The Children’s Parliament, a children’s rights group in Scotland,  has launched a new learning tool, Why Children’s Rights Matter: A Resource for Professionals, aimed at adults working in AI, digital, and data spaces to understand how children’s rights intersect with AI system design and decision-making.

“Children’s Parliament is excited to launch our eLearning resource together with our partners from the SAIA and The Alan Turing Institute,” Sandra Rabbow, AI project officer at Childrens’ Parliament said.

“The resource was developed as part of our work with children aged 8-12 years from across Scotland. The children had a direct call to action that adults who develop AI systems and make decisions about its use need to know about children’s human rights.

“The eLearning modules raise awareness about children’s human rights and the importance of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in Scotland. The resource will provide a platform for sharing children’s voices—highlighting what matters to them when it comes to AI and how adults can ensure that new technologies support children’s safety and wellbeing.”

Children’s Parliament, The Scottish AI Alliance, and The Alan Turing Institute have been exploring how children interact with AI, from its associated possibilities and risks, and how they themselves can be meaningfully invovled in AI development and policy.

Taking a children’s human rights approach, the project team worked with Members of Childrens’ Parliament (MCPs) to identify what needs to happen for AI to play a role in keeping all children healthy, and safe. To capture as broad a range of views as possible and to reflect the diversity of experiences of children in Scotland, classes ranging from P4 to P7 in four schools across Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirlingshire and Shetland participated.

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As part of this project, the MCPs developed a series of calls to action for adults working with and developing AI to consider. Once key gap identified through this project is that adults tend not to think about the impact of decisions made about AI on children.

This eLearning course is a short, reflective learning tool designed for adults working in AI, digital and data spaces to do just that.

These resources are now available on the Scottish AI Playbook, which will help readers gain a rights-based competitive edge in the world of AI, helping them to understand and think through how important children’s rights are in relation to AI.

The resources will help adults explore how to centre children’s rights in AI design and deployment decisions, and making accountability a core part of the process of innovation.