John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank and welcome all of our witnesses. It is very insightful for me and very concerning. AI has huge potential and has proved positive, as has been alluded to here, in safeguarding children online from sexual predators and all of that. There are benefits but there are real concerns there. I wrote down four or five areas that these could be condensed into. Privacy is a huge one. Children’s data privacy can be compromised. That leads to my first question on GDPR legislation. Is it strong enough to protect from those threats around AI?

I will go through the questions and ask the witnesses to take note of these. There is the question of safety in general, inappropriate content, interactions, ethical considerations, dependency, which was alluded to, physical health and social media. Their goal it is to get children, in particular to engage in more screen time and I am worried about the psychological impact of this . These are the main areas of concern for me.

Some data was given out and I want to drill down into it as it was quite concerning. A total of 84% of children between the ages of eight and 12 have social media accounts. According to all the major social media platforms, whether it is TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat, users are supposed to be aged 13 and above. That says quite clearly that self-regulation does not work. I presume everyone agrees with that. Separately, 37% of children between the ages of eight and 12 are on Snapchat. Is data available for each of the major platforms?

A survey carried out by Harvard University in 2022 probably sums up why these platforms are very slow at, or are not enforcing, their own guidelines. It found that Meta, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok made a combined profit of $11 billion from children under the age of 18, $2 billion of which was from children under the age of 12.

That is absolutely startling. Do we have that data specifically in respect of Ireland? If we do, it would certainly be very helpful.

As legislators, the critical piece for us is the legislation that is required to be put in place. One example was given, and concerns cited, around section 3 of the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act. Concerns around AI were given in that regard. Is that Act critical legislation that should be amended immediately? Should it be given priority? What other legislation, and this is a very broad question, do the representatives deem as priority legislation to be enacted?

Coimisiún na Meán is obviously very welcome. Are the terms of reference given to that body extensive enough to deal with all these issues around AI? Are there concerns that it will not have enough powers or there will not be enough focus on such issues? I thank our witnesses.