ETD

• access to information
• age assurance
• age verification
• australia
• brazil
• children’s rights
• data protection
• eca digital
• freedom of expression
• platform regulation
• privacy
• united kingdom

The global trend of regulation aimed at protecting children and adolescents online pursues a legitimate aim, yet many of these measures raise questions of necessity, proportionality and effectiveness, and can harm both the rights they invoke and the rights of people at large. This thesis therefore asks whether Brazil’s Digital Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA Digital, Law No. 15.211/2025) can serve as a rights-respecting global benchmark. Chapter 1 sets out the terminology of age assurance, the children’s rights and fundamental rights framework relevant to this matter, and three regulatory logics, namely exclusion in Australia, access gating in the United Kingdom and service design duties in Brazil, from which four evaluative criteria are identified. Chapter 2 examines the Brazilian framework in detail, including its implementing decree and the powers and early enforcement practice of the data protection authority (ANPD), and identifies the gaps it leaves open. Chapter 3 applies those four criteria to the Brazilian framework and argues that Brazil offers a strong regulatory example, while its standing as a benchmark depends on the autonomy and the regulatory and enforcement capacity of the authority, and on implementation choices that make public participation effective and avoid generalised identification, weakened encryption and identity infrastructure built without safeguards. Chapter 4 converts those findings into recommendations for legislators considering the Brazilian design and into areas of improvement for Brazil itself, and the Conclusions answer the research question.