EU Moves to Ban Social Media for Under-13s as New Age Verification System Takes Shape

Europe is preparing one of its most significant attempts yet to change how children use social media.

The European Commission has proposed the EU KIDS Act, which would prevent children under 13 from accessing social-media platforms and establish 15 as the minimum age for opening an independent account. Children aged 13 and 14 would instead be able to use more limited accounts under parental supervision.

The proposal, announced on September 17, could affect some of the world's largest digital platforms and intensify an international debate over children, smartphones, social media, AI chatbots and online safety.

It is not yet final law. The proposal must go through the EU legislative process involving the European Parliament and member states, where provisions could still change.

What Would the EU Social Media Age Limit Be?

The proposal creates different levels of online access according to age.

Children under 13 would not be allowed social-media accounts. Those aged 13 and 14 could have supervised accounts, while users would generally need to be 15 before opening an independent social-media account.

This would move Europe beyond the familiar minimum-age box that users can often bypass simply by entering a different date of birth.

The larger challenge is therefore not writing an age restriction into law. It is determining whether a platform can reliably establish a user's age without forcing everyone to surrender unnecessary personal information.

Europe Has Built an Age-Verification System

That is where the EU's age-verification technology becomes important.

The European Commission has developed an open-source system intended to allow a person to prove that they meet a required age threshold without giving the website their name, exact date of birth or other unnecessary personal information.

In simple terms, the platform would receive confirmation that the user is old enough rather than receiving the person's entire identity.

The technology is already technically ready, and the Commission expects age-verification solutions to become available across the EU by the end of 2026, subject to national deployment.

How Would Age Verification Work?

The system is designed around anonymous proof of age.

A user first obtains a digital proof from an approved issuer. When an online service needs to check age, it asks for that proof. The user's app then provides confirmation that the required age threshold has been met.

The service verifies the proof and grants access without receiving the underlying identity information used to establish the person's age.

That distinction is important because critics of mandatory age verification have long warned that forcing internet users to upload passports, identity cards or facial images to individual websites could create significant privacy and cybersecurity risks.

The EU's architecture is explicitly designed to reduce that problem.

Identity Documents Would Not Be Stored by the App

According to the European Commission, its age-verification approach is designed so the application does not retain identity documents or biometric information.

The system can also use technologies including zero-knowledge proofs, which allow one fact about a person to be demonstrated without exposing the information behind it.

For example, a website may need to know only that someone is over a particular age. It does not necessarily need the person's full name, home address or exact birthday.

This privacy-versus-safety problem could become one of the most important aspects of the entire policy.

The Rules Go Beyond TikTok and Instagram Accounts

The proposed legislation is broader than simply preventing a 12-year-old from creating a social-media profile.

The Commission wants online services used by minors to become safer by design. The proposal targets features that regulators believe can encourage excessive engagement or expose young users to inappropriate interactions.

Measures outlined in the proposal include restrictions affecting addictive design features, personalised advertising, unsolicited contact and infinite scrolling. AI companions and chatbots would also face specific safeguards when used by minors.

That means the debate could eventually extend beyond traditional social networks into video platforms, gaming environments and AI-powered services.

AI Chatbots Are Becoming Part of the Child-Safety Debate

The inclusion of AI is particularly significant.

Children increasingly encounter generative AI through educational products, search tools, dedicated chatbots and services incorporating AI assistants.

That creates a different set of questions from traditional social media.

A social network primarily connects users with content and other people. An AI companion can generate personalised conversations continuously, potentially creating a much more direct relationship with a young user.

The EU proposal would require stronger safeguards around such technologies, with certain AI companion or chatbot functionality disabled by default for minors.

Infinite Scroll Could Face New Restrictions

One of the most recognisable features of modern social media is also under scrutiny: the endless feed.

Infinite scrolling removes the natural stopping points that existed in older websites and traditional media. Instead of reaching the end of a page, users can continue receiving content indefinitely.

The KIDS Act proposal would restrict such engagement-oriented features for younger users alongside other design mechanisms intended to keep people continuously interacting with platforms.

For technology companies, that matters because engagement is central to many advertising-supported business models.

Changing how minors experience feeds could therefore affect not only product design but also the economics of youth-focused digital services.

Big Platforms Could Face Significant Penalties

The proposed framework is backed by potentially substantial enforcement powers.

Under the plan, major platforms could face penalties reaching up to 6% of global annual revenue for non-compliance with applicable requirements.

Large platforms serving more than 45 million monthly users in the EU would also face additional compliance obligations, including demonstrating how their products satisfy child-safety requirements.

This reflects a broader European regulatory approach in which responsibility increasingly shifts toward technology companies rather than relying entirely on parents or young users.

Platforms Would Have to Prove Their Products Are Safe

One of the proposal's most consequential principles is what the Commission calls a reversal of the burden of proof.

Instead of regulators having to demonstrate after harm occurs that a digital product was unsafe for children, very large platforms would be expected to demonstrate that their services are safe by design.

They would need compliance plans and independent assessments for relevant services, features and functionality.

That could influence how technology companies develop products from the beginning.

Features designed for adults might require a different version, different defaults or complete removal when the system identifies a younger user.

Privacy Critics Are Raising Questions

The proposal is not without opposition.

Technology industry groups have argued that age-verification requirements can create privacy risks and may overlap with existing European regulation. CCIA Europe, which represents major technology companies, has raised concerns about how additional rules could affect privacy and data protection.

There is also a broader civil-liberties question.

Any system capable of deciding who can access online information based on age needs safeguards against unnecessary identification, tracking or expansion into unrelated forms of internet surveillance.

The Commission argues that its anonymous proof-of-age approach has been specifically designed to minimise those risks.

Europe Is Part of a Much Bigger Global Movement

The EU is not acting in isolation.

Australia became the first country to introduce a nationwide social-media ban for children under 16, while European countries including Denmark, Greece and Spain have considered or pursued their own restrictions.

The approaches differ significantly.

Some governments favour higher minimum ages. Others focus on parental consent, stronger platform responsibilities or age verification.

Europe's proposal is especially important because an EU-wide framework would cover a market of hundreds of millions of people and could encourage global technology companies to redesign products rather than maintain completely separate systems for every jurisdiction.

The Rules Could Influence Technology Outside Europe

European technology regulation has previously had effects beyond the EU.

Large global platforms often find it easier to adapt products broadly than to maintain numerous fundamentally different systems. Privacy rules, content regulation and digital-market legislation developed in Europe have consequently influenced product decisions elsewhere.

The KIDS Act could create a similar dynamic.

If companies build reliable age-aware accounts, child-safe recommendation systems and privacy-preserving verification for Europe, those technologies could eventually appear in other markets.

That does not mean other countries would automatically copy European law, but the technical infrastructure developed to comply with it could become globally relevant.

What Happens Next?

The biggest point for readers to understand is that Europe's under-13 social-media restriction is currently a proposal, not a ban that suddenly took effect this week.

The European Parliament and EU member states still need to negotiate and approve the legislation before it can become law.

The age-verification technology is further along. The Commission says the underlying solution is technically ready and is working with frontrunner countries including Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain, with broader availability expected by the end of 2026.

What happens next could have consequences far beyond whether a child can create a TikTok or Instagram account.

Europe is attempting to answer a much larger question: how should the internet know that someone is a child without forcing everyone to reveal exactly who they are?

If the EU can make that model work at scale, age verification may become one of the biggest changes to everyday internet access in years.