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The 4Cs: Classifying Online Risk to Children
Livingstone, Sonia; Stoilova, Mariya
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Livingstone, S., & Stoilova, M. (2021). The 4Cs: Classifying Online Risk to Children. (CO:RE Short Report Series on
Key Topics). Hamburg: Leibniz-Institut für Medienforschung | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI); CO:RE - Children Online:
Research and Evidence. https://doi.org/10.21241/ssoar.71817
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The 4Cs: Classifying Online Risk to
Children
CO:RE Short Report Series: Key topics
Sonia Livingstone and Mariya Stoilova
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21241/ssoar.71817
[2]
Please cite this report as:
Livingstone, S., & Stoilova, M. (2021). The 4Cs: Classifying Online Risk to Children. (CO:RE Short Report
Series on Key Topics). Hamburg: Leibniz-Institut für Medienforschung | Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI); CO:RE -
Children Online: Research and Evidence. https://doi.org/10.21241/ssoar.71817.
Editor: Veronika Kalmus
Language editor: Dawn L. Rushen
The CO:RE project is a Coordination and Support Action within the Horizon 2020 framework, which aims to
build an international knowledge base on the impact of technological transformations on children and youth.
Part of the knowledge base is a series of short reports on relevant topics that provide an overview of the state
of research. This part is coordinated by Veronika Kalmus (University of Tartu, Estonia).
For all reports, updates, insights, as well as full details of all CO:RE Consortium members and CO:RE
national partners throughout Europe and beyond, please visit core-evidence.eu
. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 EU.3.6.1.1
– The mechanisms to promote smart, sustainable and inclusive growth DT-
TRANSFORMATIONS-07-2019 – The impact of technological transformations on
children and youth. Grant Agreement ID 871018.
Acknowledgements
We thank the joint Insafe and INHOPE networks for their input during an online consultation and Karl Hopwood
for working with us to make this happen. We also thank the CO:RE Consortium for their insights as we
developed the classification of online risks, the reviewers of earlier drafts of this report, and the European
Union’s Horizon 2020 programme for the funding.
Contents
Key insights ......................................................................................................................................................... 3
Understanding online risk .................................................................................................................................... 3
The 3Cs of online risk .......................................................................................................................................... 4
Adopting the classification ................................................................................................................................... 5
Contract risks: the fourth ‘C’ ................................................................................................................................ 6
Cross-cutting risks ............................................................................................................................................... 8
Practitioner reflections ......................................................................................................................................... 9
The new CO:RE classification ........................................................................................................................... 10
Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................................... 12
References ........................................................................................................................................................ 13
About the authors .............................................................................................................................................. 14
[3]
Key insights
• Risk classifications guide practitioners and
policymakers in their work and in communicating
their results. EU Kids Online’s (2009) 3Cs of
online risk is used widely as a classic point of
reference for stakeholders internationally.
• It is timely to update this classification, given
the variation in its use, the emerging risks in the
digital environment, and our growing under-
standing of children’s experiences of online risks
of harm. As part of our CO:RE work on theories
and concepts, we:
o reviewed existing classifications of online risk
to children by UNICEF, the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), Organisa-
tion for Economic Co-operation and Devel-
opment (OECD), Council of Europe (CoE)
and others;
o consulted European practitioners of child
internet safety from Insafe and INHOPE to
build on their experience.
• This report proposes a new CO:RE 4Cs classi-
fication, recognising that online risks arise when
a child:
o engages with and/or is exposed to potentially
harmful CONTENT;
o experiences and/or is targeted by potentially
harmful CONTACT;
o witnesses, participates in and/or is a victim of
potentially harmful CONDUCT;
o is party to and/or exploited by a potentially
harmful CONTRACT.
• The 4Cs classification also distinguishes
between aggressive, sexual and value risks,
as this is helpful in retaining a balanced view of
the range of risks that children can encounter.
We note that risks to the values that shape
childhood and society are increasingly
prominent.
