Ethical Principles in Artificial Intelligence for Children: A Protocol for a Scoping Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) is leading a new era of technological progress with significant ethical implications. Furthermore, AI is playing an increasingly important role in the lives of children. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that most national and international ethical guidelines on AI only superficially address children and their needs. This article proposes a protocol for reviewing ethical guidelines on AI with children as users. The objective was to map the guidelines, ethical principles, and literature recommendations for using AI with children as primary users. We employed a methodological approach based on the discovery and eligibility protocol, adapted from the Joanna Briggs Institute’s PRISMA extension for scoping reviews. Our research involved a multi-stage screening process using various sources, including online collections and search engines. We applied specific inclusion and exclusion criteria to identify relevant documents defining ethical principles for AI use, particularly concerning children. We analyzed the data using linguistic analysis software and qualitative content analysis to identify and summarize emerging ethical principles and their frequency. In this way, we established a comprehensive and specific framework of ethical principles that should guide AI in this context.