She explained governments needed to “take the time… to understand the realities of the risks for our own children here and consider what may work best for our own community”.
She said the dangers were real, adding that “there are technologies, there are platforms that are profoundly unsafe and that risk is real for all of us”.
Raising concerns about how a ban could work in practise, she said there were major questions about data collection and age verification. “Short answer, yes,” she said when asked if it posed a risk, adding that “any data collection matters, particularly when it relates to children”.
Martins also questioned how much trust could be placed in big tech firms, saying, “I’m afraid that I’m very sceptical about the claims that these big tech companies make that they care about children”.
On schools, she said smartphones were “a distraction” and not good for pupils or teachers, while stressing that bans alone would not solve the wider problem but were “an important part of the jigsaw”.
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