GDPR do not allow for the processing of children’s data in the context of the vast majority of children’s commercial profiling practices that remain omnipresent to date.

Abstract Age assurance is a way to prevent children accessing content, products or services that are potentially harmful to them, ranging from gambling services or alcohol or tobacco or, increasingly, certain products and services online. Now that children’s lives are mediated by digital technologies, policymakers are deliberating over the legal, technical and practical challenges. These have been little examined from the perspective of children’s rights. By combining legal and social research methods, this article examines the legal requirements for age assurance in Europe, assesses compliance by companies and reveals the consequences for family life. In law and practice, we show that age assurance is often ineffective in protecting children from online risk of harm. Further, as currently implemented it risks children’s other rights – to non-discrimination, privacy, to be heard, and their civil rights and freedoms, and remedy. We identify promising directions for the use of age assurance in child online protection, focusing on European policy, regulators and civil society actors.

Age assurance is a way to prevent children accessing content, products or services that are potentially harmful to them, ranging from gambling services or alcohol or tobacco or, increasingly, certain products and services online. Now that children's lives are mediated by digital technologies, policymakers are deliberating over the legal, technical and practical challenges. These have been little examined from the perspective of children's rights. By combining legal and social research methods, this article examines the legal requirements for age assurance in Europe, assesses compliance by companies and reveals the consequences for family life. In law and practice, we show that age assurance is often ineffective in protecting children from online risk of harm. Further, as currently implemented it risks children's other rights - to non-discrimination, privacy, to be heard, and their civil rights and freedoms, and remedy. We identify promising directions for the use of age assurance in child online protection, focusing on European policy, regulators and civil society actors.

Game design has an impact on health and well-being. Due to their evolving capacities, young people and children are especially sensitive to the negative and positive impact of media design choices. To protect vulnerable people, ethical and responsible game design practices are necessary. But what constitutes ‘ethical’ and responsible game design? Defining ‘behavioral design’ as video game design decisions which elicit, either accidentally or purposefully, self-negative or self-beneficial behavior in the gamer. We draw from expertise in public health, game design, and legal scholarship to analyze current game design practices. Our work illustrates the centrality of changing business models with game design and the resulting tension within games. In practice, monetization strategies regularly guide decision-making in game design, facilitating risks for gamer welfare and finances.

Design and development practitioners such as those in game development often have difficulty comprehending and adhering to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), especially when designing in a private sensitive way. Inadequate understanding of how to apply the GDPR in the game development process can lead to one of two consequences: 1. inadvertently violating the GDPR with sizeable fines as potential penalties; or 2. avoiding the use of user data entirely. In this paper, we present our work on designing and evaluating the "GDPR Pitstop tool", a gamified questionnaire developed to empower game developers and designers to increase legal awareness of GDPR laws in a relatable and accessible manner. The GDPR Pitstop tool was developed with a user-centered approach and in close contact with stakeholders, including practitioners from game development, legal experts and communication and design experts. Three design choices worked for this target group: 1. Careful crafting of the language of the questions; 2. a flexible structure; and 3. a playful design. By combining these three elements into the GDPR Pitstop tool, GDPR awareness within the gaming industry can be improved upon and game developers and designers can be empowered to use user data in a GDPR compliant manner. Additionally, this approach can be scaled to confront other tricky issues faced by design professionals such as privacy by design.

Video games use behavioural design strategies, i.e., dark patterns, to increase engagement and drive revenue. These practices affect consumer behaviour, e.g., lead to extended playtime, and subsequently health, such as social well-being. HCI approaches such as motivational design or personalization are central to behavioural design strategies. Some approaches, e.g., in-game messages to guilt trip users, are ethically and legally questionable. In this workshop, we explore the ethical, health, and legal implications of behavioural design strategies. Our workshop aims to integrate interdisciplinary viewpoints, to co-develop a road map to address behavioural design, and collect contemporary perspectives on the issue. Participants will take away knowledge from different expert perspectives, concrete steps to address the impact of behavioural design, and a multidisciplinary expert network that will tackle existing and emerging future challenges.

