The new Family Code legislates on how minors should interact with digital platforms

At 4 years old, Yaumara González Olivé's son handles a tablet with enviable dexterity, through which he watches videos on YouTube. Some would say that it is too early, but she trusts the parental control that comes embedded in the device to regulate the sites the child accesses and the pages he visits.

"The main thing is to review what he visualizes, when he accesses Netflix you have to stay a little more vigilant because on this platform it is easier for him to see something that is not aimed at his age," says Yaumara. "As with everything in life, you also have to take precautions, and that's when parental responsibility plays a fundamental role," she says.

Reydi Vargas Oliva has it a bit tougher because dealing with teenagers tests the patience and wisdom of his elders. For him, experience is not so important, because, like many contemporary adults, he is what experts call a "digital migrant", someone who learned, already in his maturity, about most of these new info-communication technologies.

"When we came to see, Reydi relates, the girl was already inserted in a virtual world; and that's when I, as a father, with the same authority that I gave her the cell phone and her data, told her that everything she used on the Internet from that moment on had to be controlled by her mom and me."

FROM ABOVE, THEY'RE WATCHING YOU

A survey conducted in 2019 by the IPS Cuba agency noted that, of 20 children under the age of 14, 15 had access to cell phones and 12 confessed to interacting with social networks, of which five claimed to have profiles of their own. After the effects of forced confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is not to be ruled out that these figures are now higher, even in the case of such a small sample.

In this context, more and more experts warn that the indiscriminate interaction of minors with digital social networks would cause a decrease in their creativity, a reduction in their motor skills, and an increase in the risk of addiction, making it difficult for them to reflect and exposing their privacy.

Elia Marina Brito Hidalgo, a master in Psychology with vast experience in working with children and young people in Las Tunas, warns, for example, about nomophobia, a term established for cell phone addiction. This disorder could be a warning of "a problem of self-esteem and is associated with others such as the difficulty to socialize and belong to a group. Personal insecurity is the most common factor that causes it.

However, Dr. Alberto Quirantes Hernández, a specialist at the Salvador Allende Hospital in Havana, advises that going against technological progress would be, also for parents, a battle lost in advance. "Before getting started in the networks, the child should have been taught what they are, their scope, the dangers they entail, and the best way to be present in that space and to obtain the greatest personal utility using this medium. Therefore, the use of a given social network must be accompanied by trust and credibility, already established in the family," he suggests.

THE LAW TAKES SIDES

It is in this context that the draft Family Code takes sides in the matter. It does so when it inserts among the obligations of those who would have parental responsibility for minors the obligation to ensure that they make responsible and balanced use of the different digital platforms.

It even empowers them to "provisionally suspend the access of their daughter or son to their active accounts or, even, their cancellation, as long as there is a clear, immediate and serious risk to their physical or psychological health, having previously heard them, for which, if necessary, they have the right to demand judicial protection."

The legal proposal protects the privacy and the right to identity and integrity of personal data of children and adolescents when it clarifies that the holders of parental responsibility must avoid "exposing in digital media information concerning the privacy and identity" of those minors under their care.

This paragraph is excellent news for jurist Luis Rivero Rojas, head of the local chapter of the Computer Law Society of the Union of Jurists of Cuba in this territory. In his opinion, it is "encouraging in the treatment of the subject", by advancing in a field in which, in his opinion, Cuba still has a lot to do, even in criminal matters.

For his part, Dayalé Torres Diéguez, who coordinates the work of the Union of Cuban Informatics (UIC) here, stresses that this segment reinforces the fair and inclusive nature of the Family Code. "It adjusts, from the parental responsibility, the formation of ethical and responsible cyber citizens to make virtuality an inclusive, safe space, free of all forms of violence in which the rights of children and adolescents are protected," he says.

Other countries have already legislated along these lines. Thus, for example, European nations prevent the indiscriminate use that parents make of the image of minors under their custody, as proposed in the Cuban draft of the Family Code.

This legal framework allowed, for example, that in 2020 an Italian court could sentence an Italian mother to remove all photos of her teenage son posted on Facebook, under penalty of a fine of 10,000 euros; and that an 18-year-old Austrian woman denounced her parents for the intimate snapshots displayed for several years on Facebook when she was still a minor.

JURISTS ALONE WILL NOT DO THE JOB

With this proposal, the Cuban draft of the Family Code not only refutes the campaigns against it, but if approved in the referendum, it would strengthen the authority of parents over minors under their custody. At the same time, it would join Cuba in the global trend that seeks to establish reasonable limits to the interaction of minors with digital platforms. Among other reasons, influencing these issues is closer to our reality than many would believe.
Recently, allegations were made public about Facebook groups through which images of girls have been presented that fuel pedophilia. "In the digital world, we are all exposed, well much more an innocent little person who perhaps only gave a smile to the camera of her favorite uncle or whose only crime was to fall asleep in front of a family friend," commented with concern the journalist Legna Caballero.

Unfortunately, as has happened with several of her parts, this one also went unnoticed by a good part of the public. Both Reydi and Yaumara confessed that they had not noticed the decision to legislate on how minors should interact with digital platforms. After reading it, they agreed on its relevance.

"I know that today all this is a challenge, but it is an excellent idea to put a control and establish it as a right for our children and a duty for us, as parents," said Reydi. Readers who participated in the survey promoted by 26, also agreed with the majority on its value.

However, and this has also been admitted by analysts, it would be at least naïve to believe that it would be enough to put it into law for children and adolescents to deal lucidly with the Web 2.0 era. Jurisprudence sets the guidelines, but the concrete action will always be within the diverse, heterogeneous, extended, or reduced family of which we are all part.