Türkiye-hosted UN panel urges stronger safeguards for children online

NEW YORK

A U.N. panel organized by Türkiye called for stronger international standards to protect children from online risks, as speakers warned that rapid advances in artificial intelligence were outpacing existing safeguards.

The event, titled “The Invisible Architecture: Building Safe Digital Systems for Children – Advancing International Standards and Shared Responsibility,” was held at U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 21 on the sidelines of the 81st U.N. General Assembly.

Organized under the auspices of first lady Emine Erdoğan, the panel was held by Türkiye’s Family and Social Services Ministry in cooperation with UNICEF and the Office of the U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children.

Belgium’s Queen Mathilde warned that children should not bear the risks of rapidly developing technologies.

“Children cannot be the subjects of a global technology experiment or guinea pigs for business models based on data collection and attention,” she said.

Mathilde said child safety should be a central objective of AI governance, extending beyond parental controls, content moderation and data protection.

Serbian first lady Tamara Vučić stressed the need to prepare children for both physical and digital environments through education and responsible technology use.

The first ladies of Gambia, Kenya and Sierra Leone also called for stronger regulation and greater accountability from technology companies, particularly over personal data, online exploitation, cyberbullying and privacy.

Sahar Salam, the wife of Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, urged greater oversight of AI systems, citing the case of a 15-year-old in Lebanon who died by suicide and was found to have been communicating with an AI system.

“We cannot expect children to understand the commercial logic of algorithms or assess whether an AI response is psychologically appropriate,” she said.

UNICEF Child Protection Director Sheema Sen Gupta said protecting children online required action beyond the national level, while U.N. Special Representative on Violence against Children Najat Maalla M’jid called for greater accountability from governments, technology companies and the wider digital sector.