The Fairness Principle: A Tool to Protect Childrens Rights in Their Interaction with Emotional AI in Educational Settings

Emotional artificial intelligence (EAI) is increasingly being used in educational settings. This raises several contentious issues regarding children’s rights and freedoms. This article evaluates the impact of EAI on children’s rights, focusing on freedom of thought (FoT), non-discrimination, privacy, and data protection. These rights are evaluated in turn before focusing on the fairness principle in Article 5(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an ‘underutilized’ principle that lies at the heart of the United Kingdom (UK) Age-Appropriate Design Code’s standard: best interests of the child. We argue that the use of EAI in education contexts contradicts the fairness principle and that EAI represents a potentially serious threat to children’s rights to FoT, non-discrimination, privacy, and data protection and is an issue which requires urgent attention from policymakers and regulators in the UK. Fairness, Emotional Artificial Intelligence, GDPR, Privacy, Freedom of Thought, Education