5C Typology of online risks to children
Risks for children in the digital environment Risk categories Content Conduct Contact Consumer Cross-cutting risks Additional privacy, safety and security risks Advanced technology risks Risks on health and wellbeing Misuse risks Risk manifestation Hateful content Hateful behaviour Hateful encounters Marketing risks Harmful content Harmful behaviour Harmful encounters Commercial profiling risks Illegal content Illegal behaviour Illegal encounters Financial risks Disinformation User-generated problematic behaviour Other problematic encounters Security risks (a) Advanced technology risks involve minors encountering new dangers as technology develops, such as AI chatbots that might provide harmful information or be used for grooming by exploiting vulnerabilities, or the use of biometric technologies that can lead to abuse, identity fraud and exclusion. (b) Health and wellbeing risks include potential harm to minors' mental, emotional, or physical well-being. For example, increased obesity/anorexia and mental health issues linked to the use or excessive use of online platforms, which may in some cases result in negative impacts for minors’ physical and mental health and wellbeing, such as addiction, depression, anxiety disorders, deregulated sleep patterns and social isolation. (c) Additional privacy and data protection risks stem from access to information about minors and the danger of geolocation features that predators could exploit to locate and approach minors. (a) Additional safety and security risks relate to minors’ safety, particularly physical safety, as well as all cybersecurity issues. (b) Misuse risks relate to risks or harms to minors stemming from the misuse of the online platform, or its features. ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/5519/oj ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)
Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07