Sergii Figurnyi – stock.adobe.co
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says technology platforms will have to prove they are safe before children can access them
Children under 15 in Europe will be prohibited from having unsupervised social media accounts, along with new demands for technology companies to prove their platforms are safe.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told a State of the Union address at the European Parliament that Europe intended to “reverse the burden of proof” for the safety of children onto technology companies. “Platforms will have to prove to us that they are safe,” she said. “Because it is not about our minors accessing social media. It is about when and how do we allow social media to access minors.”
The EU Kids Act, to be published tomorrow, will ban children under 13 from social media entirely, and children under 15 will be limited to accounts controlled by their parents, with access restricted to one hour a day.
Technology companies will be required to provide services that are “safe by design” for children between 15 and 18.
Von der Leyen said she disagreed with the suggestion it was impossible to roll back the “overwhelming” power of big tech companies. “Europe has the power to act,” she said. “It is we who decide our rules, not big tech. We do not have to accept addictive features. We do not have to accept children being drawn into ever more extreme content. We do not have to accept that girls have their photos used for AI-generated sexualised images.”
According to a draft of the proposed regulation seen by Computer Weekly, the proposals extend beyond social media companies. Video-sharing services, online games, chatbots and app stores will also be required to follow “safety by design” requirements, including verifying the age of users.
The draft has raised concerns among some critics that it would lead to the widespread use of “identity checkpoints” on internet services to verify people’s ages, changing the “open nature” of online services.
Children deprived of childhood
Von der Leyen said it was necessary to take steps as children were spending four to six hours a day on their screens and being pulled in by algorithms designed to keep them scrolling. That was leading to loss of sleep, anxiety and even self-harm.
“What we are witnessing is a great capture of our children,” she said. “A capture of their attention, their focus, their minds. This is depriving children of their childhood.”
The EU’s move will introduce a single approach across EU member states to regulating social media and other online services accessed by children, in the wake of proposals by Italy, France, Norway, Greece, Austria, Poland and Belgium to introduce their own social media bans.
It follows Australia, the first country to ban social media for young people in December 2025, and the UK’s announcement of a social media ban for under-16s in June 2026, which requires tech companies to introduce age verification.
Identity checkpoints challenge open internet
James Baker, a manager at campaign organisation Open Rights Group, told Computer Weekly that drafts of the EU Kids Act extended online ID checks across social media, to app stores, games and other services.
“Our concern is that this changes the fundamental open nature of the internet and makes it a permission-based system where you are required to pass through an identity checkpoint to access information,” he said.
Baker said the proposals could also adversely impact small service providers and community-run projects attempting to provide alternatives to Big Tech. “Imposing the same complex compliance requirements on those services risks pushing them out,” said Baker.
Isabelle Roccia, managing director for Europe at the International Association of Privacy Professionals, said the European Commission’s proposals raised complex questions over what level of risk was acceptable in online services. j
“The EU Kids Act will raise very real governance questions for operators in scope, [including] how to cater to age categories when designing and delivering services,” she said.
Other challenges included “how to navigate the complex interplay of existing laws and guardrails with this extra layer of protection; and how to untangle the chain of responsibility, accountability and duty-of-care in an online environment where these concepts are still fairly new”, she said.
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