The European Commission presents a proposal for the safety of minors online: from gradual entry to rules for platforms against addiction, chatbots and algorithms. Here’s what changes for kids and parents.
No social media under 13 years old: at a quick read, the proposal contained in the EU KIDS Act, the attempt to regulate the use of social media presented today, 17 September 2026 by the European Commission, might seem like a simple age limitation imposed from above on adolescents.
But in the measure announced on 16 September by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in the annual speech on the state of the Union, there is much more: there is an attempt to shift the responsibility for the safe use of social media from users to the platforms, which must demonstrate that they care about the digital well-being of children.
A gradual entry into the online world
Let’s start with age. The EU KIDS Act (acronym for EU Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy) aims to provide common rules on the age of access to social media after several EU countries – such as France – have put forward national initiatives. The idea is to imagine approaching social media as a ladder.
Children under the age of 13 will not be permitted to own an account. From 13 to 15 years old, children will be able to have a mini-account under the supervision of a guardian: it will be an account with limited functionality, parental control tools always active, a maximum daily use limit of one hour and contact approval by parents. From the age of 15 it will be possible to open a personal account on platforms that have proven to be safe for teenagers of this age.
The rules will be applied not only to social networks but also to video-sharing services, online games, app stores, operating systems, chatbots or AI-based virtual assistants. However, information access services, educational platforms, online encyclopedias and digital news should be exempted.
How will age verification be done?
If the proposal is approved by the European Parliament, within six months the platforms will have to check for the presence of accounts of children under 15 and disable them. Self-declaration of age will no longer constitute sufficient proof: age will have to be certified through systems independent of the platforms, which will only provide them with information (the user is over/under 15 years old) without revealing other personal details. A free EU age verification app and, in future, the European Digital Identity Wallet will be used.
Secure services right from the design stage
The measure at the heart of the KIDS Act proposal is the ban imposed on platforms from offering services that:
- have addictive design features
- allow unwanted contact with foreign users
- induce minors to fall into digital traps (so-called rabbit holemechanisms in which you are sucked into a continuous loop of online content without being able to get out)
- allow minors to livestream.
Platforms will not be able to offer services that encourage compulsive use (automatic playback or infinite scrolling, notifications designed to attract the attention of a child, rewards for publishing or streaming, mechanisms that penalize for not returning to a platform every day).
It will be up to the services to provide time limits and breaks in use that protect sleep and school time. Children’s feeds will need to be modified to protect well-being even at the expense of engagement:
- the child’s choices and tastes come first
- Tracking-based personalization will be turned off by default
- The use of data coming from outside the service will not be permitted.
It will be up to social services to ensure that minors are not contacted by strangers and to prevent them from being manipulated into doing so. For example, children will not appear in contact suggestions, and cannot be added to groups without consent; no one will be able to take screenshots of their contents or download them.
The squeeze on chatbots and video games
AI-based virtual assistants used by minors will not be able to simulate human relationships that generate emotional dependence. They cannot be activated automatically, they must be easily deactivated and will be monitored even after their launch to limit the risks of use for minors. They also won’t be able to carry over a child’s previous conversations to subsequent ones.
Video games will have to be safe by design and app stores will have to integrate the EU age verification app to prevent minors from accessing content that is unsuitable for their age.
A reversal of responsibilities
As can be seen, the entire structure of the proposal is based on reversing the burden of proof: it is the platforms that must be responsible for demonstrating that they are safe by design before they can “access” minors, and it is no longer the users or their parents who must demonstrate the damage inflicted by the use of social media.
A simple security declaration will not be enough: platforms with 45 million or more monthly active users in the EU will have to submit a detailed plan outlining how they intend to comply with all legal obligations, and have it verified by independent auditors. This review will be at their expense.
