Key Details
The meeting brought children’s participation into the discussion of how AI risks should be identified and governed.
The UN Human Rights Office and partners surveyed more than 1,000 children in 49 countries. Children raised concerns about manipulated images, misuse of personal data, reduced creativity and AI replacing human relationships.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for risk assessments before products reach the market, greater transparency and independent oversight.
The meeting built on the Coalition for Children’s Rights and Protection in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, launched in July 2026. UN News reported that 17 countries had signed on.
Children Want to Be Heard Before AI Decisions Are Made
Children already use AI to learn, create and access information, UNICEF noted at the meeting. Yet systems that shape those experiences are often designed without asking children what they need or fear. Their responses to the UN survey centred on fake images made from real likenesses, use of their data and the possibility of AI displacing relationships with family, friends, teachers or therapists.
The call at the New York meeting was to involve children while systems and safeguards can still be changed—in their design, introduction and monitoring—not simply to seek their views after deployment.
Child Rights Provide the Basis for Oversight
The Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to AI systems affecting children. Türk called on companies to assess human-rights risks before release and to face transparency and independent oversight rather than rely only on voluntary commitments.
The July coalition brings together governments, UN agencies, companies and civil society to develop practical approaches to children’s rights in AI. The urgency is illustrated by separate UNICEF research: across 11 countries studied, at least 1.2 million children were estimated to have had their images manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes in the preceding year. That figure is not an India estimate.
Policy Relevance
For India, participation and protection need to be designed together. When AI products are intended for children — or likely to be used by them — MeitY, child-protection authorities and companies have a reason to seek children’s age-appropriate views before widespread use. Those views can reveal risks that a technical assessment alone may miss.
The practical test is whether that input leads to changes in data practices, safeguards against harmful generated content and ways to report harm. The UN survey identifies issues to investigate; it does not establish how prevalent they are among children in India.
Relevant Question for Policy Stakeholders: How will Indian authorities ensure that children’s views can change the design and safeguards of AI systems affecting them before those systems are widely used?
Follow the Full Update Here: ‘Ask us first’: Children demand a voice on AI’s future