Our Human Rights Policy (including Child Rights) sets out how we seek to support our customers in navigating the evolving digital landscape through tools and education. Each of our operating companies is subject to our Human Rights (including Child Rights) Policy, and has appointed a member of the local leadership team as the owner of that policy..
Our commitments to broader child rights are also embedded in group policies and processes and are underpinned by our ongoing work to embed a child rights by design approach, a principle developed by the Digital Futures Commission. We also developing operational global minimum standards to manage and mitigate how we impact children across our operations.
These include:
Our Group Code of Conduct prohibits all forms of workplace abuse and harassment and explicitly states we will not tolerate child labour. This is complemented by several family-friendly policies, such as our Global Parental Leave Policy. Our Code of Ethical Purchasing also strictly prohibits child labour in our responsible supply chain.
We aim to educate and empower our customers by providing parents with digital guidance on child online safety. We are also committed to engaging with young people directly, to provide young people with online safety guidance.
We provide parental controls through our Secure Net service, which gives parents an added layer of control over screen time and can help block age-inappropriate website and apps.
As a founding member of the GSMA Mobile Alliance to combat Digital Child Sexual Exploitation Vodafone is committed to removing such content or, where this is not possible, the disruption of the sharing of or access to this material.
We assess the benefit and potential risks to children from a human and child’s rights perspective. At an early stage in the development process, any products that process personal data go through a privacy impact assessment (PIA). The PIA includes explicit requirements for parental consent, child-appropriate language, and avoidance of profiling of children. If we collect their personal data, the PIA also mandates we do not directly market to children. We also use other product assessment processes which includes a check to ensure that any risks to children or other vulnerable people are identified and addressed.
We are also working on engaging with young people to reflect on their feedback.
We do not intentionally target children in our communications. We set responsible media buying standards for our partners – including controls to avoid servicing ads to children.
Our Group External Communication Policy and Brand Guidelines set out guidance on responsibly engaging with social media influencers and sponsorship.
We manage child rights in the context of our overall human rights programme.