Europe seeks a balance between protecting children and privacy online.
In the annual address on the State of the Union, delivered to the European Parliament on 16 September, Ursula von der Leyen announced the strictest restrictions to date on access by minors to social media. The formula put forward by the President of the European Commission is simple: no social media under 13 and no account of their own before 15. The very next day the Commission also published the legislative proposal, under which the burden of proof shifts from regulators onto the platforms themselves. Instead of the authorities proving harm for years, companies would have to show in advance that their services are safe for children, otherwise they would face heavy fines.
Children between 13 and 15 could use only so-called mini accounts, which parents open and supervise, with limited features and a cap on daily time in front of the screen. Platforms would have to provide safer content for young people aged 16 and 17. For all minors, meanwhile, mechanisms that encourage addiction would be banned, such as endless scrolling, artificial notifications and recommendations that pull the user ever deeper into similar content. The scope is broad: besides social media, the rules would apply also to video platforms, online games, and even to chatbots powered by artificial intelligence. Oversight would be financed by a special fee, which the platforms themselves would pay.
The key question, however, is technical: how to check age, while at the same time not endangering privacy? Brussels is developing an app linked to the European wallet for digital identity, in which the user uploads a document once. Then the app only confirms whether they have reached the required age, without keeping a copy of the document. Critics, among whom are also digital rights organisations, warn that the check inevitably would cover adults too. According to them, the decision about what is safe can easily turn into control over the content people watch and share.
The pressure for a common European solution is growing also because individual countries have already gone their own way. Australia has banned accounts on social media for those younger than 16 since December 2025, while Greece, Spain and Denmark are preparing their own measures. The French example, in turn, shows how narrow the legal room is. The parliament in Paris passed a ban for those younger than 15 in July, but the Constitutional Council struck it down in August. According to the ruling, the ban constituted a disproportionate interference with freedom of expression, and the law did not protect privacy sufficiently when checking age.
The concern is not new: parents, teachers and doctors have been warning for years about the impact of screens on the sleep, attention and mental health of young people. Supporters of the proposal argue that the current approach, in which regulators investigate the platforms one by one, was simply too slow. Sceptics, for their part, wonder whether children will not find a way to get around the restrictions, as they have often done until now.
The proposal still has to go through the long legislative process, in which the European Parliament and the member states will negotiate over every provision. Even if it is adopted, years could pass before it takes effect. Until then Europe will have to answer the question that France failed to answer: how to protect children, while not restricting the rights of everyone?