Consent has been enshrined in data protection law since its inception and is today an important lawful ground under the GDPR for the processing of personal data by the private sector. Given the main objectives of consent, namely user empowerment, informational self-determination, and autonomy, this specific legal basis seems to be very user-oriented. Consent, combined with the information requirements of the GDPR, can be useful in managing the (privacy) expectations of a data subject. However, there are many shortcomings in consent mechanisms. Complex data processing (particularly in algorithmic systems), manipulative design (such as dark patterns), and cognitive limitations of individuals (such as bounded rationality) make it difficult, or even impossible, for data subjects, adults and children alike, to understand how data is processed, what the potential risks are, and how to balance these risks with the benefits of data processing. There are serious doubts about the ability of data subjects to make sensible decisions and, hence, consent as an effective legal mechanism for the control of the data subject's personal data. Therefore, legal scholars are proposing re-conceptualizations of consent that should mitigate the current problems, particularly in algorithmic systems. Some of the solutions put forward fit within the current data protection framework (e.g., a right to customization); others require a reform of that framework. One option is to abandon the self-determination approach altogether and focus more on regulating the design of technologies in ways that contribute to data protection.

Gaming is an important pastime for young people to relax, socialize and have fun, but also to be challenged, show creativity and work together to achieve goals. The design of games can have an impact on their behavior. With the changing revenue models of games, we see that game design is increasingly taking forms that do not always have a positive impact on children and may interfere with, or even violate, children's rights. This article examines how evolving revenue models of games impact user's behavior via game design. Behavioral design in games thus raises questions about children's rights to play and recreation, to health, to protection from economic exploitation and to data protection.

Policymakers need to start considering the impact smart connected toys (SCTs) have on children. Equipped with sensors, data processing capacities, and connectivity, SCTs targeting children increasingly penetrate pervasively personal environments. The network of SCTs forms the Internet of Toys (IoToys) and often increases children's engagement and playtime experience. Unfortunately, this young part of the population and, most of the time, their parents are often unaware of SCTs' far-reaching capacities and limitations. The capabilities and constraints of SCTs create severe side effects at the technical, individual, and societal level. These side effects are often unforeseeable and unexpected. They arise from the technology's use and the interconnected nature of the IoToys, without necessarily involving malevolence from their creators. Although existing regulations and new ethical guidelines for artificial intelligence provide remedies to address some of the side effects, policymakers did not develop these redress mechanisms having children and SCTs in mind. This article provides an analysis of the arising side effects of SCTs and contrasts them with current regulatory redress mechanisms. We thereby highlight misfits and needs for further policymaking efforts.

Children face significant consumer risks when surfing online, related to, inter alia, embedded advertisements and privacy-invasive practices, as well as the exploitation of their incredulity and inexperience resulting in overspending or online fraudulent transactions. Behind the fun and playful activities available for children online lie complex revenue models, creating value for companies by feeding children’s data into algorithms and self-learning models to profile them and offer personalised advertising or by nudging children to buy or try to win in-app items to advance in the games they play. In this article we argue that specific measures against these forms of economic exploitation of children in the digital world are urgently needed. We focus on three types of exploitative practices that may have a significant impact on the well-being and rights of children – profiling and automated decision-making, commercialisation of play, and digital child labour. For each type, we explain what the practice entails, situate the practice within the existing legislative and children’s rights framework and identify concerns in relation to those rights.

Nowadays, children grow up in a commercialised environment, where they are confronted with advertising and marketing on a daily basis. From a very young age, they already display a level of brand consciousness. Aside from being an attractive target group for advertisers – as they can purchase products or services themselves and have an important influence on their parent’s purchasing behaviour – brands are now increasingly relying on child-influencers to promote goods and services for them. The child-influencer phenomenon raises important questions from a children’s rights perspective and necessitates a detailed study of the benefits and potential harms to the child. This chapter takes a novel approach by not only critiquing the advertising and marketing rules for gaps, shortcomings and failures in light of children’s rights, but also analysing the role of the child in the constellation of influencer regulation through the lens of labour law and protection of vulnerable consumers.

This chapter deals with Dutch substantive criminal law and criminal procedure and the extent to which it can combat webcam-related child sexual abuse. In summary we can say that the substantive legal framework for the protection of minors against webcam sex in the Netherlands is generally adequate, particularly with the amendments enacted by the Computer Crime III Act in 2018. Criminal procedural law offers generally adequate investigation powers, but questions remain regarding the legality of using Sweetie as an investigative power given its hybrid character (both as lure and as undercover method), and regarding the risk of incitement or entrapment.