The European Union is preparing a new law to increase the protection of children online; unlike previous regulations, the law will not target only social networks and will also cover chatbots, online games, video-sharing platforms and even app stores. According to Reuters, the law called the "EU Children’s Law" is expected to be proposed, but its draft has not yet been finalized and must be approved by member states and the European Parliament to become law.
According to ITNA quoting Techspot, under the current proposal, people aged 15 and over can create their own accounts. Parents can also create preliminary accounts for 13- and 14-year-olds on social networks and video-sharing platforms; however these accounts will have restrictions regarding interaction with others and time of use.
For children aged 3 to 12, the use of child-appropriate services and accounts that are fully controlled by parents is envisaged. Children under 3 should not have access to these services. Age verification will also be required when creating accounts on social networks and video-sharing platforms and before downloading online games.
The regulations also require companies to prevent addictive designs and harmful content flows. The scope of the law even extends to companion AI chatbots; a matter that shows European lawmakers’ growing concern about the impact of AI services on children.
In case of violations, companies can be fined up to 6 percent of their annual revenue. For Meta, with 2025 revenue of $97.200/ billion, the cap of this fine would be about $1.21 billion.
This proposal follows the EU’s actions against the addictive features of social networks. At the same time, the European Commission has announced that its age verification tool is ready for use. In the United States, the state of California has also passed similar regulations to limit the addictive features of social networks for people under 16.