Spain launched on Tuesday, along with twenty other countries and organizations, the International Coalition for the Rights and Protection of Children in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. The group, established within the United Nations, will work to ensure that AI respects the safety, healthy development, and rights of children.
The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, expressed yesterday his “satisfaction” with the number of adhesions to the Coalition, an initiative promoted by Spain with the support of France, Kenya, and the European Union. The proposal has been concretized in the first United Nations Dialogue on the Governance of Artificial Intelligence, held this week in Geneva.
“Let us not make the same mistakes with AI as we did with social networks. The rights of minors cannot disappear in the digital world. Every day, children and adolescents around the world access sites where they can be harmed. It is our duty to protect them. Some billionaires have been making a lot of money with our children’s data. This must end. It is time for them to be responsible,” emphasized López at the presentation event of the Coalition.
Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Republic of Korea, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Luxembourg, Morocco, and the Netherlands, in addition to Spain, have joined this Coalition, along with UNICEF, UNESCO, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies, and the European Commission.
This coalition seeks coordination among governments, United Nations agencies, technology companies, civil society organizations, child welfare experts, and education professionals to “ensure that the development and deployment of AI respect the safety, healthy development, and rights of all children, as recognized in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
In the approved document, the signatories recognize that the rapid deployment of AI systems is transforming the digital environments in which children learn, communicate, and interact. These technologies create new opportunities but also amplify risks such as manipulation, harmful content, the generation of pornography and child sexual abuse material from deepfakes, and the algorithmic targeting of minors. Ensuring that AI systems are safe by design requires coordinated action among governments, industry, civil society, and international organizations.
Therefore, the signatories of the coalition commit first to “develop safe, reliable, trustworthy AI systems that respect children’s rights and have a people-centered approach,” according to information from the Spanish Government’s Presidency on its website. The signatories will also promote cooperation among all stakeholders involved in protecting minors’ rights and will encourage the exchange of good practices, including contributions from the Independent Scientific Panel on AI. Finally, they commit to “ensure” that the opinions of minors “significantly contribute to the design, deployment, and governance of the Artificial Intelligence systems that affect them, in accordance with their right to be heard.”