UN urges countries to protect children from escalating AI dangers News
Matteo Fantino, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
UN urges countries to protect children from escalating AI dangers

The UN on Sunday urged governments to implement more effective online regulations to address children’s increasing exposure to AI-generated content.

Experts recounted the ways bad actors target children using AI and digital technology, noting that “predators can use AI to analyze a child’s online behavior, emotional state, and interests to tailor their grooming strategy.”

AI has also facilitated sexual extortion by enabling offenders to generate explicit fake images of real children. In an October 2025 study, the Childlight Global Child Safety Institute found “a 1,325% rise (2023-2024) in harmful AI-generated online abuse material.”

The release recognized multiple countries that have taken steps to regulate children’s use of digital technologies. Australia banned social media accounts for children under 16 in December, and the UK and the EU have also considered whether youth should be at least 16 to gain access to social media accounts. However, some rights groups have criticized the effectiveness of this type of ban as an “ineffective quick fix.”

In November 2025, UN agencies published a Joint Statement on Artificial Intelligence and the Rights of the Child. The statement portrayed a “collective inability” to protect children from the dangers of AI. In particular, agencies had observed a lack of understanding of AI among children, teachers, parents, and caregivers, as well as a lack of technical training “on AI frameworks, data protection methods and child rights impact assessments.” Moreover, technology companies often do not create AI tools with children’s well-being in mind.

The joint statement set out numerous online protection guidelines while highlighting the need for states and international organizations to prioritize child safety within AI regulation. Experts urged countries to “explicitly criminalize, investigate, appropriately sanction and bring to justice perpetrators of all forms of online child sexual abuse or exploitation committed through or with the support of AI systems, tools and platforms.”

In 2021, the UN added a general comment within the Convention on the Rights of the Child that addressed children’s rights in digital environments. Children’s right to life, survival, and development must be protected from risks like “violent and sexual content, cyberaggression and harassment, gambling, exploitation and abuse, including sexual exploitation and abuse, and the promotion of or incitement to suicide or life-threatening activities.”

Furthermore, “the provision, regulation, design, management and use” of online platforms must prioritize children’s best interests.

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