UK AADC Standard 1 - Best interests of the child
Make the best interests of children a primary consideration in service design and development
Where this comes from
Provision: Standard 1 - Best interests of the child
Instrument: UK Age Appropriate Design Code
Citation: Information Commissioner's Office, Age Appropriate Design: a code of practice for online services, Standard 1
Text version: ICO Age Appropriate Design Code (statutory code under Data Protection Act 2018 s 123), issued 2 Sept 2020
Who it applies to
Child audience (designed for OR likely accessed by children) — any one of these:
- Service is specifically designed for children under 18
- Service is likely to be accessed by children under 18
…unless:
- Where another legal obligation requires processing that may not align with best interests, document the conflict and mitigation measures. (Overriding legal obligation)
Scope in the source's own terms
- Service is likely to be accessed by children
- Service operates under GDPR (EU scope; block moved from UK-GDPR authorship)
What engineering work it implies
Sample acceptance criteria Landfall generates for this obligation:
- High-privacy / high-safety settings are the default for users who are or may be children
- Nudges and engagement patterns that are detrimental to children are removed or off by default
- Geolocation, public visibility, and contact-by-strangers are off by default for minors
- Design decisions affecting children are documented with their rationale
- System handles null/empty input gracefully (no 500 errors)
Evidence an auditor expects
- Assessment documentDocument review
Best interests impact assessment
Documented assessment of how design decisions consider children's best interests
- Process recordDocument review
Design review process including child welfare consideration
Records showing best interests check in product development lifecycle
Questions people ask
- Does UK AADC Standard 1 - Best interests of the child apply to my service?
- It applies when at least one of: Service is specifically designed for children under 18; Service is likely to be accessed by children under 18. It does not apply where Where another legal obligation requires processing that may not align with best interests, document the conflict and mitigation measures. (Overriding legal obligation).
- From when does this apply?
- UK AADC Standard 1 - Best interests of the child applies from 2 September 2021. Its current status is: in force.
- What evidence does an auditor expect?
- Best interests impact assessment; Design review process including child welfare consideration.
Find out whether this one lands on you
Landfall's pre-scan answers the applicability question above for your product in minutes, then turns every obligation that applies into traceable engineering tickets with a citation chain your auditors can follow.
Not legal advice. Landfall maps regulatory obligations to engineering work for planning purposes. Its verdicts are not legal advice and create no attorney-client relationship — verify with qualified counsel before relying on them.