The European Panel recommends supervised access for children under 13 and platforms that are secure by default

A European panel on children’s online safety

Announced by Ursula von der Leyen during her 2025 State of the Union address, the Special Panel on Child Safety Online was launched in March 2026. Co-chaired by Jörg M. Fegert, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Maria Melchior, Research Director at Inserm, the Panel met on three occasions between March and June 2026. Its work focused on the available scientific evidence, European and national legal frameworks, experiences in several countries, and measures to protect minors whilst supporting their gradual transition to autonomy. These recommendations are intended to inform future actions by the Commission and the Member States.

A European restriction for children under 13, but no outright ban

The report favours a harmonised restriction on access for under-13s, rather than a total ban on all use. Before this age, access would remain possible only in a suitable environment – in particular, for a limited period and with the permission and supervision of a parent, or within an educational setting. From the age of 13, young people would be able to gain progressively more independent access to services that are age-appropriate and secure by default.

At the same time, the report recommends minimising screen time and ensuring that children aged between 0 and 2 years have the human interaction necessary for their development. For children aged 3 to 12, the use of connected devices and digital services should remain limited, age-appropriate and supervised by parents, carers or education professionals. For children aged 13 to 18, digital autonomy should increase with age, within services that are secure by default and designed to meet the needs of teenagers.

For children aged 13 and over, Member States may impose additional restrictions depending on their national context and the risks identified. These measures should be regularly assessed and reviewed as platforms work to ensure that their services are genuinely safe for minors.

Age verification: an essential tool

The report places great emphasis on age verification. A service cannot tailor its safeguards to an 11-year-old child, a 15-year-old teenager or an adult user without having sufficiently reliable information about their age group.

The recommendations favour systems that allow a person’s age range to be verified without disclosing their identity, date of birth or any official document to the platform. In particular, they refer to so-called “zero-knowledge proof» technologies, such as the European open-source application developed by the Commission. This can be adapted by Member States, integrated into a European digital identity wallet or adopted by private sector organisations. The report recommends its roll-out within a common framework, with interoperable solutions that are accessible to minors who do not necessarily hold an identity document.

Reliable age verification is now one of the key factors in effectively implementing the safeguards for minors set out in the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Security by design at the heart of the recommendations

The report recommends harmonising the rules governing features that may encourage excessive use or expose minors to harmful content and contacts. These include, in particular, infinite scrolling, autoplay, persistent notifications, problematic recommendation systems, misleading interfaces, unsolicited contact and pathways that gradually lead to harmful content. The most protective settings should be applied by default. 

This approach, known as «Safety by Design» aims to embed child protection right from the design stage of digital services, rather than addressing the risks once the platforms are live.

Providers should also demonstrate that their services and features are safe and appropriate before making them available to minors. The report therefore proposes that the burden of proof should lie with the platforms.

Many of these safeguards are already set out in the DSA. Article 28 of the DSA requires platforms accessible to minors to ensure a high level of protection for their privacy, safety and security. The guidelines published by the Commission in July 2025 set out the measures expected in relation to private accounts by default, recommendation systems, features designed to encourage engagement, interactions between users and age verification.

The report calls for stronger enforcement and greater cooperation between the competent authorities under the DSA, the GDPR, the Artificial Intelligence Regulation and consumer law. It also recommends that researchers be granted effective access to platform data, in accordance with Article 40 of the DSA, as well as closer involvement of independent experts and civil society in the identification of risks.

However, some of the recommendations go beyond the current obligations under the DSA. These relate in particular to the European age threshold of 13, the burden of proof placed on providers, the extension of similar protections to a wider range of «social media+» services, and financial support for support schemes.

The importance of support and reporting mechanisms tailored to children’s needs

The report also recognises the role of helplines, hotlines, Safer Internet Centres and other specialist civil society organisations. It calls on service providers to provide adequate funding for complaints mechanisms and helplines. It also calls on the European Union and the Member States to ensure sufficient public funding and common standards for organisations providing counselling, prevention, training, guidance and peer support.

This recognition directly reflects the dual role played by the e-Enfance / 3018 Association, which acts both as a national helpline and the first trusted signal provider appointed by Arcom in France. The 3018 helpline provides a human response that is both expert and tailored to the caller, ranging from listening to and supporting children, parents and professionals, to securing evidence, assessing situations and forwarding priority reports to the relevant platforms. The data generated by its work also helps to document trends in digital violence and the challenges encountered in addressing it.

Recommendations that align with the Association’s advocacy

The issue of the resources allocated to specialist organisations ties in with the Association’s contribution on the future guidelines for trusted flaggers. The Association calls on the European Commission and the digital services coordinators to establish a financial support mechanism to which very large platforms and search engines would contribute, in order to cover the costs of assessing and forwarding reports, as well as the reporting of information on risks affecting minors, whilst preserving the independence required by Article 22.

More broadly, the report’s recommendations echo the positions put forward by the e-Enfance / 3018 Association for several years now. At the Paris Peace Forum in November 2021, Justine Atlan, the Association’s Director, had already described age verification as the cornerstone of online child protection, pointing out that this is a prerequisite for the effective implementation of the safeguards and guarantees provided for children, which remain largely theoretical when a platform does not explicitly distinguish them from adult users.

Five years on, this requirement for effectiveness remains at the heart of any response to the protection of minors online. The next step will be based on the proposal announced by Ursula von der Leyen when the report was presented, in which she referred in particular to the definition of a «social media+» category based on the risks associated with the services and their features. 

The Commission plans to present a proposal after the summer, the content and legal form of which have yet to be finalised.