The European Commission is preparing a far-reaching regulatory measure against TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and others. This is based on the latest report from an expert committee on child safety online, which was presented to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on July 13. The experts recommend a minimum age of 13 for using social media.
Clear Age Limit and Parental Supervision
Led by Maria Melchior and Ulm University Professor Jörg M. Fegert, the panel concludes that children under the age of 13 should only use social media under parental supervision or within an educational setting. In doing so, the EU is taking a clear stand against the current practice, in which minors can often create their own profiles without significant barriers.
Safety by Design and an Open Age Verification App
At the heart of the recommendations is the “Safety by Design” principle: protective mechanisms should be integrated directly into the platforms’ software code so that operators are required to respond immediately to reported issues. Age verification is the most technically challenging component of this approach. The European Commission announced its own age verification app, which will be developed entirely as open-source software and designed to offer maximum privacy. This is intended to give parents greater control over their children’s social media use.
According to the Commission, a blanket ban on the internet for minors is not the goal. Instead, the focus is on platforms with demonstrably addictive mechanisms, referred to internally as “Social Media Plus.” For these, a tiered access model is to be implemented, in which individual features are gradually unlocked based on the user’s age and maturity.
Public Support
A Eurobarometer survey published in parallel underscores the urgency for action: 71 percent of respondents view cyberbullying as the greatest danger to children online, closely followed by fear of sexual abuse (70 percent) and extremist content (69 percent). Sixty-three percent support stricter EU regulations on age restrictions, and a good third of them even advocate for a strict ban on use below a set age limit. Only 13 percent consider the protection of minors to be solely a private matter for parents.
What’s next?
The Commission now plans to review the expert report internally and present a binding legislative proposal immediately after the 2026 summer recess. The debate over age limits is thus far from over at the national level as well: Just recently, a report by the Scientific Service of the Bundestag showed that a unilateral German ban would face significant hurdles due to EU law. The SPD, too, recently proposed its own tiered model with an age limit of 14. Whether and how these national initiatives can be reconciled with the new EU policy is likely to become one of the central points of contention in the coming months.
