In 2025, Ofcom commissioned research agency Beano Brain to deliver an ongoing programme of qualitative research with a dedicated panel of 8-17-year-olds. The Children’s Online Insights Panel provides regular, child-led perspectives on how young people experience the online world, helping Ofcom stay close to emerging behaviours, trends, and risks as they develop. These insights support Ofcom’s understanding of children’s online lives and inform future policy thinking, as part of our commitment to incorporate children's voices and perspectives in policymaking.
In December 2025, we published an interim summary report covering the first two waves of the research (March – August 2025). This latest report brings together key findings from all four waves of the research from March 2025 – February 2026, highlighting key themes and activities that emerged over the year. The report focuses on the features, functionalities, and content the children had been engaging with, as well as some of the actions they had taken in response. Some of the data in this report was collected before Ofcom’s Protection of Children Codes of Practice came into effect in July 2025.
Children's Online Insight Panel Wave 1-4 Summary Report (PDF, 6.7 MB)
Childrens Online Insights Panel Waves 1 and 2 summary report