The European Commission has put forward a set of guidelines on the protection of minors, as well as a prototype of an age-verification app under the E U’s Digital Services Act.
The guidelines are aimes at minimising the risks children and young people face online, including exposure to harmful content and behaviour, while continuing to enjoy opportunities the online world offers such as learning, creativity and communication.
The guidelines which follow an extensive consultation period, including with young people, ensure children enjoy high levels of privacy, safety and security on online platforms.
Recommendations in the guidelines address:
- Addictive design: with minors being particularly vulnerable to practices that can stimulate addictive behaviour, the guidelines suggest reducing minors’ exposure to such practices, and disabling features that promote the excessive use of online services, like ‘streaks’ and ‘read receipts’ on messages.
- Cyberbullying: the guidelines recommend empowering minors to block or mute users, ensuring they cannot be added to groups without their explicit consent. They also recommend prohibiting accounts from downloading or taking screenshots of content posted by minors to prevent the unwanted distribution of sexualised or intimate content.
- Harmful content: the guidelines give young users more control over what they see, calling on platforms to prioritise explicit feedback from users, rather than relying on monitoring their browsing behaviour. If a young user indicates they do not want to see a certain type of content, it should not be recommended again.
- Unwanted contact from strangers: the guidelines recommend that platforms set minors’ accounts that are private by default – that is, not visible to users that are not on their friends’ list – to minimise the risk of being contacted by strangers online.
The guidelines adopt a risk-based approach, recognising that online platforms may pose different types of risks to minors, depending on their nature, size, purpose and user base. Platforms should make sure that the measures they take are appropriate and do not disproportionately or unduly restrict children’s rights.
On age verification, the prototype app is user-friendly and protects privacy setting a ‘gold standard’ in age assurance online. The Commission says it will, for example, allow users to easily prove they are over 18 when accessing restricted adult content online, while remaining in full control of any other personal information, such as a user’s exact age or identity. No one would be able to track, see or reconstruct what content individual users are consulting.
The verification app will be tested and further customised in collaboration with EU Member States, online platforms and end-users. The frontrunners – Denmark, Greece, Spain, France and Italy – will be the first to engage with the Commission on the technical solution with the aim of launching national age verification apps. This prototype can be integrated into a national app or remain a free-standing app.
The guidelines on the protection of minors outline when and how platforms should check the age of their users. They recommend age verification for adult content platforms and other platforms that pose high risks to the safety of minors. They specify that age assurance methods should be accurate, reliable, robust, non-intrusive and non-discriminatory.
Find out more about the Guidelines on the Protection of Minors
Find out more about the age verification blueprint
Fact page on the age verification blueprint
Report on Call for Evidence on the Guidelines