1 See https://core-evidence.eu/understanding-children-
online-theories-concepts-debates/
• In addition to the 4Cs, the new CO:RE classi-
fication recognises important cross-cutting
risks, notably to children’s privacy, health and
fair treatment.
• Keeping in mind that children’s online
opportunities are paramount, and that a host of
individual and societal protective and vulner-
ability factors mediate between risk and harm,
we hope that the new classification is insightful
for research, policy and practice that contributes
to realising children’s rights in relation to the
digital environment (UN, 2021).
Understanding online risk
In the CO:RE project, our work on theory examines
the key concepts that frame the field of research,
policy and practice. The aim is to bring together
diverse perspectives and interrogate their under-
lying assumptions in order to contribute to the
collective ambition of understanding the experi-
ences and consequences of growing up in a digital
world.
A comprehensive understanding of children’s
engagement with the digital environment requires a
balanced consideration of both risks and opportu-
nities, recognising the full range of children’s rights
in a digital world (UN, 2021). Within this broader
frame (Livingstone, 2016), risk is one of the key
concepts identified for investigation by the CO:RE
Consortium,1 and is the focus of this short report.
In a fast-changing digital ecosystem, the nature of
risk is continually evolving, sometimes exposing
children to emerging risks well before adults know
how to mitigate them. Risk has been defined as:
Uncertainty about and severity of the
consequences (or outcomes) of an activity with
respect to something that humans value.
(Aven & Renn, 2009, p. 1)
The clash of possibly severe outcomes with human
values inevitably raises concerns, and the digital
environment, in which children are often very active,
adds heightened uncertainties into the mix. No
wonder that online risk is one of the most contested
areas of children’s digital experience, concerning
[4]
many stakeholders and posing pressing challenges
for research, policy and practice.
These challenges include understanding children’s
exposure to different types of online risk, and how
regulatory, technical, social or individual inter-
ventions can be effective in developing strategies to
cope with risk, mitigating or minimising any harmful
consequences.
From the outset, it is vital to distinguish between
online risk and harm. Conceptually, risk is the
probability of harm, while harm includes a range of
negative consequences to the child’s emotional,
physical or mental wellbeing (Livingstone, 2013).
For example, exposure to pornography poses a risk
to a child, but it is not a certainty that there will be
harmful consequences.
Harmful outcomes depend on the nature of the risk
(whether it is more probable or more severe in its
consequences) and on the design, regulation and
management of the digital environment (privacy
settings, moderation services, access to helplines
etc.). They also depend on the child and their
circumstances, because what is problematic for one
child might not be so for another. Such differences
reflect societal factors (norms and regulations,
political priorities, economic investments, education
and family systems, etc.) as well as the individual
protective or vulnerability factors that differentiate
among children (including age, gender, digital skills,
resilience, personality, socio-economic situation
and family context).
It is paramount that our understanding of online risk
is evidence-based, prioritising robust research
conducted with and in relation to children.2 Our
understanding should also be informed by
children’s own views and experiences, and those of
practitioners responding to child online risk and
safety problems, rather than assuming or imposing
a vision grounded in adult normative expectations
or popular anxieties.
In this short report we critically examine how online
risks have been classified in order to develop a
better understanding of children’s online experi-
ences and their potential or actual real-world conse-
quences. After discovering how existing classifi-
cations have been adopted in the work of various
2 See OECD (2011); UNICEF (2017); Smahel et al
(2020).
stakeholders, we propose a new classification of
online risk to children to meet the challenges of a
changing digital environment and the practical
imperatives of policymakers and practitioners.
This new classification highlights four dimensions
related to the positioning of the child in the digital
environment, and shows how these intersect with
three dimensions regarding the nature of the risk. It
also recognises the cross-cutting dimensions of
privacy, discrimination and health risks.
