Policy briefing for the European Union and Council of Europe: Children in digital justice: Protecting procedural rights from digital offences to remote hearings

Across Europe, criminal justice is going digital faster than the laws that protect children. This policy briefing looks at two areas where the EU legal framework is falling short: children who are suspects or accused persons in digitalised proceedings and children suspected or accused of digital offences. It sets out seven recommendations for the European Union and the Council of Europe. These include updating Directive 2016/800 to set binding standards for digitalised proceedings, prohibiting AI-led decision-making about children’s liberty, and making sure child justice principles apply in full to digital offences.

It draws on research in Ireland, Romania, Spain and Ukraine, including testimony from children with lived experience of justice proceedings. The briefing shows how remote hearings can leave children experiencing their own cases as spectators, unable to speak privately with their lawyer or understand what is happening. It examines how AI risk-assessment tools can reproduce structural inequalities and why children accused of online offences, often involving peers, are at risk of over-criminalisation.

This publication was produced as part of the EU-funded “Protecting Procedural Rights of Children in the Digital Age” (PPRO-Child) project, supported by the project consortium: Penal Reform International (PRI), Terre des hommes Hungary, Terre des hommes Romania, Fundación Tierra de hombres España, and Terre des hommes Ukraine.