child
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.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify
Researched by: Claude
Purpose and description
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.
A human being below the age at which a jurisdiction treats a person as an adult, which is a legal line drawn at a chosen age and not a description of the person.
What it is for: 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.
It can be 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.
Distinguishing features
Defined by an age line in a jurisdiction, so the same person is a child in one context and not in another
The line differs by purpose: criminal responsibility, consent, work, marriage and data protection all use different ages in the same jurisdiction
A child is a person with reduced capacity in law, not a different kind of thing
Parental responsibility is a separate relation and does not always sit with the biological parent
What it looks like
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.
How it is recognised
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
Related models
is a kind of - everything true of persons is true here, with additions rather than exceptions
requires - consent, decisions and most transactions run through them
regulated by - duties that override ordinary rules including confidentiality
is confused with - the words overlap but the ages behind them differ by purpose
In practice
Families and kinds
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
Identifiers
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
Standards and regulation
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
Failure modes and hazards
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
Also called
+62
Where this came from
wikidata · CC0 1.0
Also registered as vr.tr.child-3
Drafted structure
Bundle to layer to finding to question, as the second pass will find it: 4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions.
Age, status and the lines that apply How old, established how, and which line matters here.
Everything downstream depends on age being established rather than assumed, and on knowing which of several age lines the current decision uses.
Establishing age
What settles it and what does not.
Evidence of age
The source of the age claim and its reliability.
- What evidence establishes this person age, and how reliable is it? provenance
- What must a system do when age cannot be established? action
Applicable age line
Which threshold governs this decision.
The line in force
Which age threshold applies to the matter at hand.
- Which age threshold applies to this decision, under which rule and jurisdiction? definition
- What changes at that threshold, and what does not change with it? boundary
Responsibility and consent Who decides for this person.
A child capacity to consent is limited and shared, and acting on consent that is not valid is the commonest legal failure in services for children.
Parental responsibility
Who holds it and how that is evidenced.
Holder of responsibility
Who may make decisions and on what evidence.
- Who holds parental responsibility for this child, and how is that evidenced? provenance
- What must an agent do when responsibility is shared or disputed? action
Capacity and voice
What the child may decide, and the weight of their view.
Capacity to decide
Where the child own decision counts.
- Which decisions may this child make for themselves, under which rule? definition
- How must their view be recorded and weighted where it does not decide? action
Protection and duty of care What must be done to keep them safe.
Protection duties override ordinary rules including confidentiality, and an agent that does not know that will do the wrong thing politely.
Duties owed
What the organisation and the individual owe.
Applicable duties
Which protection duties attach here.
- Which protection duties apply in this setting, and to whom? definition
- Which duty overrides confidentiality, and at what threshold? boundary
Concerns and escalation
What to do when something is wrong.
Escalation path
The route a concern must take and how fast.
- What must be done when a protection concern arises, by whom and within what time? action
- What must be recorded, and what must not be shared with whom? action
Data and services What may be collected and offered.
Children data is processed under stricter conditions, and services aimed at them carry design duties that adult services do not.
Data protection
What may be collected, on what basis, for how long.
Lawful basis and limits
The stricter conditions that apply to a child data.
- On what basis may this child data be processed, and what extra conditions apply? definition
- What must be deleted, and when? action
Service design duties
What a service must do because children use it.
Design obligations
Duties that follow from children being users.
- Which design and safety duties apply because children use this service? definition
- What features must be off by default, and under whose rule? action
What the second pass must settle
- 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?