EU KIDS Act: What the EU’s Proposed Child Online-Safety Rules Would Do

The European Commission’s proposed EU KIDS Act would set common age rules for social media across the EU while requiring digital services used by children to be safer by design. Announced on September 17, it is a draft regulation rather than a rule already in force: EU governments and the European Parliament must still negotiate and approve a final text. 1617

The proposed social-media age ladder

The plan uses a gradual model rather than treating every minor account alike:

• Under 13: no access to social-media services. The Commission says children could still use child-friendly video-sharing services through an account managed by a parent or guardian. 2
• Ages 13 and 14: access through a parent- or guardian-supervised mini account. These accounts would have restricted functions and a one-hour daily limit. 2517
• From age 15: minors could create independent social-media accounts, but providers would need to offer protective, safe-by-design accounts. 117

The Commission’s stated aim is to harmonise rules that could otherwise diverge among EU member states, while reducing risks to children’s privacy, safety and security on services that pose particular risks.

Which services would be covered?

The KIDS Act is not limited to social networks. Its child-protection requirements would apply to services used by minors, including social media, video-sharing platforms, online games, AI companions, chatbots and app stores. 217

That broader scope matters because the proposal focuses not only on who may open an account, but also on how digital products are designed and delivered to users under 18.

Safety-by-design rules: what platforms would need to change

A central feature of the proposal is a shift in responsibility toward providers. Rather than waiting for regulators to establish harm after the fact, providers would have to demonstrate that their services are age-appropriate and safe by design. 117

The proposed safeguards include restrictions on features and practices that can encourage excessive engagement or expose minors to unwanted contact. They include:

• infinite scrolling without breaks;
• reward mechanisms or “tricks” designed to drive engagement;
• push notifications during sleeping hours;
• unsolicited contact from strangers;
• profiling-based recommender feeds and personalised advertising for children; and
• spending traps aimed at minors. 517

These provisions make the proposal more than an age-limit policy. They seek to limit product-design choices that can maximise attention or monetisation at the expense of younger users’ safety.

Special rules for AI companions and chatbots

AI companions and chatbots receive specific treatment. For minors, the proposal would require those features to be turned off by default and would prohibit designs that simulate interpersonal relationships in ways that create emotional dependency. 517

The draft also provides for administrative fines of up to 6% of a provider’s total worldwide annual turnover for non-compliance with certain obligations governing AI companions and general conversational chatbots.

What happens next?

The Commission has adopted and transmitted a proposal, but it has not enacted a final EU regulation. The European Parliament and the Council, representing EU member states, will negotiate the text under the EU legislative process. The age thresholds, scope, age-assurance approach, enforcement mechanisms and detailed obligations can all change before any final measure takes effect. 6

That distinction is important: descriptions of the plan should be read as proposed rules, not current law.

The debate over age checks and business models

The proposal’s age restrictions are likely to remain contentious. Critics argue that age gates can be hard to enforce, may encourage children to misstate their age, and could require intrusive age-assurance systems. Concerns have also been raised that broad obligations could create overreach or unintended effects across services with very different uses.

A related criticism is that age limits may focus on children’s access while leaving platforms’ underlying engagement, data and advertising incentives insufficiently addressed. The KIDS Act partly responds to that argument through its restrictions on addictive features, profiling-based feeds and personalised advertising for minors. Whether those measures are retained and how they are enforced will be central to the legislative debate. 517

Questions about advisers and international comparisons

The Commission says its preparatory work involved experts alongside representatives of industry, parents and young people. 2 The material available here does not substantiate specific allegations about individual advisers’ technology-industry ties, conflicts of interest or misconduct, so no stronger conclusion is warranted.

Likewise, child online-safety and age-based access rules are being debated internationally, but the available source material does not provide a sufficiently detailed, comparable account of individual non-EU measures. The clearest conclusion is that the EU proposal is part of a wider push to make online services more protective of children—while leaving difficult questions about privacy, implementation and platform accountability unresolved.