The 3Cs of online risk
A comprehensive classification of online risk was
proposed by EU Kids Online in 2009 (Staksrud &
Livingstone, 2009; Staksrud et al., 2009), funded by
the European Commission’s (EC) Safer Internet
Programme (now the Better Internet for Kids
Programme).3 It was originally developed to answer
the often-asked questions regarding ‘What risks are
we talking about?’ and ‘Why should policymakers
take action?’ It sought to disaggregate risks and
raise awareness of the wide array of risks affecting
children, including, but also going beyond, the main
emphasis on pornography, grooming and
cyberbullying that dominated the agenda at the
time.
Taking a child-centred and evidence-based ap
proach, EU Kids Online’s classification identified
two dimensions of risk: the positioning of the child
in relation to the digital environment (as a recipient
of mass-produced content, a participant in adult-
initiated activity, and an actor in peer-to-peer
exchanges), and the nature of the risk (aggressive,
sexual, values and commercial).
This classification took a strongly child-centred
approach. It highlighted that children should not be
treated as solely vulnerable victims or protected at
all costs, including at the cost of their online
opportunities. The idea was to recognise children’s
agency as actors in a digital world, but without
holding them unduly responsible for risks online or,
especially, for the at-times harmful effects on their
wellbeing or that of others. As will be seen later, the
revised CO:RE classification recognises the child’s
perspective and agency but also the power of
3 www.betterinternetforkids.eu/nl/
[5]
societal and digital infrastructures to shape the
child’s experiences and outcomes.
The original classification was tested using data
from EU Kids Online’s two-wave European survey
with internet-using children aged 9–16 conducted in
2010 (Livingstone et al., 2011) and 2017–19
(Smahel et al., 2020). It has been incorporated into
the Global Kids Online model and its surveys of
children in 18 countries (Livingstone et al., 2019).
Taken together, these projects have generated
cross-nationally comparable data from 40,000
children in more than 35 countries, providing an
evidence base to inform policy priorities and
establishing a baseline against which socio-
technical change and policy interventions have
been positively evaluated (Morton et al., 2019).4
Figure 1 shows the classification with exemplar
risks in the cells.5
Figure 1: The EU Kids Online original 3Cs classification of online risks (Livingstone et al., 2011)
Adopting the classification
The 3Cs classification became a classic point of
reference since 2010, much cited by the
policymakers and practitioners working to maximise
children’s online opportunities and minimise their
risks of harm.
To trace its use, we conducted a search for mention
of ‘content, contact and conduct risks’ online and
among reports and documents by relevant
organisations. We found that the 3Cs of online risk
have informed the work of a range of key actors,
albeit not always with a direct source, including
UNICEF, the European Commission (EC), the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
4 See also www.eukidsonline.net and
www.globalkidsonline.net
5 In keeping with EU Kids Online’s commitment to
balance risks and opportunities, a parallel classi-
fication was proposed for opportunities, although it
was little noted (Livingstone et al., 2018).
Development (OECD), the Broadband Commission
for Sustainable Development (2019), the Inter-
national Telecommunication Union (ITU) (2020),
the ICT Coalition (O’Neill, 2014; Croll, 2016), and
others (O’Neill & Dinh, 2018; Green et al., 2019).6
One use is to classify the plethora of problems
reported by children who call helplines. Supported
by the EC’s Better Internet for Kids programme, the
work of the Safer Internet Centres (SICs) provides
helplines across Europe:
Helplines provide information, advice and
assistance to children, young people and
parents on how to deal with harmful content,
harmful contact (such as grooming) and
6 We did not find classifications in the work of ECPAT
International, the European Union Agency for
Fundamental Rights (FRA), GSMA, INTERPOL, Child
Helpline International (CHI), CEO Coalition, European
Network of Ombudspersons for Children or UNESCO.
