The WBA Digital Inclusion Benchmark measures and ranks the world's most influential companies on their efforts to advance digital inclusion, tracking how companies are expanding access to digital technologies, improving digital skills and literacy, and ensuring safe and inclusive digital environments for all. The 2026 edition assessed 200 companies across key sectors of the digital economy including telecommunications, software, hardware, and digital platforms. The benchmark is developed in close collaboration with an Expert Review Committee and partners including GRI, ITU, and the Alliance for Affordable Internet, with a methodology designed to incentivise companies to understand where digital exclusion risks are highest and act to bridge the digital divide, while keeping human rights and social impacts at its core.
More information can be found
here.
The rights of every child must be respected, protected and fulfilled in the digital environment, as set out in General Comment 25 by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Globally, over 1 in 3 Internet users is a child, and yet, according to the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), children are at heightened risk of exploitation, data breaches and privacy violations online.
As more children engage with digital technologies, they face specific risks, including exposure to harmful content, cyberbullying and the potential misuse of personal data. Companies that offer digital services, whether directly or through their value chains, must take an approach integrating safety-by- design and privacy-by-design to protect these vulnerable users by, for example, establishing robust policies, conducting risk assessments and ensuring transparent data handling practices.
Research Guidance:
The companydisclosesthat it conducts a child rights impact assessment (CRIA) or equivalent processtoidentifyand assess child rights risks andimpactsin the digital environment. The impact assessment must explicitly address child rights in the digital environment (or_child rights online_), including risks related to online safety and wellbeing, privacy and data protection for children, exposure to harmful content or manipulation, age-appropriate content and digital interactions, freedom of expression, thought, or access to information.The company should provide a publicdescription of its risk assessment process, explaining when and how the assessment is triggered, which child rights issues are considered, what steps are taken to mitigateidentifiedrisks.The company must assess risks in its own operations.
Disclosuremaydescribe how the company's products, services, and business activities impact children, regardless of whether the company's products and services are designed for use by children. Children may interact with digital products and services not designed for them (e.g., services are not designed for children but accessible to them, such as maps or smart home devices), and adult use of products and services mayimpactchildren (e.g., surveillance cameras, or sharing CSAM).