Safety & Design
Child rights impact assessment (CRIA)
A structured review of how a product or policy could affect children's rights, safety, and wellbeing, done before launch and updated over time.
- Businesses
- Policymakers and staff
What parents should know
A child rights impact assessment, often called a CRIA, is a written look at how a product or policy could help or harm children before it ships, and again when it changes. UNICEF promotes this kind of review for organizations. It is a process, not a badge HeyOtto claims on this page.
On this page
What is a child rights impact assessment?
A CRIA asks, in advance, who the child users are, what data is collected, what the child can do that is hard to undo, and what happens when something goes wrong. Safety, privacy, and the chance to be heard are typical headings. The point is to find the sharp edges while a change is still cheap.
UNICEF's work on children's rights and business treats impact assessment as something organizations do on purpose, not as a paragraph added after a news story. A one-time PDF that nobody rereads is a weaker version of the same idea. The useful version has an owner and a date for the next look.
Why a child rights impact assessment matters
Children's products collect chats, photos, and schoolwork. A launch checklist that only asks whether the app stores will approve it will miss a parent who cannot see the transcript. A CRIA is where that question is supposed to be written down.
It is also where a company admits uncertainty. If you do not know how long you keep a chat, the assessment should say so, not invent a number. HeyOtto's glossary does not state a retention period.
How it shows up in practice
- A team writes who can read a child's chat before the first school pilot.
- A new image tool is reviewed again, not waved through because chat was reviewed last year.
- A policy draft for a legislature gets the same style of questions a product does.
- A public summary says what was changed because of the review.
How HeyOtto helps
A child rights impact assessment asks, before launch, how a product could affect children. HeyOtto does not publish a CRIA badge. The controls a review can see are a parent-created account, readable chats, per-child topic limits, and no ads. Chats are not sold and are not used to train other models.
- Parents can read the chats.
- Topic limits and tool permissions are per child.
- Under 13, verifiable parental consent is part of setup.
For families
Try freeFAQs
Is a CRIA required by US law?
This page does not claim a general US duty to publish one. Some companies do them because a buyer, a board, or a standard asked. UNICEF describes the practice. Whether a statute requires one is a separate legal question.
How is it different from an AI risk assessment?
An AI risk assessment looks at harms from the system, including bias and security. A CRIA looks through children's rights and wellbeing. A serious product often needs both.
Does HeyOtto have a published CRIA?
Not one this glossary cites. Ask in a partnership conversation if you need a written review. Do not treat this page as that document.
Sources
Last reviewed September 26, 2026. This entry is reviewed twice a year.