On Thursday 26 June, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) published its detailed opinion on the public consultation launched by the European Commission on the draft guidelines on the protection of minors online (see EUROPE 13639/18).
Overall, the Board welcomes these guidelines, which “provide very clear and practical recommendations on what measures providers of online platforms should take to improve the security, safety and privacy of minors online”.
The EDPB’s comments mainly concern the articulation between the obligations of the GDPR and the desire to introduce a more secure method(s) of age verification online (see EUROPE 13666/24).
In particular, it would like to see the addition of some sort of “reference to the fact that adherence to these guidelines does not necessarily mean that the measures taken by a company [to ensure the age of users] are fully compliant with data protection law”.
“Therefore, we propose to generally discourage the use of algorithmic age estimation because of the current high rates of false positives and negatives, and the significant degree of interference with users’ fundamental right to data protection”, they detail.
The Board raises a number of other points, including the right of minors to access the digital environment and the need for platforms to ensure the viability and compliance of any software or control mechanisms that have been used but built by third parties.
See the EDPB’s opinion: https://aeur.eu/f/hly (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)