How the 15-year age limit will be enforced on social media, and everything that changes: “For me, success is helping children see the real world, not the world through the lens of the digital one”
Greece opened the discussion on “digital adulthood” before the protection of minors on social media took on its current European dimension. From Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s first intervention at the UN General Assembly roughly two years ago, through the development of the Kids Wallet, to the European Commission’s proposal for the EU Kids Act, the debate has shifted from whether an age limit is needed to how it can be applied in practice without creating new risks to users’ personal data.
The next step is national legislation, with the government pushing for the 15-year limit to apply from 1 January 2027. At the same time, a European framework is taking shape that envisages a different approach for 13 to 15-year-olds, with access to specially designed social media environments and tighter restrictions on how they operate.
In an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency, given after presenting the new framework to the Cabinet alongside Minister of State Akis Skertsos, Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence Minister Dimitris Papastergiou describes the path from the first Greek initiatives to the European framework. He also explains why Greece is choosing to move ahead now rather than wait for the European legislative process to finish.
Mr Papastergiou sets out in detail how age verification will work, stressing that the Kids Wallet does not return a date of birth or any other identity details, only an indication of whether the user is above or below the relevant age limit.
He also explains why he believes responsibility cannot be shared equally between platforms and parents. He speaks about the need to inform families and describes the effects that the addictive design of digital services can have on children. He also addresses the European enforcement process under the Digital Services Act and the role of the Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission (EETT).
Mr Papastergiou’s interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency and journalist Giannis Chatzidopavlakis follows in full.
Q: Greece opened the discussion on “digital adulthood” before it acquired its current European dimension. What was the journey from the Greek initiatives to the EU Kids Act, and where is there convergence today?
A: Greece opened this discussion very early, exactly two years ago. That was when the prime minister, speaking from the podium of the United Nations, called for joint action and the joint adoption of measures.
It was not an easy journey. We then had to go out to Europe, hold discussions and present how we envisaged those measures. Quite early on, about a year and a half ago, we presented how an age verification mechanism could work, because that was the “elephant in the room”: the platforms’ claim that they could not be certain of a user’s age.
The Kids Wallet, both in its first form and in its most recent one, was that answer. That is why we are pleased that, over this whole period, by working with other states, we have managed to push and press Europe towards this text, which was presented a few days ago with the basic principles of the EU Kids Act.
Of course, from here on, it remains for Europe to finalise it and for Greece to proceed with legislation exactly as we said.
Q: Which elements of the Greek approach do you think had the greatest influence on the European debate?
A: I think there were two key points. One was the age of digital adulthood, where 15 was set. I want to explain the 13 to 15 range that Europe is proposing in a moment.
The second, and very important, was the approach to age verification. The Kids Wallet returns nothing other than whether a user or child is above or below 12, 13 or 15, depending on the limits that are ultimately set. At the moment it appears the limit will be 15, with an intermediate band for ages 13 to 15.
And what does that 13 to 15 mean? Someone might say: “But you were calling for a ban under 15, and Europe is putting it slightly differently.” Europe is not putting it differently. What does it say? That from 13 to 15, children can have a first contact with some social media platforms.
With what we have today? Absolutely not. Not even Europe accepts that, at this very sensitive age, essentially children in lower secondary school, there should be social media with addictive content, which allows continuous scrolling and runs for endless hours unless a parent sets their child’s phone to fewer hours.
So what Europe is saying for ages 13 to 15 is that yes, some social media can exist, but without personal accounts for the children, with overnight lockouts, a maximum of one hour’s use a day and no endless scrolling.
So yes, I think our approach on these two points had a significant influence on the European solution, the proposal to legislate the EU Kids Act.
Q: Why did you choose to move ahead now with legislating the 15-year limit, given that the European initiative has already been announced?
A: It is necessary because, although Europe has announced what it intends to do, it will be quite a few months from intention to European legislation. We should, and can (this is not prohibited by Europe), legislate, and do so in a way that is compatible with what Europe has said.
So we must take our own measures. Obviously, we will probably amend the legislation at specific points down the line. But the first and very important step is ahead of us. It will happen in the coming period.
We had said we would bring it to Parliament in August. But in the meantime all the information about the now imminent European initiative came in, so we had to wait these two months.
From 1 January 2027 we begin, and in parallel we are taking part much more actively, because there is now a text on the table for European legislation, so that the EU Kids Act really covers both social media and artificial intelligence.
That area also needs regulation. It is very dangerous for a child to ask an artificial intelligence model anything at all and obviously receive any answers whatsoever.
Q: How will you measure whether this policy has succeeded? What should have changed in children’s daily lives within a year or two for you to say the measure has had an effect?
A: It is genuinely interesting to look at what it achieved and what it did not. Take the so-called Australian example, because it did not go well there. It is not, however, the absolutely right basis for comparison.
Success is to come out with a law that sends the message: “You know, my child, going on social media with an account intended for an adult when you are 13 is prohibited.”
So we do need to launch public information campaigns with support for parents. Parents cannot, given what they go through every day (and I am a parent too), be constantly looking over their child’s shoulder. But they must take some very basic first steps.
If, for instance, a parent puts in their own phone or their own ID when a platform asks for age verification, then obviously we have failed. But we have to explain that to parents.
