Diplomacy in the AI Era: Protecting Children from Tech Hegemony

Abby Deng | Europe and Eurasia Fellow

Image sourced from Ralph Olazo via Unsplash

For years, efforts by sovereign democracies outside of the United States (US) — China tech duopoly to counter Silicon Valley’s technology hegemony have been largely symbolic — built on non-binding declarations, United Nations (UN) speeches, and shared grievances. But through new youth digital safety laws, Australia and the European Union (EU) are quietly forging a regulatory alliance. Moving beyond rhetoric on digital sovereignty, they are actively shielding their most vulnerable — and lucrative — demographic from big tech. This marks a new dimension in global diplomacy: deploying concrete, market-denying legislation tangibly felt by children on the ground and tech executives in Silicon Valley.

Taking the Alliance Global

Late 2026 delivered major policy milestones protecting children from technology. Australia’s Digital Duty of Care Bill , which just passed the lower house, mandated that platforms proactively prevent online harms, and the EU unveiled the proposed KIDS Act (Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy), enforcing age-tiered access and safety-by-design. At the 81^st UN General Assembly in New York, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched the 2026-2027 roadmap for the Coalition for Children’s Rights and Protection in the Age of AI, already backed by 26 states.

Simultaneously, the Australian government received a sharp diplomatic rebuke from the US Government warning that the legislation would let governments “enforce vague definitions of ‘harm’” and lead to “viewpoint-based censorship”. Facing this rare intervention criticising a domestic policy proposal, Australian media understandably focused on the clash with the US.

Yet this missed a bigger geopolitical story: a vanguard youth tech alliance between Australia and the EU. Within nine days of each other, Australia released its Digital Duty of Care draft and the EU Commission unveiled the KIDS Act. Far from acting alone against US big tech, Australia is at the forefront of an emerging democratic tech alliance with Europe.

Cross-Pollination Between Australia and the EU

Despite mixed early results, both jurisdictions are actively learning from one another and beginning to converge from different starting points. Early data from Australia’s December 2025 under-16 ban is often cited as a cautionary tale in Europe as many children bypassed age gates using VPNs or burner accounts. This exposed the necessity of structural solutions, leading Australia to look to Europe’s long-standing focus on regulating the technology itself, introducing its Digital Duty of Care to force platforms to dismantle addictive features — like infinite scroll — for minors.

Days later, von der Leyen released the EU KIDS Act. Rather than one following the other, this represents a true, two-way policy exchange: while Australia realised age bans fail without regulating app design, the EU learned from Australia that regulating app design is not enough alone. By establishing strict “mini-accounts” for 13- to 14-year-olds alongside mandatory safety-by-design rules, Europe acknowledges that demographic walls remain necessary.

An Australian-EU Digital Policy Leadership Blueprint

A key convergence between Australian and EU policymakers is the landmark pivot from regulating who accesses platforms to dictating how platforms must operate to access youth. Reversing this access direction — from restricting children to restricting tech giants’ access to children — marks a new era of alignment. These sovereign democracies share values, erecting regulatory “borders” to restrict market access for non-compliant tech behemoths.

This alliance could produce highly complementary synergies. Operationally, the EU can learn from Australia’s speed and statutory agility. The European Commission moves slowly; legal analysts note the KIDS Act faces protracted negotiations and may not take effect until 2028. Australia’s rapid rollout of its under-16 ban and its workplace-style statutory duty of care give European regulators empirical data on platform reactions, circumvention workarounds, and proposed agile enforcement tools – such as eSafety’s 24-hour takedowns and “sock puppet” algorithmic investigations.

Conversely, Australia can adopt Europe’s privacy-preserving tech and turnover-based fines. A prominent criticism of Australia’s laws is the privacy risk of adult age verification, coupled with a low penalty cap for tech companies of just AUD$99 million. Australia can adopt the KIDS Act’s “zero-knowledge proof” cryptographic age-assurance standards, allowing devices to mathematically verify age without exposing names or identifying details — neutralising privacy objections notably raised by the US in the Embassy’s response. Furthermore, Australia can mirror the EU’s turnover-based penalty model, fining platforms up to 6% of their global revenue — the only financial threat severe enough to force big tech compliance.

Geopolitically, for Australia’s population of 27 million, the backing of the EU and its 450 million-strong consumer base provides massive bargaining power against American tech giants. By championing “safe-by-design” digital platforms together, Australia can signal to the US that it is not an isolated outlier. Rather, the Australian Digital Duty of Care and the EU KIDS Act are closely aligned, and tech companies must redesign their global architectures to retain market access.

“We Can Only Do It Together”

Albanese’s words at the UN address perfectly summarise the global push to build guardrails around AI and protect children in the digital era. While initial results are mixed and the mid-to-long-term mental health outcomes of these novel policies will take years to measure, the 26-state coalition led by the aligned Australia–EU axis ensures that a democratic tech alliance — not Silicon Valley algorithms — sets the global baseline for digital care. More profoundly, it signals a new form of global diplomacy, marked by a coalition of sovereign democracies cross-pollinating policy to push back against tech hegemony. These concrete laws, which deny lucrative market access to tech companies that refuse to play by the rules, are just the beginning.

Abby is the Europe and Eurasia Fellow at YAIA, and is passionate about playing a part in building stronger ties between Australia and the region. Abby has experience living across Australia, Asia, and Europe, and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Sydney.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Young Australians in International Affairs. AI tools were used by this author for grammar checks only, but all content is original, and no plagiarism has been used in the preparation of this article.