Canadian Children and Digital Privacy: A Call to Action in Unprecedented Times

Promoting Children’s Privacy Rights as AI Reshapes Childhood

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming part of everyday childhood. From learning platforms and games to social media, search, and entertainment, AI systems are shaping what children see, how they interact, and how they are understood by companies and governments alike. Yet while technology is moving quickly, the rules designed to protect children are not keeping pace.

Canada now faces a critical policy moment. Decisions made in the next few years will determine whether digital systems are built around children’s rights and well-being—or whether children continue to be treated as an afterthought in technology governance.

Why Children Need Different Rules

Children are not just smaller adults. They are still developing cognitively, emotionally, and socially. They are more easily influenced, less able to understand complex data practices, and more vulnerable to manipulation, surveillance, and harm. When AI systems personalise content, predict behaviour, or shape online experiences, they can directly affect children’s mental health, learning, identity, and relationships.

Yet most digital systems are designed for profit and efficiency, not for child development. Data about children is routinely collected, analysed, and monetised at scale. Algorithms decide what children see, what is hidden from them, and how long they stay engaged—often without transparency or meaningful safeguards.

Relying on companies to regulate themselves has repeatedly proven insufficient. Without clear rules, harmful practices are addressed only after damage is done, leaving children to bear the cost of policy delay.

A Window for Leadership

Canada has an opportunity to lead. There is growing recognition that children’s rights must be central to digital and AI policy—not treated as a side issue. Strong public support exists for tighter regulation of digital platforms and for proactive oversight of emerging technologies.

This moment calls for moving beyond broad statements about innovation and competitiveness toward concrete protections that reflect how children actually live online. It means recognising that safety, privacy, and dignity are not barriers to innovation—they are the conditions that make responsible innovation possible.

What Effective Policy Should Do

A child-centred approach to AI and digital regulation would:

• Put children’s rights, safety, and well-being at the heart of technology governance.

• Require companies to assess how their products affect children before those products reach the market.

• Limit the collection and commercial use of children’s data to what is truly necessary.

• Design digital environments that prioritise healthy development over maximum engagement.

• Ensure accountability when systems cause harm.

This is not about banning technology from children’s lives. It is about shaping technology so it supports learning, creativity, connection, and safety—rather than undermining them.

A Call to Action

Canada stands at a crossroads. The choices made now will shape the digital childhood of an entire generation.

Policymakers have the power to ensure that artificial intelligence serves children rather than exploits them. This requires courage to set clear standards, willingness to put rights before short-term profit, and commitment to listening to those who advocate for children every day.

At the Helix Foundation, we believe children deserve digital spaces that help them thrive. We urge policymakers to:

• Make children a priority in AI and digital policy.

• Build strong, enforceable protections into law.

• Act now—before harm becomes the norm rather than the exception.

The future is being coded today. Let’s make sure it is a future where children are protected, respected, and empowered.