The European Union is considering potential fines of as much as 6 percent of a company’s annual sales for online services that fail to prevent children from accessing their platforms, as part of the bloc’s plans for a social media ban for kids under the age of 15.
The new rules will apply to social networks, video-sharing platforms, application stores, online games, AI companions and conversational AI chatbots, according to draft legislation seen by Bloomberg.
The proposed law would set an EU-wide legal age limit on social media services for the first time. The EU has been under pressure from member states to introduce bloc-wide rules as the global movement to restrict children’s access to social media gains steam. Individual EU members states have been planning their own limits in the wake of curbs first introduced by Australia last year.
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The bloc’s executive branch, the European Commission, is seeking new rules to force technology companies to age-gate their services to keep out young users. Online encyclopedias, educational platforms, public services’ apps, and software repositories are exempt.
The Kids Act’s enforcement framework is modeled after existing tech regulations in the bloc such as the AI Act and the Digital Services Act, the latter of which also carries maximum fines of 6 percent of a company’s annual global sales. In practice, the EU has never sought a fine that approached the maximum potential levy.
Platforms will have to pay a fee to fund the commission’s supervision, which can not exceed 0.03 percent of a company’s global annual sales, according to the draft.
Under the proposal, the EU would establish a minimum age of 15 to open an “autonomous account,” which is an account without parental supervision, according to the document. Children between three and 13 years old will only be allowed access to services tailored for children and with full parental supervision. Minors aged 13 and 14 will be allowed accounts on mainstream platforms with significant restrictions including daily time limits and parental controls.
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Platforms will also need to adopt safety features to minimize abuse and addictive behaviors, according to the document, which is a draft that might change before it’s published.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is expected to devote part of her annual State of the Union speech to the issue on Wednesday, ahead of the bill’s unveiling. The Kids Act proposal will still have to obtain the backing of European governments and lawmakers, a process that can take years.
Platforms in scope of the proposed new rules will have to ensure to verify the age of every user creating a new account using an official EU verification app or equivalent mechanism.
The draft law will also open the door to collective action, allowing minors and parents to mandate non-profit bodies to lodge complaints against platforms before national authorities or the commission.
The commission declined to comment.
