AI is increasingly part of children’s lives — from adaptive learning apps and voice assistants to interactive games. Used well, AI can boost learning, creativity, and accessibility. In Uganda, students are already developing AI tools for public health and road safety, showing AI’s potential beyond entertainment. Protecting children’s rights and wellbeing, however, requires careful safeguards. The following risks are identified when it comes to use of AI among children.
- Data privacy and protection: Children’s behavioural, biometric, and location data are highly sensitive; misuse can have long-term consequences.
- Harmful or inappropriate content: AI can produce biased, inaccurate, or age-inappropriate material; automated recommendations may expose children to harmful content.
- Safety and exploitation: Features like geolocation, poor moderation, or automated matchmaking can enable grooming and exploitation.
- Misinformation: Generative AI can create realistic deepfakes and fabricated identities that undermine trust.
- Mental health and development: Attention-maximising algorithms can increase screen time, dependency, anxiety, and social problems.
- Commercialisation and manipulation: Targeted advertising and dark patterns can exploit children’s inexperience.
Principles for Safe and Responsible Use
Active adult supervision
- Treat AI as a tool to use together, not a babysitter. Co-view, co-play, and discuss content.
- For younger children, require adult presence or restricted modes.
Age-appropriate design and controls
- Use child-focused products or those with robust parental controls.
- Review and limit app permissions (disable location, voice recording when not needed).
- Default settings for children should minimise data sharing.
Teach critical thinking
- Explain that AI can be wrong or biased. Encourage verifying facts with teachers, books, or verified websites.
- Teach questions such as “How do I know this is true?” and “Who created this?”
Protect privacy and data
- Follow Uganda’s Data Protection and Privacy Act: process children’s data only with parent/guardian consent in line with Section 8.
- Teach children never to share full name, address, school, phone number, passwords, or other personal details with chatbots or strangers.
- Enforce data minimisation, clear retention limits, and parental consent for children’s accounts.
- Use strong, unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication where possible.
Promote respectful, ethical behaviour
- Reinforce respectful interactions — even with chatbots — and discourage imitation of harmful online behaviour.
- Teach attribution and ethical use of AI-generated content.
Content safety and moderation
- Enable robust content filters and safe-search tools that are transparent and regularly audited.
- Regularly review the apps children use and their content for age-appropriateness.
- Prohibit behavioural advertising and dark patterns in products aimed at children.
Prepare for mistakes and harms
- Teach children to stop, seek an adult, and report or block harmful content.
- Encourage reporting of unsafe interactions to platform providers.
Design, Regulation, and Research
- Safety by Design: Developers must minimize data collection, implement strong moderation, and avoid manipulative patterns that encourage addiction.
- Policy measures: Enact child-specific safeguards — stricter consent, bans on targeted advertising to minors, mandatory safety-by-design, and external audits.
- Research and monitoring: Fund independent studies on AI’s developmental impacts and evaluate interventions and long-term effects before wide deployment in education or childcare.
AI can expand opportunities for Ugandan children without compromising their safety. By prioritising privacy, active supervision, critical thinking, ethical design, and strong regulation, we can ensure AI supports children’s learning, creativity, and wellbeing rather than harming it.
Read more about our work about promoting child online protection in Uganda at https://besafe.ug
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