Former Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has called on technology companies to take greater responsibility for protecting children from dangers in the digital environment, warning against placing the burden of online safety primarily on young users and their parents.

Osinbajo made the call in Cairo, Egypt, while chairing a high-level session on child rights and design accountability in the digital age at the 16th Annual Conference of the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU).

The session, titled “Guardrails, Not Gates: Protecting Children in the Digital Age,” was convened by the Justice Research Institute in collaboration with the African Alliance for People-Centred Justice, with support from Luminate.

According to Osinbajo, technology companies cannot design digital products and platforms in ways that expose children to risks and then expect children and their parents to bear the responsibility of dealing with the consequences.

He argued that online safety should be built into the design of digital products rather than treated as a responsibility to be handled only after children have already been exposed to harmful content or other forms of digital exploitation.

“We cannot build digital environments in which the risks are engineered into the product and then expect children and parents to carry the responsibility for managing those risks,” Osinbajo said.

African lawyers demand stronger accountability

The former Vice-President said Africa’s approach to digital technology must balance innovation with the protection of children’s rights, dignity and development.

He stressed that the objective should not be to completely prevent children from accessing technology, but to create safer digital environments where young people can benefit from technological advancement without being unnecessarily exposed to its dangers.

“The objective is not to build gates that exclude children from technology. It is to establish guardrails that ensure technology works for children rather than exploiting their vulnerabilities,” he said.

The discussions at the conference examined the responsibilities of technology companies when digital products and artificial intelligence systems expose children to harmful or exploitative experiences.

Among the concerns raised were exposure to harmful content, manipulation, exploitation, excessive collection of personal data and other risks associated with children’s increasing use of digital platforms.

The gathering brought together legal experts and other stakeholders to examine how laws, technology design and corporate accountability can be strengthened to protect children in an increasingly digital society.

Osinbajo’s position places greater emphasis on what technology companies build into their products from the beginning, rather than relying solely on parents to monitor children’s activities or expecting children to recognise and avoid sophisticated online threats on their own.

His comments also come amid growing international concern over children’s exposure to online harms as digital platforms, artificial intelligence tools and social media become increasingly embedded in young people’s everyday lives.

While parents remain important in guiding children and helping them develop responsible digital habits, Osinbajo argued that parental supervision should not become a substitute for responsible technology design.

The former Vice-President therefore called for a digital environment in which companies, governments, lawyers, parents and other stakeholders play their respective roles in ensuring that children can use technology safely.

He maintained that protecting children online should involve stronger safeguards and accountability mechanisms that prevent risks from being built into digital products in the first place.

The call has renewed attention to the need for technology companies to consider children’s safety, privacy and wellbeing when developing digital platforms and emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence.

Osinbajo and other African legal experts at the conference advocated an approach that protects children without denying them the educational, social and developmental opportunities offered by technology.

The discussions ultimately centred on the need to make digital platforms safer by design, while ensuring that responsibility for children’s online protection is shared appropriately among technology companies, regulators, governments, parents and other stakeholders.