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child

vr.tr.child · thing-q7569

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.

Thing Registry Society, people and institutions SOC.PER
Bundle → Layer → Finding → QuestionsClassifiersWhat it isWhy it existsDistinguishing featuresWhat robots and AI may and may not doMoral aspectsOwnersLinks to other meta-modelsIdentity and identifiersDirect propertiesRecognitionCapabilities and actionsHazards and failure modesStandards and interfacesContext of useSources

Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled

4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions

Age, status and the lines that apply How old, established how, and which line matters here.

Establishing age

What settles it and what does not.

Evidence of age

The source of the age claim and its reliability.

  1. What evidence establishes this person age, and how reliable is it? provenance
  2. 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.

  1. Which age threshold applies to this decision, under which rule and jurisdiction? definition
  2. What changes at that threshold, and what does not change with it? boundary
Responsibility and consent Who decides for this person.

Parental responsibility

Who holds it and how that is evidenced.

Holder of responsibility

Who may make decisions and on what evidence.

  1. Who holds parental responsibility for this child, and how is that evidenced? provenance
  2. 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.

  1. Which decisions may this child make for themselves, under which rule? definition
  2. 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.

Duties owed

What the organisation and the individual owe.

Applicable duties

Which protection duties attach here.

  1. Which protection duties apply in this setting, and to whom? definition
  2. 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.

  1. What must be done when a protection concern arises, by whom and within what time? action
  2. What must be recorded, and what must not be shared with whom? action
Data and services What may be collected and offered.

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.

  1. On what basis may this child data be processed, and what extra conditions apply? definition
  2. 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.

  1. Which design and safety duties apply because children use this service? definition
  2. What features must be off by default, and under whose rule? action

Classifiers Filled

Family
Thing Registry
Category
Society, people and institutions
Entry kind
thing
Plane
SOC
Domain
SOC.PER
Other names and narrower kinds
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

What it is Filled

A human between birth and puberty, defined here by developmental stage rather than by the legal age of adulthood in a jurisdiction.

Why it exists Filled

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.

Distinguishing features Filled

  • 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.

What robots and AI may and may not do Filled

Must not

  • 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.

Only with a human decision

  • Any decision that separates a child from a parent or carer.
  • Disclosing a child's information to protect them where confidentiality would normally apply.

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.

Moral aspects Filled

  • 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.

Who is affected

  • The child concerned
  • Parents and carers
  • Siblings and peers

Owners Filled

Steward

The person with parental responsibility; public child protection services where the law requires.

Master systems

  • Civil birth registers

Links to other meta-models Filled

parent

  • Q1516282 - registry parent class
  • Q5 - registry parent class

related

  • person - everything true of persons is true here, with additions rather than exceptions
  • child protection regime - duties that override ordinary rules including confidentiality
  • minor - the words overlap but the ages behind them differ by purpose

requires

  • parental responsibility holder - consent, decisions and most transactions run through them

What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled

Identity and identifiers required Filled

  • 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

Direct properties not applicable Not applicable

Not applicable

Plane SOC: no invented physical properties.

Recognition optional Filled

  • 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 and actions required Filled

  • 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 and failure modes required Filled

  • 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

Standards and interfaces required Filled

  • 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 of use required Filled

  • 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 Filled

  1. Wikidata item Q7569: child - identity and sense of the item
  2. Wikipedia: Child - general description of the item

Open questions

  • 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?

Machine files

Card as JSON Specification Card backlog vercy.card/1

Provenance

thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed

Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q7569/spec.json