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WHO: New Pandemic Treaty a Landmark, but Flawed

World Health Organization (WHO) member countries adopted a new treaty on May 20, 2025, to improve international coordination and cooperation on the prevention of, preparation for, and response to future pandemics.

Overview of the United Nations Human Rights Council is seen in Geneva, Switzerland June 6, 2017.
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Meet Laila.

She could be anyone’s child.

Every school day, Laila opens her school’s online learning app, and logs in for class.

Instantly, the app may begin to collect personal data about Laila,

which may include who she is, where she is, what she does, and even who her family and friends are

and may send this data to advertising tech companies.

Their sophisticated algorithms can analyze Laila’s data to guess at her personal characteristics and interests, and predict her future behavior.

Advertising tech companies may sell or share these insights about Laila with advertisers, law enforcement, or governments.

How did this happen?

Covid-19 school closures turned bedrooms and kitchens into classrooms overnight. Governments around the world endorsed the use of education technologies, or EdTech, for kids to continue learning.

But in the rush to connect kids to virtual classrooms, many governments failed to check that their recommended EdTech products were safe for kids to use. Without adequate protections in place, children were compelled to give up their privacy in order to learn.

Governments should urgently protect our children by passing modern child data protection laws.

Human Rights Watch investigated more than 150 EdTech products and found that more than 140 of them monitored or could monitor children, most secretly and without consent.

Many installed trackers that followed children across the internet even after they left their virtual classrooms, outside of school hours and deep into their private lives.

Others invisibly tagged children in ways that were impossible to get rid of, without throwing the device away in the trash.

Laila should be safe in school, whether she’s there in person or online.

Governments can protect Laila by passing modern child data protection laws.

By doing so, they can defend Laila, and all children, from being surveilled online by actors who don’t have their best interests at heart.

Students are priceless, not products.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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