Children’s Online Digital Experiences (CODE) Lab
The Children’s Online Digital Experiences (CODE) Lab, lead by Madison Moore, focuses on understanding children’s and young people’s digital lives through a rights-based, participatory lens. Grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the lab’s research examines how digital rights—such as the right to participate (Article 12), the right to privacy (Article 16), the right to information (Article 17), and the right to play (Article 31)—are experienced, negotiated, and supported in contemporary digital environments.
Current Projects
CODE currently leads two interconnected research projects that explore digital rights from both youth and adult perspectives. One phase focuses on parents’ understandings of children’s digital rights in Canada, examining how families navigate issues of online safety, monitoring, autonomy, and risk. This work highlights the everyday tensions parents experience between protecting children and respecting their rights to privacy, participation, and self-expression online.
The second phase centres a Youth Advisory Board (YAB) model, positioning young people as co-researchers and experts in their own digital lives. Using participatory methods, youth are collaborating in the design of workshops on the digital rights of young people. This approach challenges adult-centric models of research and policy by foregrounding youth voice, agency, and lived experience.
Together, CODE’s research aims to inform policy, education, and community practice by producing youth-informed, empirically grounded evidence about digital rights in Canada. The lab’s work contributes to ongoing debates around emerging digital legislation and supports the development of more balanced, inclusive, and rights-based approaches to digital safety and governance.