Two years ago, on Safer Internet Day (6th February 2018), the 2018 DQ Impact Report was published in association with the World Economic Forum. That initial report examined online safety and digital citizenship among 38,000 8- to 12-year-olds across 29 countries. Our key finding at that time was that 56% of children were exposed to at least one cyber risk (including risks like cyberbullying, gaming disorder, offline meeting with strangers, and online sexual behaviors). This report created an impetus to expand and deepen our knowledge of the risks children face, as well as what resources act as protective factors.

In the two years following, we have broadened our vision and increased our measurements to examine six major pillars of support for children’s online safety. This 2020 COSI compares the results across 30 countries, and includes data from over 145,426 children, as well as from other external sources such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), Economist Intelligence Unit, and others. Learn more about our key findings and methodology in our full report below.

COSI is dedicated to monitoring trends in Child Online Safety around the world with real-time updates. We invite the academic research and expert communities to work together with us to further improve COSI. We especially welcome suggestions of how COSI can become more relevant to researchers’ own countries. If interested, please contact us at partnership@dqinstitute.org.