BrusselsPlatforms like Instagram, Tiktok or Facebook will from now on have to guarantee that they are safe if they want to operate in the European Union. The European Commission presented this Thursday the European law for the protection of children on the internet, which bans access to social networks for those under 13 years of age and limits their use for minors, in order to protect them from the associated risks. To achieve this, it has announced that it will force companies to present "compliance plans" before the rule comes into force, if they do not want to be left out of the community market.
In this way, it will be the large platforms that will have to prove that their interfaces are safe for minors, and not the other way around. Until now, it was necessary to prove that a platform was harmful in order to be able to act against it. With the new law, this principle is reversed and it is established that an independent auditor will have to validate each company's plans. Furthermore, the Commission will be able to investigate and sanction companies that fail to comply with the rule in just 90 days.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, already announced on Wednesday her intention to ban access to social networks for those under 13 and to limit their use for those under 15. As she detailed this Thursday, the restrictions will be gradual depending on age. Up to 13 years old, children will not be able to have access to platforms or their own devices, only video services suitable for children, with the supervision of parents or a guardian, and with a maximum of one hour a day. From this age until 15, they will have "mini-accounts" created by tutors within their own account, with limited social contact and a maximum of 1 hour a day. From the age of 15 until the age of majority, adolescents will be able to create their own account autonomously on the networks, which, mind you, will have to have a safe design.
Regardless of the minor's age, Brussels will force platforms to eliminate addictive features: infinite content scrolling (scroll), reward mechanisms, live broadcasts (livestream), and instant notifications (push) at night will be prohibited. It will also prevent strangers from being able to contact any minor, ensure profiles are private, and guarantee that the camera, microphone, and geolocation are disabled by default. Another novelty included in the regulation has to do with artificial intelligence chatbots, which must be disabled by default and will not be allowed to simulate relationships that generate emotional dependency.
Age verification
How will it be verified that a user is a minor? Here, Brussels establishes that this process must be reliable while also preserving the privacy of the users. In this regard, it proposes using the European age verification application (currently in the deployment phase), which does not retain identity documents or biometric data. Platforms will have to carry out this verification process when a user opens a new account. Regarding existing accounts, they will have to estimate the age based on reasonable indications (for example, the account creation date or if there is credit card data). In any case, on this point, it makes clear that the member states are still working on it.
The regulation is based on the recommendations of a panel of experts that Von der Leyen convened to prepare a report on how to integrate online child safety into the European legal framework. Before it begins to be applied, it must be validated by the member states and the European Parliament.
The Commission's measure is more restrictive than the one proposed by the Spanish government, which in February announced that it would ban access to networks for those under 16, and also than the one proposed by the French government, which established the restriction starting at 15.
Seven out of ten minors use screens for more than two hours a day, the recommended maximum
Spanish children and adolescents spend an average of 215.5 minutes a day in front of screens, more than three and a half hours, according to a report by the Gasol Foundation and the Ministry of Health presented this Wednesday. Seven out of ten thus exceed the two hours per day, the recommended maximum and the equivalent of spending nearly two whole months a year in front of screens.
The study, prepared based on data from 6,170 participants between 8 and 16 years old, points out that usage is especially high among adolescents. The average is 187 minutes per day during the week, but it rises to 287 minutes during the weekends. The data do not distinguish between recreational and educational use, but they do point out that the time increases as the educational stage progresses, reaching 296 minutes in the final year of secondary school.
Screen use also increases in more vulnerable socioeconomic environments and in families where parents do not have university studies or do not work. The foundation warns that intensive screen use can affect different areas of minors' lives, such as sleep, physical activity, nutrition, and emotional well-being. In addition, 29% of students participating in the latest PISA report declare they suffer from frequent distractions associated with screen use, which are related to lower academic performance.