On Monday 14 July, the European Commission published its “Guidelines on the protection of minors online”, designed to indicate to platforms the measures they should take to ensure the safety, security and protection of the privacy of minors on their services.
Although not binding, these guidelines will serve as a “reference” for assessing the compliance of platforms with the Digital Services Act, to which they are linked.
The Commission wants to see platforms introduce specific features in their interfaces and settings, especially for underage users. It therefore recommends adapting a number of functions, particularly those that encourage overuse of the networks, such as notifications, ‘streaks’ (which reward daily use), the display of ‘likes’ and the recommendation system.
For the latter, the Commission calls on platforms to “prioritise explicit feedback from users, rather than relying on monitoring their browsing behaviour”.
It also wants to put pressure on platforms to prohibit accounts from “downloading or taking screenshots of content posted by minors to prevent the unwanted distribution of sexualised or intimate content” and sexual extortion.
The guidelines also recommend the use of “effective age verification methods”, as well as a total restriction on minors’ access to high-risk content (often prohibited by national laws) such as gambling, pornography or the sale of alcohol.
On the technical means of age verification, the Commission is using as an example its future “EU Digital Identity Wallet” (eID), due to arrive at the end of 2026, which will include an age verification system (see other news).
Whatever they are, these verification systems must “preserve privacy, minimise data, be untraceable and interoperable”, the Commission explains in detail.
The Commission has already opened investigations against Meta, X and TikTok under the DSA, on suspicion of failing to adequately protect children from harmful content (see EUROPE 13452/4).
The same applies to four pornographic sites (Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX and XVideos) which the Commission accuses of failing to prevent children from accessing their content (see EUROPE 13649/5).
To see the guidelines: https://aeur.eu/f/hvf (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)