Cyber experts to tell TDs 13 is too young to be the digital age of consent
THE Government needs to hold social media companies accountable and develop a proper and robust age verification system for children online, an Oireachtas committee is expected to be told today.
Dr Mary Aiken and Professor Barry O’Sullivan – two of the country’s most eminent cybersafety experts – believe ‘robust age verification online is one of the most critical requirements to deliver on child and youth security in cyber contexts’.
They are set to speak to the Oireachtas Children and Youth Affairs committee today, where they’re expected to say they are ‘unequivocally’ opposed to the Government’s decision to set the digital age of consent at 13 – the lowest under the new EU law.
In their opening statement, due to be delivered this afternoon, which has been seen by the Irish Daily Mail, the experts lay out eight recommendations in relation to children and cybersafety, including that the Government must ‘hold social media companies accountable for underage usage of their platforms’.
Dr Aiken and Prof O’Sullivan are also set to tell the committee that ‘consideration must be given to making the internet and social media safer for kids, as well as educating children and parents on internet safety’.
Adding: ‘There is clearly a role here for the Office of the Digital Safety Commissioner.’
Dr Aiken and Prof. O’Sullivan will believe that setting the digital age of consent to 13 ‘is not honouring the spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in terms of the risks to a child’s security, well-being and physical and mental health’.
‘In the absence of a rigorous basis for any specific age at this point, a prudent approach would be to set the digital age of consent in Ireland at 16.’