Ursula von der Leyen yesterday presented the first age verification application made available to Member States that want to introduce a minimum age for access to social media. It will be a tool similar to the app the Commission introduced to guarantee free movement during the Covid-19 pandemic for vaccinated people or those with a negative test.
POLITICAL PRESSURES AND TIMING
There is a lot of politics in the timing of the Commission President’s announcement about the new app. Emmanuel Macron convened a videoconference meeting of some European leaders. The goal is precisely to put pressure on Ursula von der Leyen to push her to act on the digital age of majority. France is also the first Member State to have notified the Commission of its intention to adopt a law banning access to social media for those under 15 years old. After an announcement in her September 2025 State of the Union speech, von der Leyen has moved very slowly. The digital minimum age is a very slippery ground. One misstep and the Commission President could get hurt. Starting with her app.
THE COMMISSION’S INTENTIONS
Von der Leyen’s intentions are good. “I firmly believe that it is parents, not algorithms, who must educate our children,” she said in her September 2025 State of the Union speech, announcing the creation of a group of experts to advise her on the minimum age for accessing social media. “Too often moms and dads feel powerless and defenseless, as if they were drowning in the tsunami of big tech companies flooding their homes,” explained the Commission President. “These parents fear that simply by scrolling the screen, their children could be exposed to a wide range of dangers: online bullying, adult content, encouragement of self-harm, and algorithms that exploit children’s vulnerabilities with the explicit aim of creating addiction,” von der Leyen said, pointing to Australia as a potential model, which had just announced a ban for those under 16 years old. The same concepts were repeated yesterday. “Children’s rights in the EU come before commercial interests,” von der Leyen said.
DIVISIONS AMONG MEMBER STATES
Beyond the rhetoric, von der Leyen faces a series of resistances to introducing a digital minimum age at the EU level. The Member States that have announced a law are France, Spain, Austria, Greece, Ireland, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Italy also seems favorable. But on the other side, there are several countries – particularly the Nordic and Baltic ones – that are strongly opposed. In their eyes, the level of digital education of parents and their children is such that they can recognize and face the dangers posed by social media. Closing platforms to children would mean cutting them off from information and knowledge and discouraging their future ability to innovate. The Commission Vice-President responsible for Digital, Henna Virkkunen, is skeptical about introducing a minimum age for access to social media.
PROCRASTINATION AND EXPERT GROUP
Trapped between the pressures of Macron and Sánchez and those of Virkkunen and many experts, von der Leyen has procrastinated. The expert group promised in September was established only in March. It will meet today for the second time. Its recommendations will be presented in summer. Only then will the Commission President decide whether to propose a legislative initiative for the entire EU.
NATIONAL INITIATIVES AND LEGAL UNCERTAINTIES
Meanwhile, Member States have started to move unilaterally and in a scattered manner. France and Greece want to set the digital minimum age at 15 years. Spain at 16 years. In Italy, some political forces want 14 years, as in Austria. Which legislation should apply for a minor traveling in the EU? That of the country where they are? Or that of the State of which they have nationality? Or that of the country of residence? Or that linked to the IP address they connect from?
RISK OF FRAGMENTATION OF THE DIGITAL MARKET
In any case, the result risks being “the fragmentation of the digital single market,” a Commission official told the European Mattinale. Platforms could be forced to apply twenty-seven different rules, instead of a single European rule. This is why Member States must notify in advance the draft laws to introduce a digital minimum age. “These national laws would be contrary to European law,” admits the official. Von der Leyen has recognized the need for harmonization at the EU level. But the issue is politically too sensitive to push the Commission to censor individual Member States. Better to procrastinate.
A TECHNICAL SOLUTION INSTEAD OF A LEGISLATIVE ONE
The age verification application presented yesterday by von der Leyen and Virkkunen is also part of the procrastination tactic. In the absence of a European legislative proposal, the Commission offers a technical tool to Member States that want to introduce the digital minimum age. Von der Leyen said yesterday that the app is “technically ready.” However, it is not yet available for end users. In reality, the app is not a real application, but an application project on which public and private operators can rely to integrate the system into national digital wallets or develop their own apps.
The standards are high in terms of open source technology and privacy. There will be no obligation to adopt it. But large platforms will be invited to do so because it is the best age verification system, which they are obliged to provide for certain services, according to the rules of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
A COMPLEX VERIFICATION PROCESS
The Commission’s app risks turning into a big political boomerang. To verify one’s age, you need to download an app on your smartphone (public or private, provided it is based on Commission technology), give your consent several times (for example for the use of personal data, even if it will remain confidential), use the identity document twice (first to photograph the serial number, then to have the smartphone recognize the document’s chip), and finally perform facial recognition. The process will have to be repeated once a month.
IMPACT ON THE ONLINE USER EXPERIENCE
This complex verification procedure is nothing compared to the online user experience on platforms, apps, and sites that require a minimum age. Unless opening an account – which will allow the platform to store and exploit personal data – the user will have to authenticate their age every time they connect. The obligation will not only concern pornographic sites but all sites that have legal age-related obligations. “Even those of small wineries,” a source revealed to us. The experience will be worse than consenting to cookie use. “It can be annoying. But we have to decide how ready we adults are to cooperate to protect our children,” a senior Commission official told us.
TECHNICAL LIMITS AND CRITICISMS
The Commission’s app also has shortcomings that will allow bypassing age verification. To avoid using it, it will be enough to connect through a VPN outside the EU or Member States that decide to impose a minimum age for access to social media. Smartphones will have to be equipped with NFC technology, the one used for payment systems. Not to mention conspiracy theorists: in an era of minimal trust in the use of technology by public authorities, the extreme right, extreme left, libertarians, and the Trump Administration will not delay in denouncing a new Big Brother imposed by the “Brussels bureaucrats” (as JD Vance calls them).
RISK OF DE-RESPONSIBILIZATION OF PLATFORMS
The introduction of a minimum age for access to social media entails another risk: “De-responsibilizing platforms in the face of risks to children and young people,” another Commission official told us. TikTok, Instagram, X, Facebook, Snapchat could feel free to publish any content because – according to the law – minors below a certain age cannot enter their platforms.
AN ALTERNATIVE: APPLYING THE DSA
Yet there is a solution without venturing into the digital age of majority. According to the DSA, platforms have very clear obligations to respect for the protection of minors: privacy, security, risk reduction on illegal or harmful content, protection from addictive methods, ban on targeted advertising. “It would be enough to apply the DSA much more rigorously,” a third official told us. It would also be enough to educate parents not to let their children drown in the tsunami of big tech companies.
(Excerpt from the European Mattinale)
