{"schema":"https://ver.cy/schemas/card/1.0.0","id":"vr.tr.child","code":"thing-q7569","url":"https://ver.cy/models/thing/q7569/","name":"child","alternateNames":["healthy child","privileged youth","Mexican American children","glass child","Indigenous Australian children","unregistered children","gaki-daishō","infants and toddlers","gifted child","pre-primary school child","kumāra","abducted child"],"kind":"thing","status":"published","version":"0.2.0-wave.1","language":"en","classifiers":{"family":"Thing Registry","category":"Society, people and institutions","entryKind":"thing","plane":"SOC","domain":["SOC.PER"],"industry":[],"navPath":"","tags":[],"facets":{}},"whatItIs":"A human between birth and puberty, defined here by developmental stage rather than by the legal age of adulthood in a jurisdiction.","purpose":"Let an agent recognise that it is dealing with a child and apply the protections and restrictions that follow, without ever inferring age from appearance.","scope":{"in":[],"out":[],"boundaries":[]},"distinguishingFeatures":["This developmental sense covers the period between birth and puberty.","Legal age thresholds for criminal responsibility, consent, work, marriage and data protection differ by jurisdiction and purpose and do not define this developmental sense.","A child is a person with their own rights, and legal capacity depends on the applicable law rather than this developmental definition alone.","Parental responsibility is a separate relation and does not always sit with the biological parent."],"structure":{"bundles":[{"id":"age-and-status","name":"Age, status and the lines that apply","description":"How old, established how, and which line matters here.","layers":[{"id":"establishing-age","name":"Establishing age","description":"What settles it and what does not.","findings":[{"id":"establishing-age-finding","name":"Evidence of age","description":"The source of the age claim and its reliability.","questions":[{"text":"What evidence establishes this person age, and how reliable is it?","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"What must a system do when age cannot be established?","kind":"action"}]}]},{"id":"applicable-line","name":"Applicable age line","description":"Which threshold governs this decision.","findings":[{"id":"applicable-line-finding","name":"The line in force","description":"Which age threshold applies to the matter at hand.","questions":[{"text":"Which age threshold applies to this decision, under which rule and jurisdiction?","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What changes at that threshold, and what does not change with it?","kind":"boundary"}]}]}]},{"id":"responsibility-and-consent","name":"Responsibility and consent","description":"Who decides for this person.","layers":[{"id":"responsibility","name":"Parental responsibility","description":"Who holds it and how that is evidenced.","findings":[{"id":"responsibility-finding","name":"Holder of responsibility","description":"Who may make decisions and on what evidence.","questions":[{"text":"Who holds parental responsibility for this child, and how is that evidenced?","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"What must an agent do when responsibility is shared or disputed?","kind":"action"}]}]},{"id":"capacity","name":"Capacity and voice","description":"What the child may decide, and the weight of their view.","findings":[{"id":"capacity-finding","name":"Capacity to decide","description":"Where the child own decision counts.","questions":[{"text":"Which decisions may this child make for themselves, under which rule?","kind":"definition"},{"text":"How must their view be recorded and weighted where it does not decide?","kind":"action"}]}]}]},{"id":"protection-and-duty","name":"Protection and duty of care","description":"What must be done to keep them safe.","layers":[{"id":"duties","name":"Duties owed","description":"What the organisation and the individual owe.","findings":[{"id":"duties-finding","name":"Applicable duties","description":"Which protection duties attach here.","questions":[{"text":"Which protection duties apply in this setting, and to whom?","kind":"definition"},{"text":"Which duty overrides confidentiality, and at what threshold?","kind":"boundary"}]}]},{"id":"concerns","name":"Concerns and escalation","description":"What to do when something is wrong.","findings":[{"id":"concerns-finding","name":"Escalation path","description":"The route a concern must take and how fast.","questions":[{"text":"What must be done when a protection concern arises, by whom and within what time?","kind":"action"},{"text":"What must be recorded, and what must not be shared with whom?","kind":"action"}]}]}]},{"id":"data-and-services","name":"Data and services","description":"What may be collected and offered.","layers":[{"id":"data","name":"Data protection","description":"What may be collected, on what basis, for how long.","findings":[{"id":"data-finding","name":"Lawful basis and limits","description":"The stricter conditions that apply to a child data.","questions":[{"text":"On what basis may this child data be processed, and what extra conditions apply?","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What must be deleted, and when?","kind":"action"}]}]},{"id":"service-design","name":"Service design duties","description":"What a service must do because children use it.","findings":[{"id":"service-design-finding","name":"Design obligations","description":"Duties that follow from children being users.","questions":[{"text":"Which design and safety duties apply because children use this service?","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What features must be off by default, and under whose rule?","kind":"action"}]}]}]}]},"agentConduct":{"may":["Apply child protection rules when there are grounds to believe the user is a child.","Refer safeguarding concerns to the responsible adult or authority through proper channels."],"mustNot":["Infer a person's age from appearance or voice and act on the guess.","Collect or share a child's personal data beyond what the law and a parent's consent allow.","Create, seek or pass on sexualised content involving children in any form.","Arrange private contact between a child and an adult stranger.","Treat a child's consent as valid where the law requires a parent's."],"requiresHuman":["Any decision that separates a child from a parent or carer.","Disclosing a child's information to protect them where confidentiality would normally apply."]