What does a child’s favourite ice cream flavour have to do with the digital age?

Guest post by Irene Gunning

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Those who heard Andrew Manches’ keynote at the EECERA Conference in Madeira will recognise some of the thinking explored in this recent EECERJ paper on personal data literacy in early childhood.

At first glance, personal data literacy may sound technical, something belonging to the worlds of technology, privacy and data protection rather than to the everyday life of a young child.

But what if we simply think of personal data as “information about you”?

Your name. Your age. Your eye colour. Your favourite ice cream. How tall you are. How fast you can run. How you felt this morning.

Suddenly, data looks rather different.

Young children are growing up in a world in which increasing amounts of information about them are being captured, through apps, cameras, smart devices, trackers and technologies they may not even realise are collecting data.

The need to protect children in this increasingly datafied world is clear. But Manches and colleagues ask us to consider something more.

What if, alongside protecting children, we enabled them to participate in understanding the data that increasingly represents their lives?

Their argument is both simple and challenging: personal data literacy can, and should, begin in early childhood.

Rather than beginning with warnings about privacy and what children should or should not share, the authors begin with children’s own experiences and curiosity. Their framework invites children to explore four interconnected ideas: identifying information about themselves; understanding how that information can be captured and communicated; discovering different ways of representing it; and interpreting what those representations might tell them.

A mark on a doorpost showing how much you have grown is data. So is information about how far you have run, what foods you like or how you have been feeling.

And that last example opens up some fascinating questions.

What happens when a child says they are “7 out of 10 happy”? Can a number really capture an emotion? What is gained when we turn human experience into data — and what might be lost?

This is where a paper that might initially appear to be about technology becomes something much bigger. It becomes a paper about children, learning, rights, agency and participation.

It leaves us with questions worth discussing.

Does helping young children understand their personal data give them greater agency in the digital world? How do we balance children’s right to protection with their right to participate? And what might all of this ask of early childhood educators, researchers and advocates?

There may be different answers to those questions across the EECERA community — and perhaps that is precisely why they are worth asking.

This Journal Spotlight invites us to stop over an idea from the EECERJ and continue a conversation begun in Madeira: what might it mean for young children not simply to be protected in a datafied world, but to begin to understand and participate in it?

About the author

With a career spanning several decades in early childhood education and care, Irene Gunning has worked across practice, professional development, policy and advocacy, including serving as CEO of Early Childhood Ireland. Although now retired from full-time professional life, her commitment to children’s rights, play and the relationship between research, policy and practice remains undiminished.
A longstanding member of EECERA, Irene served on its Board of Trustees for almost a decade and continues to contribute to the Association through its communications work and as Country Coordinator for Ireland. She has a particular interest in making research accessible, encouraging dialogue and connecting ideas with the everyday experiences of children and educators.

References

Manches, A., Plowman, L., Atabey, A., Perera, D., Ramirez-Duque, A., Lechelt, S., … Brewster, S. (2026). Beyond privacy: a framework for personal data literacy in early childhood. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2026.2723470