Readers blog: Digital age of consent needs to be set at age 16
The Oireachtas justice committee has decided the age of digital consent shall be set at 13 years and not 16.
One assumes that one of the the main aims of government and child advocacy agencies in Ireland is to protect children.
It is remarkable and disconcerting to see those agencies in the first place campaigning for and second, welcoming the setting of the age of digital consent at 13.
The recent revelations around Cambridge Analytica should surely have given those agencies pause for thought around the highly exploitative and manipulative motivation of major online organisations regarding adults, never mind children of 13.
They might also have reflected on the very considered, sensible and cogent views of Dr Mary Aikan and Professor Barry O’Sullivan who have argued strongly in recent times the age should be 16.
The notion that children might somehow be deprived of internet access for education purposes if the age were 16, as argued by some of the agencies, is disingenuous in the extreme as access would always be there for those under 16 through a trusted adult such as parent, teacher or guardian.
This is another example of the rush to “adultify” children while at the same time decrying their exploitation in terms of those in society, organisational or individual, whose aim is, to put it mildly, far from protecting them and their innocence.
Much has been done by the child advocacy agencies to redress the wrongs of the past where children in Ireland were concerned but as often happens another extreme is often, unfortunately as in this case, the suggested and imposed remedy..
