Ms Alex Cooney:

I thank the Senator for the question. I absolutely agree with Dr. Ryan's call for the recommender systems to be set in some default way to be off and then it is optional whether someone wants them to be turned on. They should be off for children. Cybersafe Kids certainly supports that call. We think there is a lot of potential for the technology the tech companies are using for advertising and profiling purposes to be harnessed to safeguard children. There are things we can request around age assurance and certainly Coimisiún na Meán is also looking at this but we should demand more of the companies. They essentially know the ages of their users so they should use that knowledge to better protect younger users.

Another consideration, picking up on Professor O'Sullivan's point which has been raised before, is the idea that we can use these services for free. It is not really free because we are giving our data and the companies are benefiting to the tune of billions of dollars in profit so maybe we should look at paid-for models. That is the model rather than our data and advertising being the basis on which they make money. A subscription model could be another consideration. I would certainly urge the committee members sitting in the room and who will be putting a report together on the back of this to stress that education and public awareness campaigns are essential. There is so much unknown and, obviously, we talked before about the fact that there is a lot of fear around AI and people do not know how to regulate it or what to expect. There should be a lot more awareness around it. We need to teach children in schools about how to use this technology in a safe and smart way. We need to teach parents and care givers and raise awareness there as well. Whatever recommendations are put in place should also include educational awareness programmes.