The EU Commission draft law to restrict young people’s access to the internet that it
presented
last week will
come at a high cost: it will put online services behind age gates, expand the use of intrusive age verification, and undermine the privacy of all users.
The
EU Kids Act
aims to protect children from risks associated with social media, video games, and AI systems by introducing age-based access rules, safety requirements, and stronger enforcement and oversight measures. It presents itself as building on the Digital Services Act (DSA) and puts into “hard law” some of the
safety-by-design measures
specified in the non-binding DSA guidelines on minors’ protection.
The proposal is built around the following elements: social media age “delay”, safety by design, age assurance and parental responsibility, and strong enforcement. Each of these measures are concerning.
Mandatory Age Gates for Social Media and Video-Sharing Platforms
Following the
advice of an expert panel
, the proposal would create a phased access to social media and video-sharing platforms deemed risky—a threshold met simply by relying on personalized recommender systems or offering “uninterrupted content consumption”: no service accounts for children under 13; restricted accounts under tight parental supervision from 13 to 15; and autonomous accounts in a safe-by-design environment from 15 to 18. Full online access is therefore reserved for adults.
However they’re designed, age gates undermine civil liberties, reduce safety, and create barriers to internet entry, often at the expense of marginalized groups.
If this sounds complex and like a compliance nightmare, that’s because it is. The access delay comes with
privacy-intrusive
age verification across the board, relying on the EU age verification scheme. For teenagers, this law means significant control in the hands of their parents, who must set up accounts and prove that they are, in fact, parents, adding yet an
