Digital parenting: Technologies and artificial intelligence in the realization of parents’ rights to communicate with the child

Digital technologies and artificial intelligence, which are increasingly used to address general tasks across all areas of society, may also serve as technical means for enforcing the rights of children and separately-living parents to maintain contact with one another. Delineating the internationally recognized conceptual model of “virtual parenting” as an additional means of communication between a child and a parent residing separately, the study substantiates the possibility of applying such a model to the construction of family relationships and corresponding regulation at the conflict stage within the Russian legal framework. Using a formal legal methodology, the author provides a comparative legal review of the application of contemporary foreign applications (software programs) designed to ensure a neutral digital environment for such communication. Due to the need for “fine-tuning” interpersonal relationships within the framework of the family, representing one of the most complex social institutions, works from other disciplines—primarily psychology and sociology—were also analyzed. The need to develop and implement a state-run online platform—provisionally entitled “The Territory of Family Communication and Trust”— powered by artificial intelligence for enabling virtual communication between a child and a parent is outlined. An examination of law enforcement and judicial practice demonstrates that, despite modern legal systems formally granting a separately residing parent the right to communicate with—and participate in the upbringing of—a child, in cases of resistance by the other parent, the practical realization of this right becomes difficult and, in some cases, impossible. It is argued that, in certain cases, access to such a platform should be granted to state authorities (for example, bailiffs), and that digital reports generated by the platform should be endowed with evidentiary legal force. It is concluded that, in the digital era, it is necessary to leverage the capabilities of technologies and artificial intelligence to support family and society institutionally through a more flexible mechanism for enforcing the right to family communication and preventing potential abuses by one of the parents.

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