Content
Receiving mass-produced
content
Contact
Participating in (adult-
initiated) online activity
Conduct
Perpetrator or victim in peer-
to-peer exchange
Aggressive Violent/gory content Harassment, stalking Bullying, hostile peer activity
Sexual Pornographic content ‘Grooming’, sexual abuse or
exploitation
Sexual harassment, ‘sexting’
Values Racist/hateful content Ideological persuasion Potentially harmful user-
generated content
Commercial Embedded marketing Personal data misuse Gambling, copyright
infringement
[6]
harmful conduct (such as cyberbullying or
sexting). (O’Neill & Dinh, 2018, p. 68)
Relatedly, the EC’s self-regulatory initiative, the
‘Alliance to better protect minors online’,7 called on
businesses to tackle ‘existing and emerging risks
that children and young people face online,
including: harmful content (e.g. violent or sexually
exploitative content); harmful conduct (e.g.
cyberbullying), and harmful contact (e.g. sexual
extortion)’.8
UNICEF’s flagship annual publication The state of
the world’s children focused in 2017 on children in
a digital world, and also used the classic EU Kids
Online classification, recognising that while it is vital
to address online risk, some degree of risky
opportunities can afford children the chance to learn
and become resilient, depending on their maturity
and circumstances (UNICEF, 2017).
Undoubtedly, what has proved most valuable are
the definitions of the 3Cs, as illustrated in Figure 2.
It is noteworthy that most uses of the classification
refer to just one of the two dimensions (the child in
relation to the digital environment) and discuss
content, contact and conduct. Thus, they often omit
the second dimension – the nature of the risk
(aggressive, sexual, values, commercial) – and,
perhaps in consequence, the exemplar risks
highlighted and researched by EU Kids Online,
among other researchers (Stoilova et al., 2021).
Without the second dimension, however,
commercial risks became somewhat neglected,
leading to calls for revision of the original risk classi-
fication given rising evidence of the importance of
commercial online risks to children.
7 See https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-
market/en/alliance-better-protect-minors-online
8 This framing is problematic in eliding risk and harm,
because it is precisely in the gap between them that
Figure 2: The 3Cs of online risk (UNICEF, 2017)
Content risks: Where a child is exposed to
unwelcome and inappropriate content. This can
include sexual, pornographic and violent images;
some forms of advertising; racist, discriminatory or
hate speech material; and websites advocating
unhealthy or dangerous behaviours, such as self-
harm, suicide and anorexia.
Contact risks: Where a child participates in risky
communication, such as with an adult seeking
inappropriate contact or soliciting a child for sexual
purposes, or with individuals attempting to
radicalize a child or persuade him or her to take
part in unhealthy or dangerous behaviours.
Conduct risks: Where a child behaves in a way
that contributes to risky content or contact. This
may include children writing or creating hateful
materials about other children, inciting racism or
posting or distributing sexual images, including
material they have produced themselves.
Contract risks: the fourth ‘C’
Digital technologies have developed significantly
since the original typology was created, and the
online ecology affords new opportunities but also
new risks for children, particularly in relation to
commercialisation and datafication. To respond to
these changes and to reintroduce more prominently
commercial dimensions of online risk, a fourth ‘C’
(variously labelled ‘contract’, ‘commercial’ or
‘consumer’) has been suggested.
In a 2018 redevelopment of the EU Kids Online
classification, the fourth ‘C’ is conceived not as a
commercial risk, but as a ‘contract’ risk that directly
or indirectly connects children and digital providers.
This reflects the dramatic rise in the
commercialisation of children’s personal data,
arguably resulting in the ‘datafication’ of children
themselves (Mascheroni, 2020).
many empowering and safety interventions focus
their efforts (e.g. digital literacy).
[7]
With the 4Cs, EU Kids Online has proposed not only
a classification but also a digital ecosystem of online
risks in which children are variously positioned and
in which the different risks interact in increasingly
complex ways. This informed the CoE’s Handbook
for policy makers on the rights of the child in the
digital environment (Livingstone et al., 2020), as
shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: The EU Kids Online 4Cs model of online risks (Livingstone et al., 2020, p. 57, adapted from
Hasebrink et al., 2018)
Most obviously, contract risks arise when the child
‘accepts’ (including unintentionally, involuntarily or
unknowingly) the Terms of Service (or Terms and
Conditions) of a commercial provider of digital
products or services. Such contractual arrange-
ments can bind the child in ways that may be unfair
or exploitative, or which pose security or safety or
privacy risks of which they may be unaware or over
which they have little control or means of escape.
