UK AADC Standard 1 — Best interests of the child (ICO Age Appropriate Design Code, statutory guidance under DPA 2018 s 123)
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 (ICO Age Appropriate Design Code, statutory guidance under DPA 2018 s 123)
Instrument: UK Age Appropriate Design Code
Citation: Data Protection Act 2018 s 123 (duty to prepare the code) and s 127 (effect); ICO Age Appropriate Design Code, Standard 1 — Best interests of the child
Text version: ICO Age Appropriate Design Code (statutory code of practice under Data Protection Act 2018 s 123; in force from 2 September 2020 with a transition period to 2 September 2021 - date not independently verified on the ICO pages), fifteen standards as displayed on ico.org.uk on 2026-09-23. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 has amended UK GDPR and the ICO has signalled a revised code: check for a reissued code before relying on this text.
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
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
- A newly created minor account has high-privacy defaults
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 (ICO Age Appropriate Design… 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.
- From when does this apply?
- UK AADC Standard 1 — Best interests of the child (ICO Age Appropriate Design… 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.