Privacy & Cybersecurity Law Blog

On September 17, 2026, the European Commission published its proposal for the EU KIDS Act (the “Act”). The Act proposes to create a harmonized EU framework aimed at strengthening protections for children online, including by limiting children’s access to social media platforms and imposing new safety obligations on providers.

The Act is proposed to apply to a category of services described as “Social Media+,” which includes providers of online social networking services, video-sharing platform services, artificial intelligence (“AI”) companions, general conversational chatbots and online games. Key elements of the proposed Act include:

• Social Media Delay with Age Access Tiers: A tiered age-based access regime is proposed for certain online social networking services and video-sharing platform services with proven risky features. Children under age 13 would not be permitted to create their own accounts, although guardians could allow access to certain services through the guardian’s own account, with device-level restrictions and exposure limits of up to one hour per day. Minors aged 13 to 15 could access limited “mini” accounts set up and supervised by their guardians, with restricted features, limited contacts and time limits. From age 15, minors would be permitted to create their own accounts without prior parental consent, although the proposal contemplates that those accounts would be required to operate in a safe-by-design environment and that parental guidance would remain important.

• Safety-by-Design: The Act would impose safety-by-design requirements on covered services. Providers would be required to, for example, avoid addictive or compulsive design features, implement effective time-management tools protecting minors’ sleep hours and school time, apply high-protection settings by default, keep children’s profiles private by default and limit unwanted contact from other users.

• Age Assurance: The Act would also establish rules for privacy-preserving and accessible age verification systems. For example, providers of in-scope social media services and video-sharing platforms would be required to verify a user’s age when a new account is opened, using the EU age verification tool or another public-authority solution offering an equivalent level of accuracy, reliability, robustness, privacy, security, non-discrimination and non-intrusiveness. The Act would also require online services and app stores to use age assurance tools. For online games, each game would be subject to an age recommendation, with enforcement through age verification in a software application store before the game can be downloaded.

The Act is part of a broader EU child safety package, which will also include, among other things, a Digital Fairness Act and revisions to the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation and the Audiovisual Media Services Directive.

The proposal for the Act has been submitted to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union for examination and adoption.

Read the European Commission press release here and the proposal of the Act here.