Related risks arise because of the data processed
by public and third sector organisations, as well as
through a host of public–private partnerships
(Stoilova et al., 2020).9 The Broadband Commis-
sion observes that children:
… have no way of understanding what they
were signing up for when they installed the app
or logged on to the site. Services and
obligations that are designed for adults must
be age-limited — so that children cannot sign
up to them without a guardian’s permission…
9
This data may be given by or taken from children’s
digital activities, as well as inferred or assumed about
them, or about others connected with them, through
profiling operations. The fast-growing data ecosystem
now provides an infrastructure not only for commercial
transactions impacting on children but also for the
digital products and services that afford content,
While online, children also risk spending
money without permission of parents or
caregivers and having their data harvested.
(Broadband Commission for Sustainable
Development, 2019, p. 34)
In short, contract risks arise when children use
digital services as well as when they are impacted
by digital transactions conducted by others in other
ways (e.g. through institutional uses of digitised
databases that include the child’s profile, or
algorithmic processing of personal data relating to
the child or others connected with them; see O’Neill,
2014; 5Rights Foundation, 2019).
In naming this category of risks ‘contract risks’, we
note the legal difficulties linked to contracts
involving children, as well as the fact that users (of
all ages) can be unaware of the contractual nature
of their relationship with digital service providers.
We also note that the contract that occasions a risk
contact and content risks. The result is that the types
of risk are increasingly interlinked, as are the solutions
– e.g. data protection regulation can prevent some
interpersonal or social forms of online harm (Stoilova
et al., 2020).
[8]
may not be with the child but with their parent or
school or indeed, between a service provider and a
third party, among other possibilities in the complex
digital ecosystem. Nonetheless, on balance, we
propose that the label ‘contract’ is helpful in pointing
to a mix of marketing, data processing and other
contractual risks that merit specific attention, most
but not all of which are commercial, and some of
which are still emerging.
Cross-cutting risks
Even with the fourth ‘C’, there are dimensions of
online risk that might not fit neatly into these
categories. UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children
participatory workshops (UNICEF, 2017) revealed
that children report concerns about risks that do not
fit well with the classification, such as technological
problems and parental intrusion in their online lives.
In its draft Recommendation on children in the
digital environment, the OECD observes that:
… the nature of existing risks have significantly
changed, and a number of new risks have
emerged. Technological developments and
new business models have contributed to the
change in digital devices and services, which
in themselves have also contributed to the
evolving risk landscape. (OECD, 2021, p. 4)
Do we need to go beyond the 4Cs and add new and
cross-cutting elements? Recognising that digital
service providers need to know which risks are of
greatest concern so that they can innovate in safety
by design, and building on multi-stakeholder
consultation (5Rights Foundation, 2019), the OECD
recently proposed that some risks are seen as
cross-cutting in nature – such as those related to
privacy, advanced technological features (e.g.
Internet of Things [IoTs], artificial intelligence [AI],
biometrics, predictive analytics), health and
wellbeing.
Note that the OECD builds on the EU Kids Online
classification, although it defines the fourth ‘C’ as
‘consumer risks’.10 The second dimension of the
figure lists ‘risk manifestations’ (or examples of
ways in which children might encounter potential
harms online), although it does not organise them
further. This is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Children in the digital environment: revised typology of risks (OECD, 2021)
10 The OECD’s proposed category of consumer risks
includes four manifestations: (1) marketing risks; (2)
commercial profiling risks; (3) financial risks; and (4)
security risks.
[9]
Practitioner reflections
To discover how practitioners working in the field of
child online protection classify risks, and whether
they consider that revisions to the 4Cs are needed,
in October 2020 we conducted an online workshop
with 125 members from the Insafe and INHOPE
networks from over 20 countries.11
The consultation sought to:
• Identify familiar and emerging online risks
affecting children across Europe, and to see
whether these are common across or specific
to different contexts or countries.
