CyberSafeKids Welcomes The EC’s Commitment To Protecting Children Online

We welcome the European Commission’s ongoing commitment to protecting children in a digital world, through the introduction of the EU KIDS Act, announced this week.

The proposal reflects the EU’s intention to significantly increase protections for minors, following a developmental approach that endeavours to balance children’s vulnerabilities and rights to protection with their rights to participation. It is clear that the Commission recognises the significant harms experienced by Europe’s children in the online world and that these arise due to the tech industry’s deliberate design of online environments, including social media and video sharing platforms, but also gaming, and AI companions and conversational chatbots.

The Act introduces tiered, age-based protections for minors up to 18. We welcome this graduated risk-based approach to access, which aims to address the evolving capacities of the child. How this will work in practice remains to be seen. We are pleased to see the requirement for certified, independent third-party EU age verification solution technologies to determine age.

CyberSakeKids also welcomes the clear intention in the Act to bring about safety-by-design by prohibiting and restricting features such as livestreaming, social comparison tools and filters, behaviour-based recommender systems, and features which encourage excessive or compulsive use such as autoplay, continuous scroll and notifications. AI chatbots will not be allowed to interact in such a way as to create emotional dependencies or other harms. Embedded AI chatbots must not be activated automatically. Features and settings that serve to increase protections will be stepped up, such as privacy requirements and guardian-set time limits, capped at a maximum of one hour per day, for accounts up to age 15. 

While we would like to have seen stronger requirements imposed on gaming companies, access to gaming apps will be subject to verification of age, according to age rating frameworks to be developed.

All of these are important steps in the right direction and will have a meaningful impact if compliance is fully and consistently enforced. We are concerned the proposal falls short in this area, despite the Commission’s recent assurances that the burden of proof will shift to technology companies and that they must prove their products are safe before reaching children. 

The Act attempts to address this by stipulating that companies submit a detailed, audited compliance plan, but they are already subject to similar requirements under the existing regulation, and yet, harmful features abound. Financial penalties have not fixed this problem, as the companies take in enormous revenues annually, and there are long-drawn-out legal processes before fines get paid. 

That is why we have been calling for a pre-certification system – similar to a CE mark – to be required for digital products before they reach the market and tied to tougher penalties for non-compliance, such as blocking of services or, as we ourselves have previously called for, and heard several times at last week’s Online Safety Conference under the Irish Presidency, criminal liability.

The Commission recognises that stronger enforcement is required and intends to significantly reduce the time needed for investigations, but without compelling penalties for failures to adhere to the rules, we remain skeptical as to whether this Act will bring the seismic change it envisages.

Read the full Proposal for EU KIDS Act – ‘EU Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy’ here