Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 April 2024

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

Protection of Children in the Use of Artificial Intelligence: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. David Miles:

That is one of the reasons that back in January we really tightened the threshold there. If a youngster is even considering suicide or self-injury we will take the content down and send it for human review straight away. That aims to stop that situation where something has been seen and cannot be unseen. That is really important.

The other thing, in addition to the experts we have, is that post the Molly Russell inquiry, we are running a workshop with the Molly Rose Foundation. Those kinds of cases can help to inform our thinking and that of others in terms of the way that we deal with these issues and in creating nuanced approaches to address things like suicide notes or the livestreaming of those kinds of things. We need guidance on those kinds of things to try to make sure that we get them right. We are very restrictive in that area now and we feel that we are making good progress. There is always more we can do but it is an area that we feel particularly strongly about because suicide can stem from bullying, harassment and from other harms too. It is important that we catch those behaviours as quickly as possible.