• Consider whether classifications of online
risk are adopted in practice and useful, and
if so, what purpose they serve and what the
strengths and shortcomings of the available
classifications are.
Insafe and INHOPE members contributed a series
of reflections on the risk classification and its
possible development.12 After a lively discussion,
there was widespread agreement that risk
classifications are useful for practitioners.
Practical purposes of the classification of online
risks include:
• Identifying the range and diversity of risks,
including identifying emerging risks.
• Making comparisons and capturing trends
across risks and across time/contexts.
• Systematically communicating results and
priorities to expert, policymaker and lay
audiences.
• Highlighting the need for resources, budgets
and training.
• Classifying the types of risks reported via input
from helplines and complaints mechanisms.
• Targeting planning, interventions and
awareness-raising campaigns.
• Mapping evidence to risk categories and
identifying evidence gaps.
In practice, some organisations will always generate
their own classifications – for instance, when
working bottom-up from helpline calls to track local
11 See www.betterinternetforkids.eu/practice/
articles/article?id=6745701
trends – while others will not need to classify risks in
their work.
Overall, however, the consensus was that it is
valuable to have a shared approach to answering
questions such as ‘What do we mean by online
risks?’ and ‘Which risks are emerging?’ or ‘Which
should be prioritised?’ and ‘How is my country doing
compared with others?’
For researchers, the classification is useful in
providing a common terminology by which to report
and review findings, and for mapping where
evidence is sufficient and where there are pressing
gaps. As for practitioners, researchers also
repeatedly find that risks intersect, bridging offline
and online experiences, and compounding adverse
outcomes for the more disadvantaged or vulnerable
children. But we can only report such complex
relations among risks if we first identify those risks,
so the classification remains useful.
It was also generally agreed that, to be useful, risk
classifications should prioritise:
• Flexibility – the classification has to be broad
and flexible so that new risks can be added
when needed or when we need to refer to
different groups of children or address
stakeholders.
• Clarity – the risks should not overlap with each
other and they should map readily onto the
reports from children or practitioners about
problematic experiences. Recognising that this
is a complex domain, the call was also to avoid
oversimplification, recognising ‘hybrid threats’
that could be classified in more than one
domain (e.g. identity theft could be linked to
contact, conduct or contract risks depending on
the circumstances; online pressures relating to
body image can have both sexual and value
dimensions; see Figure 6).
• Examples – to be readily understood and
applicable to the practical work, including real-
world examples in the cells of the classification
table is important. While it is recognised that the
examples provided cannot be comprehensive,
they should map onto the actual problems
reported by children or encountered by
practitioners. They should also resonate with
12 For detailed findings, see Livingstone et al. (2021).
[10]
audiences (parents, policymakers, etc.) when
risk-related work is made public.13
Two structural changes to the online risk classi-
fication were recommended:
• Inclusion of the fourth ‘C’ – this is needed,
and it was widely thought that the term
‘contract’ is more inclusive than ‘commercial’ or
‘consumer’ risks in recognising that risks can
arise when the child is party to a contract with
public and third sector organisations as well as
commercial bodies, especially with the
prevalence of public–private partnerships in
complex digital ecologies.
• Cross-cutting risks – the recognition of risks
that cut across several or all of the 4Cs was
also agreed, although much debated. Again,
this arises because of the complexity of the
digital ecology and also because risks are
interrelated, and they can affect multiple
dimensions of a child’s experience. The effects
on children’s health (e.g. health risks linked to
excessive screen use) were raised by multiple
contributors. So, too, were the array of privacy
risks experienced by children online, many of
which arise from data processing (and so can
be classified as contract risks) but that can also
arise in relation to content, and through inter-
personal contact and conduct.
