Online protections for minors are coming under increasing focus internationally and in the EU. The EUID Wallet will play an important role in these efforts in the EU.
Internationally, there is a growing number of legal provisions banning minors of various ages from using social media. At the EU level and in Germany, however, general bans are yet to play any role. Here, the aim is to hold providers of social media services accountable to guarantee effective protection for minors. Secure age verification is particularly important here. The main technical solution to be used for this will most likely be the forthcoming EUID Wallet.
International social media bans for minors
On 29 November 2024, Australia passed a law that generally prohibits minors under the age of 16 from using social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X etc. This makes Australia the first country in the world to pass such a restrictive ban on minors under the age of 16. The law is scheduled to go into effect from 2026, giving platform operators one year to develop effective age controls to ensure compliance with this ban. This poses major challenges for platform operators, particularly because the data protection rights of minors must be taken into account. Platform providers who violate the social media ban could face fines equivalent to up to EUR 31 million.
At the beginning of 2024, the US state of Florida had already passed a similar law, which completely prohibits minors under the age of 14 from using social media and requires minors under the age of 16 to obtain the consent of a parent or guardian. The law in Florida is due to come into effect in January 2025, but is currently still the subject of legal challenges. Critics say the law violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
France is also currently working on a complete ban on social media for minors under the age of 13 and requiring parental consent for minors under the age of 16. Minors in France are already only allowed to set up an account on social media services without their parents' consent from the age of 15.
The latest move comes from the UK technology secretary, who is also considering a total ban on the use of social media by under-16s in the UK.
Protection of minors on online platforms in the EU and Germany
Such bans on the use of social media by minors are also being discussed at the EU level. However, there are no concrete plans for this. Nevertheless, it should be noted that in some cases there is already a de facto requirement in the EU for a legal guardian's consent for minors under the age of 16 to use social media. This is due to the fact that, according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), minors under the age of 16 are not yet able to consent to the processing of their personal data themselves and this consent must come from their legal guardians instead. This means that if the use of social media requires the user's consent under data protection law, it is already mandatory in the EU to obtain parental consent.
However, the EU, and Germany in particular, appear to be taking a different approach from a general ban. In any case, it is questionable whether a general ban on use by minors would be legally of any use or even possible. The Director of the German Federal Agency for the Protection of Child and Youth in the Media (BzKJ) Sebastian Gutnecht explains:
Children and young people have the right to participate in digital media and to explore digital spaces in safety. In Europe, providers have a legal obligation to make their platforms as safe as possible for young people by taking structural precautions. However, I think a total ban on social media for under-16s goes too far.
The right to participate in media derives from Article 17 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been incorporated into the German Protection of Young Persons Act (JuSchG), and also includes social media. Accordingly, a general ban on their use would constitute a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The German Federal Agency for the Protection of Child and Youth in the Media (BzKJ) therefore relies on the obligation of platform providers to make social media safe for minors rather than on general bans. The German Federal Agency for the Protection of Child and Youth in the Media (BzKJ) has an important role to play here. It is the authority in Germany responsible for monitoring and enforcing the provisions of the Digital Services Act (DSA) on the protection of minors, in particular Article 28 DSA. To this end, the German Federal Office for the Enforcement of Children's Rights in Digital Services (KidD) has been set up within the German Federal Agency for the Protection of Child and Youth in the Media (BzKJ)).
Article 28 DSA requires online platform providers to put in place appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security of minors on their service. In addition, Article 28 DSA prohibits personalised advertising to minors when the platform provider is aware with reasonable certainty that the user is a minor.
EU Commission measures to protect minors and age verification
In order to fulfil these obligations, the Commission conducted exploratory work in mid-2024 to develop DSA guidelines on the protection of minors ). The Commission will use the input received from the various stakeholders to draw up the guidelines and will organise a separate consultation to draft them. The guidelines are scheduled to be published before summer 2025. Once adopted, the guidelines will set out binding rules for online platforms to implement a high level of privacy, safety, and security for minors in accordance with the DSA. This is likely to mean that the social media platform providers will have to make many adjustments.
The Commission believes that effective age verification plays a particularly important role in protecting minors online. To this end, the Commission published a call for tenders in autumn 2024 for the development, consultancy and support for an age verification solution). The aim is to develop a data protection-compliant age verification solution as a white-label application that supports a zero-knowledge proof protocol. Zero-knowledge protocols are extensions of interactive proof systems. In addition to being complete and reliable, the interactive proof systems should also operate on a zero-knowledge basis to ensure that the verifier does not obtain any further information. The Member States will be expected to make this solution available in app stores and elsewhere. The initial purpose of the solution is just to check whether a user is 18 or older. However, it should also be possible to repurpose the solution for other proofs or verification requirements. The call for tenders had a budget of EUR 4 million. The contracts are set to begin at the start of 2025.
EUID Wallet as a key tool for age verification
The EU Digital Identity Wallet (or EUID Wallet) will play an important role in how online platforms perform age verification for minors. It has been introduced by the revision of the eIDAS Regulation with the goal of allowing users and enterprises to authenticate themselves securely and conveniently online from 2027, and to manage and share identity data and other digital credentials when necessary, such as driving licences, training or education certificates.
The Commission is currently working on implementing legislation to establish harmonised standards and procedures for the technical functions and certification of the EUID Wallet. This is to ensure that the various EUID Wallet solutions of the individual Member States are interoperable and accepted throughout the EU. On 29 November 2024, the Commission published five draft implementing regulations on different aspects of the EUID Wallet. These concern in particular the handling of security breaches, the secure transfer of information, registration procedures, the issuance and validation of electronic attestations of attributes and the rules for the unequivocal matching of identities when using electronic identification means.
Preparations for the introduction of the EUID Wallet are also already underway in Germany. In May 2024, an architecture and consultation process for EUID Wallets was launched with the aim of creating a prototype for an eIDAS 2.0-compliant infrastructure for digital identities in Germany and with it the basis for EU-wide interoperable EUID Wallets. The public is to be involved in the process through various consultation formats, including direct feedback on the architectural concept. Innovation competitions are also being organised in which teams are asked to develop and devise technical solutions. Successful teams can win up to EUR 950,000 (for more information and links see here).
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