General Comment 25 on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment now addended to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
DSC is delighted to announce the final adoption of General Comment 25 on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment has been officially addended to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as of last Thursday 4 February.
Since 2019, DSC’s Associate Tenant Kay Firth Butterfield and the GenerationAI project team at World Economic Forum have worked closely with UNICEF on this topic and in the drafting of this work on Artificial Intelligence and its use by children https://www.unicef.org/globalinsight/reports/policy-guidance-ai-children
Policy Guidance on AI for Children | UNICEF Office of Global Insight & Policy Highlights Artificial intelligence (AI) is about so much more than self-driving cars and intelligent assistants on your phone. AI systems are increasingly being used by governments and the private sector to, for example, improve the provision of education, healthcare and welfare services. |
General Comment 25 will now be recognised as an explicit obligation on the part of the majority of signatory countries and for which they are held accountable by the UN, in particular in the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Kay says: “I am hugely honoured to have been part of the process which achieved this result. I hope this will protect and empower and prepare our children for the challenges they will inevitably face in the coming days of AI and digital, which will shape our future."
For further details, see:
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC): https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter=4&lang=en
Sonia Livingstone, LSE blog. Feb. 4, 2021
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2021/02/04/childrens-rights-apply-in-the-digital-world/