Even after discussion, different views remained
regarding:
• Country specificities – should the classifica-
tion differ by country and context to recognise
different legal, regulatory and cultural factors
that shape children’s exposure to risk? It
emerged, however, that pan-European com-
monalities are more notable than country
differences, and are often more worthy of
attention given the benefits of sharing insights
and best practice across countries, and in
working towards common solutions.
13 In this regard, the ‘risk manifestations’ in the OECD
classification were found to be difficult to interpret both
because they are abstract and yet overlapping, and
because the legal/illegal boundary varies by
country/policy context. Relatedly, the idea of cross-
cutting technological risks was not taken up, possibly
because all online risks have a technological
dimension or because the examples given in the
• Extending the classification with a fifth ‘C’ –
a range of possibilities was suggested,
including that the classification could identify
the consequences of risk, such as health or
wellbeing, or other abuses of children’s rights;
and/or distinguish illegal (‘criminal’) from
harmful risks. However, this discussion threw
up the many differences not only by country
(e.g. in which online risks are illegal) but also
organisational sector, type and purpose. It was
agreed, therefore, that although 5Cs may be
useful on occasion, this should be left to each
country or organisation to determine for itself.
The new CO:RE classification
We propose a new CO:RE classification of online
risk, learning from the above experiences and from
consultation with the CO:RE Consortium. Risk is
recognised as relational, emerging from the
dynamic interaction between the child’s agency and
the agency of others operating in the digital
environment (including through automated pro-
cessing such as algorithms and as embedded in
digital design and operation).14
The 4Cs of online risks of harm are content, contact,
conduct and contract risks, as explained in Figure 5.
The classification has the merit, we suggest, of order
and clarity. We believe it to be fit for purpose,
recognising the multiple positions that children may
occupy in an increasingly significant and powerful
digital environment, including continually emerging
online risks. It is orderly and clear, and it provides
practitioner-tested exemplars of key risks, including
those that have become familiar in recent decades
and those that are emerging and new.
The introduction of contract risks as the fourth ‘C’
incorporates risks previously labelled ‘commercial’.
OECD typology are linked most closely to contract
risks or again, to privacy or discrimination.
14 This framing of the 4Cs overcomes the previous
potential for misunderstanding (e.g. the implication
that a child may participate willingly in contact abuse,
or that they are mere receivers of content rather than
also actively seeking it).
[11]
Figure 5: The CO:RE 4Cs of online risk
• Content risks: The child engages with or
is exposed to potentially harmful content.
This can be violent, gory content, hateful or
extremist content, as well as pornographic
or sexualised content that may be illegal or
harmful, including by being age-
inappropriate. Content online may be
mass-produced or user-generated
(including by the child), and it may be
shared widely or not.
• Contact risks: The child experiences or is
targeted by contact in a potentially harmful
adult-initiated interaction, and the adult
may be known to the child or not. This can
be related to harassment (including
sexual), stalking, hateful behaviour, sexual
grooming, sextortion or the generation of
sharing of child sexual abuse material.
• Conduct risks: The child witnesses,
participates in or is a victim of potentially
harmful conduct such as bullying, hateful
peer activity, trolling, sexual messages,
pressures or harassment, or is exposed to
potentially harmful user communities (e.g.
self-harm or eating disorders). Typically
conduct risks arise from interactions
among peers, although not necessarily of
equal status.
• Contract risks: The child is party to and/or
exploited by potentially harmful contract or
commercial interests (gambling,
exploitative or age-inappropriate marketing,
etc.). This can be mediated by the
automated (algorithmic) processing of data.
This includes risks linked to ill-designed or
insecure digital services that leave the child
open to identity theft, fraud or scams. It
also includes contracts made between
other parties involving a child (trafficking,
streaming child sexual abuse).
• Cross-cutting risks: Some risks relate to
most or all of the four categories and can
have multiple manifestations across the
different dimensions (aggressive, sexual,
values). These include online risks relating
to privacy, physical or mental health,
inequalities or discrimination.
