With everyday use of AI on the rise, the need for digital literacy and personal protection among youth becomes even more important. In Finland, the independent nonprofit organization TIEKE Finnish Information Society Development Center supports digital competence to enhance people’s lives in an increasingly technology-focused society. Through the DataAItaja project that began in 2024, TIEKE focuses specifically on AI literacy for young people in Finland.

The DataAItaja project engages youth aged 13 to 19 years in fresh and unique ways, both on social media and in live workshops. The project utilizes memes, videos, social media, and influencer collaborations to highlight the importance of cyber security, data protection, AI-generated content, and AI algorithms.

The workshops were designed after TIEKE recognized a need for accessible information on the increasing number of everyday tools that use generative AI. As AI becomes more commonplace in schools and workplaces, digital literacy on how to safely navigate and interact with AI becomes more desirable for both teachers and students. The workshops were organized both in schools and youth community spaces in Vihti, Kirkkonummi, Espoo, and Vantaa.

During the workshops in 2024, the project noted that students had good instincts on how AI worked and general privacy concerns, but less knowledge on their individual rights when it came to personal data protection. Lessons taught the students how to spot AI at work, how to use it to gather information, and how to assess that information for accuracy and falsehoods. Students were also able to interact with different uses of AI in everyday life, and to develop ideas for their own AI applications.

Students from the workshops had the following insights from the project:

• “You should never trust generative AI without questioning it.”
• “If AI makes wrong decisions, it might be because of inadequate learning data.”
• “Nowadays, AI is everywhere!”

The project reached 130 students through in-person workshops, and more than 300 young people via two different live social media streams. The information from the sessions was also distributed through social media channels with a reach of 158,000 young people. TIEKE used several influencers to spread the workshop topics and learnings to their own followers and encourage them to interact with TIEKE’s pages. As young people experiment and interact with the online world, TIEKE aims to teach them ways to keep themselves safe, be smart, and learn as they go.

In the first half of 2025, TIEKE will continue the work of the DataAItaja project with school-based workshops in Kirkkonummi, Vihti, and Espoo. Students will learn from online video modules and teachers will have the opportunity to build their portfolio of skills, so they can continue hosting workshops in the future.