EU to require platforms prove safety by design before allowing under-13s access

On July 13, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced plans for legislation this autumn restricting under-13s to supervised, time-limited social media access, framing the approach as phased and age-appropriate rather than a full ban. The proposal follows an expert panel recommendation that platforms should have "restricted access to children under the age of 13 in the EU" until they demonstrate their services are safe by design.

The move explicitly rejects the Australia model. Australia was the first country to pass legislation banning under-16s from social media, which came into effect in December 2025, but evidence released in March 2026 shows seven in 10 underage children continue to hold accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, forcing the Australian government to consider strengthening the law.

Von der Leyen's announcement follows recommendations from the Special Panel on Child Safety Online, delivered July 13. The panel found that the "most convincing" argument was to ban toddlers from screens and digital platforms, and that children under 13 should only be allowed to use social media under adult supervision and for limited periods.

The burden flips to platforms

The expert report states: "The burden of proof needs to be on providers, not regulators, parents and children". This shifts responsibility from parents and users to the companies building the products.

The panel calls for binding rules requiring platforms to remove or disable specific harmful design features by default, including infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications and personalised recommendation systems tuned for maximum engagement. Von der Leyen noted infinite scrolling as one of the "addictive" traits tech companies must address, and last week the Commission used its Digital Services Act to warn Meta that it needs to disable addictive design features such as infinite scrolling or risk a hefty fine.

What phased access means in practice

Von der Leyen said children under 13 should only have "time-limited" access under the supervision of parents, teachers or other caregivers. Teenagers should be given gradual access to platforms that can prove they are "age appropriate" and safe for them.

The expert report recommended no screens at all for babies and toddlers, supervised use of "age-appropriate social media" and devices for children ages 3 to 12 by parents or teachers, and "evolving autonomous use" of social media for those ages 13 to 18 that have "key safety features".

The European Commission is likely to come up with a proposal for the 27 member countries to weigh after the summer, with Von der Leyen confirming the Commission will review the panel's recommendations before presenting legislative proposals, adding: "Because childhood will not wait".

Age verification comes next

Many social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok already prohibit anyone under the age of 13 from signing up for an account, but those restrictions have been criticised for being too easy to get around and the EU's digital regulators accused Instagram's parent Meta Platforms earlier this year of failing to keep underage users off the site.

The European Commission is working on its own age verification app that will let users prove their age while keeping their identity anonymous, announced April 15, 2026. Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Spain will be the first to take up the technical solution with a view to integrating it into their national digital wallets or publishing a customised national age verification app on app stores.

The age verification solution became feature-ready on April 15, 2026 and can now be customised by Member States and market players, with Member States encouraged to roll out age verification by the end of 2026.

What this means for social media marketing

The implications for brands marketing in the EU are immediate and structural. The Digital Services Act already bans platforms from showing targeted advertising to minors. The DSA bans targeted advertisement to minors on online platforms, with Snapchat, TikTok and Meta's Instagram and Facebook no longer allowing advertisers to show targeted ads to underage users.

The Commission's guidelines set out a non-exhaustive list of proportionate and appropriate measures to protect children from online risks such as grooming, harmful content, problematic and addictive behaviours, as well as cyberbullying and harmful commercial practices.

Brands running influencer campaigns across Europe now face a compliance environment where the EU's Digital Services Act enforcement against TikTok and Instagram for addictive design, combined with the UK's ban on social media access for under-16s, means a campaign targeting young audiences in Frankfurt, Paris and London simultaneously requires three overlapping legal frameworks.

While primary DSA enforcement targets platforms as gatekeepers, brands that design campaigns around restricted platform behaviours, or that knowingly target youth audiences through non-compliant mechanisms, face indirect liability exposure and regulatory scrutiny, with UK advertising standards bodies and the ICO able to take action against brands whose campaigns violate child safety standards, independent of platform-level enforcement.

Europe's rejection of the blanket ban

The European Union has been mulling a social media ban since a push by EU states, including Greece and France, to limit access, with pressure intensifying for a bloc-wide ban like Australia's, but Von der Leyen called for "age-appropriate restrictions" rather than a total prohibition.

Last week the Commission told France that its proposed under-15 social media ban conflicts with the EU's Digital Services Act because requiring platforms to enforce age limits is a matter of EU jurisdiction, not national competence, with Denmark, Greece, Germany, Spain, Austria and Sweden facing the same constraint as they pursue similar national measures.

The expert panel warns that diverging national standards risk fragmenting the EU's digital single market, creating uneven protections for children and higher compliance costs for platforms, recommending a harmonised EU-wide floor at 13, with member states free to set higher precautionary thresholds above that age.

The commercial stakes

This is not just a policy shift. It is a redrawing of how platforms can operate commercially across the bloc. Platforms "must prove that their services do no harm," with Von der Leyen stating: "In Europe, whoever develops a product is responsible for its safety".

The practical consequence is that platforms cannot rely on terms of service to exclude children. A provider cannot rely solely on a clause in its terms and conditions prohibiting minors if it has not implemented effective measures to prevent minors' access, with platforms known to appeal to minors, marketed to minors, or with independent research showing minors use the service also considered accessible to minors.

For brands, the shift is from targeting based on declared user age to operating within environments where platform compliance is mandatory and auditable. The enforcement is real: In July 2025, the European Commission preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act for the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook.

The EU is not following Australia. It is building something more complex, more enforceable, and potentially more restrictive for platforms that cannot prove safety. The legislation expected this autumn will determine whether brands can reach under-13s at all in the EU, and under what tightly controlled conditions. Marketers working with platforms or planning youth-adjacent campaigns across Europe should model compliance now, not when the rules go live.