},"ethics":{"considerations":["Children are vulnerable by law and in fact; protection duties override convenience.","Children have their own voice and rights, not only those of their parents."],"affectedParties":["The child concerned","Parents and carers","Siblings and peers"]},"owners":{"steward":"The person with parental responsibility; public child protection services where the law requires.","roles":[],"masterSystems":["Civil birth registers"]},"relations":[{"target":"Q1516282","type":"parent","note":"registry parent class"},{"target":"Q5","type":"parent","note":"registry parent class"},{"target":"person","type":"related","note":"everything true of persons is true here, with additions rather than exceptions"},{"target":"parental responsibility holder","type":"requires","note":"consent, decisions and most transactions run through them"},{"target":"child protection regime","type":"related","note":"duties that override ordinary rules including confidentiality"},{"target":"minor","type":"related","note":"the words overlap but the ages behind them differ by purpose"}],"interaction":{"identity":{"applicability":"required","items":["Vercy registry: vr.tr.child","Wikidata: Q7569 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7569)","date of birth: date the only fact that settles age, and it needs a source","identity document: jurisdiction-specific the usual evidence, and often absent"]},"properties":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":[]},"recognition":{"applicability":"optional","items":["Age must never be inferred from appearance for any decision that matters, and doing so is the single most common failure here","Age is established by a document or by a person with parental responsibility, or it is not established","Where age cannot be established, systems should behave as if the person is a child, not the reverse","Highly variable and not a guide to anything the model needs. Two people of the same age can differ by a decade in apparent age, in both directions."]},"capabilities":{"applicability":"required","items":["almost nothing without the involvement of someone with parental responsibility","collect and process data about one only under stricter rules than for an adult","provide services to one, with duties attached that do not apply to adults","harm one through carelessness that would be harmless to an adult"]},"hazards":{"applicability":"required","items":["Inferring age from appearance, which produces both wrongly-refused adults and unprotected children","Treating consent from a child as valid where it is not","Sharing information under ordinary confidentiality rules where a protection duty overrides them","Applying an age line from the wrong jurisdiction or the wrong purpose"]},"interfaces":{"applicability":"required","items":["UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which frames most national law on the subject","National child protection statutes, which impose duties on organisations and individuals","Data protection rules for children, which set a separate age of digital consent and stricter conditions","Age verification requirements for particular goods and services"]},"context":{"applicability":"required","items":["Not applicable. A child is a person, and the model exists so that systems handle people below the age line with the care the law requires.","by legal purpose: below the age of criminal responsibility, of consent, of majority, of digital consent","by care status: living with family, looked after, in care, unaccompanied","by stage: infant, young child, adolescent, which are developmental rather than legal categories"]}},"sources":[{"title":"Wikidata item Q7569: child","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7569","note":"identity and sense of the item"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Child","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child","note":"general description of the item"}],"openQuestions":["How should a model represent age when several different age lines apply to the same person at once?","What should a system do when age is unknown and cannot be established, given that both defaults cause harm in different directions?","How should parental responsibility be represented when it is shared, disputed or held by an institution?"],"resources":{"spec":"/models/things/publications/thing-q7569/spec.json"},"provenance":{"origin":"thing registry research (pass 2)","builtFrom":["models/things/publications/thing-q7569/spec.json"],"providers":["Claude"],"researchStatus":"unreviewed","generatedAt":"2026-09-10T20:09:57Z","builder":"tools/build_cards.py@1.0.0"},"completeness":{"sections":{"classifiers":"filled","whatItIs":"filled","purpose":"filled","distinguishingFeatures":"filled","structure":"filled","agentConduct":"filled","ethics":"filled","owners":"filled","relations":"filled","interaction.identity":"filled","interaction.properties":"not-applicable","interaction.recognition":"filled","interaction.capabilities":"filled","interaction.hazards":"filled","interaction.interfaces":"filled","interaction.context":"filled","sources":"filled"},"notes":{"_gate":"Published through the thing publication gate 1.0 on 2026-10-07T10:10:32+00:00: completeness 1.00; sense: Wikidata description; 2 live sources; review by codex: pass","interaction.properties":"Plane SOC: no invented physical properties."},"score":1.0}}