Hence the new classification now distinguishes
three dimensions in relation to the nature of the risk:
aggressive, sexual and values. It is noteworthy that
interest in value-related risks (e.g. misinformation,
radicalisation, self-harm, algorithm bias) has grown
in recent years, now attracting as much attention
and anxiety as aggressive and sexual risks.
Finally, the new classification recognises three
types of cross-cutting risk – to children’s privacy,
their health, and their fair treatment and equal
inclusion in a digital world. These risks, we suggest,
can occur in relation to any and all of content,
contact, conduct and contract risks (see Figure 6).
Importantly, it should be noted that, although some
risks are particularly cross-cutting in nature, many of
the online risks to children intersect and hybridise,
depending on the circumstances, and more so as
the digital environment evolves. Hence the classi-
fication and its exemplars are offered here as a way
of organising and opening up further investigation,
rather than as implying that risks are simple or
disconnected.
[12]
Figure 6: The CO:RE classification of online risk to children
Conclusions
We hope this new classification serves constructive
purposes for researchers, policymakers and practi-
tioners working to minimise or manage online risks
to children’s rights and wellbeing. The classification
offers the foundations of a better understanding of
online risk to children, and it can underpin the work
of different stakeholders:
• Policymakers can use it to identify what risks
matter and why, what evidence supports them,
and how they fit within or fall outside existing
regulatory frameworks.
• Parents and the public can use it to learn what
can be done about the different risks and what
to look out for.
• Researchers can use the classification to
develop comprehensive definitions and
measures of online risk, and to organise,
compare and report findings.
15 We sought to future-proof the classification by
describing risks in broad terms rather than focusing
on very particular or time-bound risks, although we
• Practitioners can use it in their work to classify
and understand the problems reported to
them, to communicate with different audi-
ences, and to manage and bid for resources.
The classification will need careful framing for
different audiences, so more work needs to be done
on implementation. Moreover, as society and the
digital environment continues to change, the classi-
fication will need revisiting in the future.15
It should be noted that our focus has been on
children online, leaving others to attend to the
important risks of not being online – digital
exclusion, struggles for access and connectivity,
lack of digital skills, and so forth.
We did not focus on the factors that account for
whether, when or why some children are more likely
to encounter particular online risks than others, nor
the protective or vulnerability factors – whether
concerning children, their circumstances, the digital
environment or its regulation and management –
appreciate they arouse concern (e.g. sharenting,
influencers, deep fakes, viral challenges).
[13]
that account for harmful outcomes. Again, this has
been amply addressed elsewhere.16
It is also important to see risk as only one of the
dimensions of children’s online experiences,
alongside opportunities and among many factors
that intersect to influence children’s outcomes
(Livingstone, 2016). Indeed, while the digital
environment affords children a range of risks, it also
offers many opportunities to benefit, and this merits
a parallel analysis. If society becomes overpro-
tective, it can inadvertently undermine the very
opportunities for which society provides children
with internet access. We will address the 4Cs of on-
line opportunities in our future work.
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About the authors
Sonia Livingstone FBA,
OBE is a professor in the
Department of Media and
Communications, London
School of Economics and
Political Science (LSE). Her
20 books include Parenting for
a digital future: How hopes and fears about
technology shape children’s lives. She directs the
Digital Futures Commission (with 5Rights
Foundation) and Global Kids Online (with UNICEF
Office of Research – Innocenti) and has advised the
UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, European
Commission, European Parliament, Council of
Europe, ITU, OECD and others on children’s risks
and rights in a digital age.
See www.sonialivingstone.net
Mariya Stoilova is a post-
doctoral researcher at the
Department of Media and
Communications, London
School of Economics and
Political Science (LSE). Her
work falls at the intersection of
child rights and digital technology, focusing
particularly on the opportunities and risks of digital
media use in the everyday lives of children and
young people, data and privacy online, digital skills,
and pathways to harm and wellbeing. Mariya’s work
incorporates multi-method evidence generation and
cross-national comparative analyses. For projects
and publications, see http://www.lse.ac.uk/media-
and-communications/people/research-staff/mariya-
stoilova