“Government Safety Limits Do Not Protect Children”: ICBE-EMF Raises Serious Concerns About Digital Age Exposures
11 September 2026
Are current safety limits really protecting our children?
The International Commission on the Biological Effects of Electromagnetic Fields (ICBE EMF) has published a new position statement raising serious concerns about children’s exposure to screen time, wireless radiation and extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF).
Its central warning is stark:
“Government Safety Limits Do Not Protect Children.”
Children are growing up surrounded by wireless technology. Smartphones, tablets, Wi Fi, wireless devices, wearables and other connected technologies are now part of everyday life. At the same time, children are exposed to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields associated with electrical infrastructure and electrical equipment.
The question is no longer whether children are being exposed. They are.
The critical question is whether existing safety standards are sufficiently protective, particularly for children whose bodies are still developing and who may experience repeated and cumulative exposure throughout childhood.
Children deserve better protection
ICBE EMF’s position statement challenges the assumption that compliance with existing government exposure limits necessarily means that children are adequately protected.
The organisation argues that current standards do not sufficiently address the unique circumstances of children or the increasingly complex pattern of exposures created by our connected environment.
This deserves serious public scrutiny.
Safety limits should protect the most vulnerable, not simply establish what levels of exposure are considered acceptable.
Parents should not have to choose between allowing their children to participate in modern digital life and worrying about whether current safeguards are adequate. Educators and schools need clear, independent information. Policymakers have a responsibility to ensure that regulations keep pace with emerging scientific evidence.
They should also listen to the hundreds of independent doctors and scientists around the world who are raising concerns about electromagnetic field exposure and calling for greater caution.
Where independent scientists and medical professionals are raising concerns about health risks, those concerns must be heard, properly investigated and openly debated rather than dismissed.
The precautionary principle matters
At the Radiation Research Trust, we believe children’s health must come before convenience, commercial interests or assumptions that existing standards are automatically sufficient.
We must continue to ask difficult questions about how wireless technology and electromagnetic field exposure may affect children and whether enough is being done to protect them.
Children cannot make these decisions for themselves. Adults, institutions and governments have a responsibility to ensure that their health and wellbeing are given priority.
We therefore urge parents, educators, health professionals, researchers and policymakers to read the ICBE EMF position statement in full, listen to the growing number of independent doctors and scientists raising concerns, and consider what a genuinely precautionary approach to protecting children should look like.
The debate about children, wireless technology and electromagnetic field exposure cannot be ignored. It is time to put children’s protection first.
📖 Read the full ICBE-EMF position statement 👇
