Kids Play Tech Lab @McGill
Current Research
Child Appropriate Game Design (CAGD)
The Children and Age-Appropriate Game Design (or “Child Appropriate Game Design” (CAGD) for short) project is a four-year international and multidisciplinary study of how ideas about “age appropriateness” shape how children’s digital games are designed, regulated, and played. Over four years, we will talk to children and children’s game developers (focus groups, interviews), review relevant policies and regulatory developments (policy analysis), and examine the designs and settings of key children’s games (design analysis and case studies).
We are mapping how questions relating to age appropriateness and children’s rights in games are already being addressed by these key stakeholder groups (children, parents, industry, policymakers). And identifying best practices, policy recommendations, and pedagogical materials aimed at building stronger support and awareness of children’s rights and best interests in this space. As this project has been the main focus of the Kids Play Tech lab since 2022, you will find various links to reports and details about papers, presentations, and other outputs on the Findings page.
The CAGD project is led by Dr. Sara Grimes (Principal Investigator, McGill University, Canada), Dr. Darshana Jayemanne (Abertay University, Scotland), and Dr. Seth Giddings (University of Southampton, England). It is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. University of McGill Office of Research Ethics#: 24-12-037
Dr. Jayemanne’s contributions are supported by InGAME: Innovation for Games and Media Enterprise, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Concept and prototype development for our collab with A-Game Studios (D’Orcs) funded by the Canada Media Fund and Ontario Creates.
Youth Summit on the Best Interests of the Child in the Digital Environment
In the summer of 2025, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) of Canada launched an exploratory consultation on a proposed Children’s Privacy Code. In keeping with Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which requires that adults take account of children’s views when making decisions that impact them, a team of researchers led by Dr. Sara Grimes and Dr. Valerie Steeves (eQuality Project, University of Ottawa) held a two-day youth summit in November 2025 to consult with 24 young people between the ages of 9 and 17 years from the greater Ottawa/Gatineau area about their experiences and opinions on a range of issues related to online privacy, best interests, and other rights in the digital environment.
Together, we came up with a list of 8 priority areas or “Key Interests” that the research team will use as the basis for a set of policy recommendations aimed at informing future Canadian laws, regulations, and guidelines that better reflect children’s voices and work to advance children’s rights online. This quick report provides a sneak peek of that list and other preliminary findings. A full report of findings and recommendations will be shared once the data analysis is complete
UN Children’s Consultation on Children’s Rights in the Digital Environment
In January 2026, 28 of our CAGD child participants (Canadian children aged 8 to 15 years) had the opportunity to collaborate with the Kids Play Teach research team in preparing a submission to a Global Children’s Consultation led by the Digital Futures Centre for the 5Rights Foundation and United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR), on children’s rights in the digital environment. The aim of this Consultation was to enable children from around the world in share their insights and experiences with a high impact, international stakeholder group of policymakers and practitioners, by helping the OHCHR develop concrete insights for stronger policy and practice to advance children’s rights in the digital environment. Results will be released in conjunction with the 5 year anniversary of the UN’s adoption of the General Comment 25 which confirmed and clarified that children’s rights apply to the digital world.
The purpose of the Children’s Consultation is to gain in-depth understanding of children’s daily digital lives, their priorities when it comes to their rights in the digital realm, pertinent intergenerational misunderstandings, and views on responsibility, harm and redress in online environments. Using the focus group method and following the DFC’s standardized workshop design, data was collated through semi-structured group discussions involving both verbal and written feedback from the participants. This quick report provides a sneak peek of that feedback and our preliminary findings. A full description of findings and recommendations will be shared once the data analysis is complete. We will link to the full, final global report once it is released on March 2, 2026.
Jeu Dangereux
Since 2023, the Kids Play Tech lab has collaborated with researchers from the Université du Québec à Montréal and the University of Ottawa on multi-level study of ads and data collection in app games targeted to children aged 4+ or 5 years and over. To date this collaboration has received funding from the OPC Contribution Program and the FRQ AUDACE. This report (FR) of our 2024-2025 findings focuses on findings from an in-depth content analysis of privacy policies and terms of service contracts in a large sample of games, and provides an introduction to the broader study. The PI on this project is Dr. Maude Bonenfant (UQAM, Communication), and brings together faculty from across disciplines, including Dr. Sara Grimes (McGill University, Communication) Dr. Thomas Burelli (University of Ottawa, Law), Dr. Hafedh Mili (UQAM, Computer Science), and Dr. Jean Privat (UQAM, Computer Science).
