On 22 May 2026, the AI Asia Pacific Institute and the Access Partnership Institute jointly hosted Screens, Systems, and Safeguards: Online Harms, AI, and Children’s Digital Safety – Perspectives for ASEAN, a webinar convened as part of the launch of the co-authored white paper, Screens, Systems, and Safeguards.
The paper is now available for download here.
The virtual roundtable brought together experts from across policy, civil society, and online safety organisations to discuss one of the most urgent policy challenges facing the region today: how governments, platforms, and communities can better protect children navigating increasingly AI-driven digital environments.
Hosted by Lim May-Ann of the Access Partnership Institute, the session was moderated by Jonathan Gonzalez (Access Partnership) and Dr Peter Brimble (AI Asia Pacific Institute). The panel featured Michael des Tombe, Chief Legal Advisor at Netsafe New Zealand; Maryam Ehsani, CEO of Child Safe ME; and Natalie Chia, Director of Research at SG Her Empowerment (SHE).
Participants included representatives from the ASEAN Secretariat, academics from Institutes of higher learning, policymakers, and representatives from NGOs in the AI safety space.
The webinar explored the paper’s comparative analysis of online safety measures across Australia, China, France, Spain, and the United Kingdom; drawing lessons relevant to ASEAN policymakers and stakeholders.
A rapidly evolving policy challenge
Opening the discussion, speakers noted that online safety has rapidly become a central policy concern worldwide. Governments are increasingly grappling with harms ranging from cyber scams and grooming to AI-generated abuse, algorithmic amplification, and the broader mental health implications of digital platforms on children and young people.
At the same time, participants emphasised that no single jurisdiction has yet found a perfect solution. Rather than prescribing a single model, the webinar focused on identifying emerging best practices, regulatory gaps, and practical lessons that ASEAN countries can draw upon as they shape their own approaches to children’s digital safety.
Five key findings
A central focus of the session was the presentation of five major findings from the Screens, Systems, and Safeguards paper.
1. Age assurance is becoming unavoidable
The discussion highlighted how most online safety regimes are converging around forms of age assurance, regardless of whether governments adopt bans, duty-of-care obligations, or platform-specific restrictions. Speakers discussed the trade-offs involved in different approaches, including identity verification, behavioural age estimation, and privacy-preserving age checks. Concerns around privacy, cybersecurity, and exclusion of users without formal identification were repeatedly emphasised.
2. AI cuts across every platform category
Panellists stressed that AI transcends traditional regulatory categories such as social media, gaming, or search. A child may engage with AI-powered tools across multiple environments in a single day, from chatbots to recommendation systems to generative AI applications.
3. The design of regulation matters more than labels
Another key discussion centred on the distinction between outright platform bans and duty-of-care frameworks. While both approaches may appear similar politically, panellists noted that they function very differently in practice. Bans focus primarily on preventing access through age checks, while duty-of-care models focus on how platforms are designed, including algorithms, defaults, and content classification systems. Speakers emphasised that the effectiveness of regulation depends less on the model itself and more on how it is implemented and enforced.
4. Evidence remains limited
Speakers cautioned that online safety regulation is evolving faster than the evidence base underpinning it. While governments are introducing new measures at a rapid pace, there remains limited consensus on which interventions actually reduce harm, for whom, and at what cost. Panellists called for greater collaboration across ASEAN to develop shared metrics, improve access to platform data for researchers, and build more evidence-based policymaking processes.
5. ASEAN is already moving
The session also highlighted that ASEAN countries are idle. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Viet Nam, and the Philippines are already pursuing different approaches to children’s online safety, ranging from app-store-level age assurance and eKYC frameworks to content classification systems and parental consent requirements.
Panellists noted that while this diversity allows the region to experiment and learn from multiple approaches, it may also create uneven protections across borders if standards diverge too significantly.
Looking ahead
The webinar concluded with a shared recognition that protecting children online cannot rely on a single law, technology, or regulatory framework. Instead, it requires ongoing collaboration between governments, platforms, researchers, and civil society organisations across borders.
As ASEAN governments continue to shape their digital governance frameworks, the Screens, Systems, and Safeguards paper aims to contribute to a more informed and nuanced regional conversation; one that balances innovation, participation, and safety in the digital lives of children and young people.
The full Screens, Systems, and Safeguards report is available through the Access Partnership Institute and AI Asia Pacific Institute websites. It is available for download here.