So success will be, first, that this legislation comes into being. Second, that we put in place some additional technical measures compared with what was legislated in Australia. Because all these locking methods could indeed be bypassed technically, but there are additional procedures we can propose, and that is what we will do with the platforms and in Europe.
So for me, success will be, first, the legislation. Second, informing parents. And third, being able to help children see the real world and not the world through the lens of the digital world and social media.
Q: Is there a plan for an organised information campaign for parents and guardians?
A: Yes. In the Cabinet too, it was pointed out how important it is to go to schools and talk to teachers and educators and, above all, to talk to parents’ and guardians’ associations and to groups of parents.
As minister, I have had the most interesting discussions on this subject over the two years since we “pressed the button”, and the prime minister also spoke in discussions we held with groups of parents. There, freely and without the clock of a school period chasing us, we discussed what is at stake, what measures can be taken and how parents can really set up various parental control processes, and finally how children can strike a balance between the digital and the real world.
We are not technophobes. There are very interesting things a child can see and learn on the internet, but there is also a physical world, the natural way in which our children are meant to grow up. It is up to us to allow them to grow up.
Q: Why do you believe there should be national regulation now rather than waiting for the EU Kids Act to be completed?
A: Given that the European framework will take, by estimate, around 20 months to be passed, we are also looking out for the next generation of primary and lower secondary school children, who will be left helpless in a digital landscape with no regulation and no guidance.
Now that we know the basic principles, we have no reason to wait and lose 20 months.
Q: The Greek rule is stricter than the European proposal at one point. Could it change along the way, and why was this approach chosen?
A: No, and Greek legislation will be adjusted to what the EU Kids Act broadly says, but it does not say anything dramatically different.
Europe is not saying that at 13 a child will join Instagram as Instagram is today. It is saying that children will be able to have access, with parental consent of course, to specially designed social media environments, without continuous scrolling, where a stranger will not be allowed to send messages and which will not operate at night. In such an environment, Europe says, children could begin to join.
I therefore believe that our strict stance helped both Europe and the platforms to come a little closer to what we want.
Q: How can a platform know that a user is under 15 without collecting or requesting personal data and identity details?
A: The platforms bear the burden of establishing the real age. They should therefore use the smart algorithms they have anyway, which in most cases can tell that your profile and mine are not those of a 15-year-old. And I also think they can tell whether a profile belongs to a younger child.
In cases where they lack that reasonable certainty, what they can do is use the tool that Europe proposes and that we have already implemented, the Kids Wallet.
The Kids Wallet follows the technical specifications published by Europe and returns no data. That was the prerequisite for the solution Europe designed and we ultimately implemented: to return only a flag, that is, a signal that this user is over or under 15. It does not even return the date of birth.
Q: How will the measure be applied in practice to platforms that are not based in Greece?
A: That is why both European and Greek legislation rest on the DSA, the Digital Services Act, which already provides for penalties for various violations and breaches of this kind.
In the course of further discussions with Europe, I am thinking about how we could bring this whole fines process a little closer to home. That, however, is something under investigation. Until then, we follow the entire procedure provided for by the DSA. What does that mean? The competent Greek authority, which is the EETT, reports the issue, for example a 14-year-old gaining access to a social media platform, to Ireland, and Ireland, since most of these companies are based there, takes it from there and initiates the procedures provided for by the DSA.
Q: Can the age limit alone tackle the problem of digital addiction and the design practices of platforms that encourage use?
A: Obviously not. I think we adults who use social media face the same problem. It is just that, in theory, we have the ability to develop mechanisms of self-defence and self-regulation, so that when we start to feel “burned out” we put it down. That is how it should work, in theory.
For children that is not a given. Those mechanisms are far more malleable in a child’s mind. These ages are far more dangerous, when the brain is developing and learning capacity is at its peak, for problems to be created through being “hooked”.
And not only learning or developmental problems but also problems of self-esteem. Fear of missing out (FOMO), or not wanting to leave your room because you are trapped in a digital world. All these phenomena appear mainly in children of this age.
That is why we do not want addictive patterns at these ages.
And we adults, of course, must be careful, because our children essentially watch us and do what we do. So I think we should first look in the mirror and then go to our children and say anything.
I have lived it myself. My children are now past that age, but when I told them “don’t spend so much time on your phone”, they would say: “Yes, but why are you on your phone all the time?”
A child cannot tell whether the phone is ultimately a work tool for an adult. They think we may be playing on social media just as they do.
Q: Is the responsibility of platforms and parents ultimately equal when it comes to protecting children from the dangers of social media?
A: It should in no way be equal. Parents should not have to run after the platforms, trying to secure their children’s phones against them.
It should not fall to the platforms merely to prove that they are safe for children. Their design must be safe for children.
Parents, of course, as we said earlier, also bear a share of responsibility. That concerns the point where the platform asks to confirm or reconfirm the age of a user or of their child.
If, for example, the child says “Dad, give me your phone for a moment so I can open the e-wallet and do something” and the child ends up showing the father’s ID, the game is lost.
So, in my view, parents will have one single responsibility, perhaps a little more. First, to carry out the age verification together when the time comes. And, above all, to explain to their children that real life is more beautiful and bigger than what fits inside a smartphone.
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