Policy document
Regulating digital spaces for child safety: a proposal for EU age restrictions for social media
Fabiola Bas Palomares ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This position paper by Child Helpline International proposes an EU policy approach to age restrictions on social media that protects children from online harms while respecting their rights and evolving autonomy. Rather than blunt age-based bans, the authors recommend binding safety-by-design obligations that platforms must meet, with higher safeguards for children aged 13–15. The paper argues that current EU regulation has not produced tangible changes to platform design or safety measures, and calls for enforceable standards instead of simply restricting access to designated platforms.
Key points
- Age restrictions alone without safeguards risk exacerbating harm and disproportionately limiting children's rights and agency
- Children continue to be exposed to serious risks from harmful content and addictive design despite 4+ years of EU regulatory effort
- The paper advocates for safety-by-design obligations and binding, enforceable standards rather than blunt restrictions on designated platforms
- An age-tiered approach is proposed with higher safeguards for children aged 13–15
- Regulation should secure children's access to help and support on affected platforms to mitigate risks of exclusion and circumvention
Limitations
This is a position paper proposing policy recommendations rather than an evaluation of existing interventions or empirical research. It does not provide data on the prevalence or severity of specific online harms to children, nor does it evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed regulatory approach.
Abstract
Age restrictions on social media are not inherently problematic, but applied without safeguards, they risk exacerbating harm and disproportionately limiting children’s rights and agency. We propose below a proportionate and child-rights respecting policy approach to operationalize age restrictions. After over 4 years of continued effort by the EU to regulate online platforms, the real effects on the design and safety measures deployed by tech platforms remains in question as independent research and child helpline evidence shows that children continue to be exposed to serious risks related to harmful content and addictive design. We share the frustration of parents, caregivers, educators, civil society and policy makers at the absence of tangible results. During the past months we have been working hard with stakeholders to develop child rights respecting solutions to the challenges children face online. We have participated in discussions with tech experts and other child rights organizations for over a year and participated in joint statements calling for a nuanced and proportionate approach that would respect children’s evolving capacities and autonomy. Child Helpline International proudly participated to the Special Panel on online child safety convened by President Ursula Von Der Leyen. Listening to the experiences that children share with our member child helplines every day, it has become clear that a nuanced but workable regulatory approach is needed. The risks children encounter on online platforms today are the result of design failures that effective regulation can oblige providers to fix, and of commercial decisions that regulation can require them to undo and cease. The current legislative cycle is a critical opportunity to build a framework of operational safety-by-design obligations. And recognizing the potential side effects of exclusion and circumvention linked to any age restriction, such a framework should secure children’s access to help and support in all affected online platforms. For that, the EU must move away from blunt restrictions on a small number of designated social media platforms and towards a binding, enforceable standard against which providers must demonstrate that their service is safe for the children they intend to be accessible to. This echoes the joint statement by over 140 experts calling the EU to regulate tech, not kids. In this position paper, we propose an age-tiered approach by which providers must meet binding safety pre-conditions to be accessible to children, with higher safeguards for children aged 13 – 15. Read the position paper The post Regulating digital spaces for child safety: a proposal for EU age restrictions for social media appeared first on Child Helpline International.