EU Kids Act: age checks for everyone, in the name of children
Censorship blocking · 24.09.2026

The European Commission has figured out how to protect kids from the internet: verify literally everyone's age. Meet the EU Kids Act — a bill introduced last week.

The idea is nicely packaged: protect children from the risks of social media, video platforms, and AI systems through age thresholds. The scheme is simple: under 13 — no accounts on "risky" social networks; 13 to 15 — only under parental supervision; 15 to 18 — an independent account in a "safe environment." Full access — adults only. And a platform counts as risky if it has personalized recommendations or enables "continuous content consumption" — which is basically every mainstream service out there.

For this to work, you need blanket age verification through a unified EU system. Parents will have to prove they're actually parents — another layer of verification on top of verification. Age gates generally do a poor job at this: they hit civil liberties, reduce safety, create barriers to internet access for vulnerable groups, and end up strengthening the position of Big Tech.

To be fair: the law doesn't impose a total ban — it distinguishes between age groups and risk levels, at least some attempt at proportionality. A month ago, a French court ruled that an undifferentiated ban on social media was unconstitutional. But the EU Kids Act has no exemptions for small and medium businesses — only for non-profit encyclopedias, scientific repositories, and open-source platforms. Everyone else will either have to pay for expensive verification or play it safe and apply it to all users.

The second part of the law — "safety by default" — covers social networks, games, AI chatbots, and app stores. A ban on infinite scroll, control over recommendations, protection from emotional dependency in conversations with chatbots — sounds decent, until you remember that the platforms themselves will be the ones deciding what counts as "safe," and the line between moderation and censorship is razor-thin.

Meanwhile, the law passed without a full impact assessment — the procedure that normally requires evaluating alternatives and consulting all stakeholders. The authors are calling on EU lawmakers to pull the teeth out of the most harmful proposals before good intentions turn into a minefield for the privacy of all users — not just children.

Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/eu-kids-act-wont-keep-internet-accountable-and-trustworthy