UK AADC Standard 15 - Online tools
Provide accessible tools for children to exercise data rights and report concerns
Where this comes from
Provision: Standard 15 - Online tools
Instrument: UK Age Appropriate Design Code
Citation: Information Commissioner's Office, Age Appropriate Design: a code of practice for online services, Standard 15
Text version: ICO Age Appropriate Design Code (statutory code under Data Protection Act 2018 s 123), issued 2 Sept 2020
Who it applies to
It applies when all of these are true:
- Service is likely to be accessed by children under 18
…unless:
- Parental involvement may be required for younger children's rights requests to verify identity and prevent misuse. (ICO AADC Standard 15)
Scope in the source's own terms
- Service has child users who may exercise data rights
- 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:
- Users can submit a report from the content/profile in context
- Each report gets an identifier and a tracked status through to resolution
- Reporters and affected users are notified of the outcome where required
- Report volumes and outcomes are captured for any required transparency reporting
- A report flood / coordinated brigading does not overwhelm the queue or auto-action content
Evidence an auditor expects
- User-interface evidenceUser testing
Child-accessible data rights interface
Screenshots showing age-appropriate tools for data access, deletion, and portability
- Process recordDocument review
Data rights request handling process
Process documentation for handling children's data rights requests
- User-interface evidenceUser testing
Concern reporting mechanism
Child-accessible way to report privacy concerns or issues
Questions people ask
- Does UK AADC Standard 15 - Online tools apply to my service?
- It applies when Service is likely to be accessed by children under 18. It does not apply where Parental involvement may be required for younger children's rights requests to verify identity and prevent misuse. (ICO AADC Standard 15).
- From when does this apply?
- UK AADC Standard 15 - Online tools applies from 2 September 2021. Its current status is: in force.
- What evidence does an auditor expect?
- Child-accessible data rights interface; Data rights request handling process; Concern reporting mechanism.
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.