In a nutshell: Von der Leyen plans to submit an EU-wide legislative proposal for a minimum age requirement for social media by summer 2026.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that the European Commission could present a regulatory proposal to raise the minimum age for social media use this summer. This is being driven by growing concerns about child protection online.
Von der Leyen made her remarks at a conference in Copenhagen focused on protecting children in the age of artificial intelligence. She emphasized that the Commission was “considering a delay in access to social media” and that a legislative draft could be drawn up by summer based on the results of an expert-led review. However, she noted this was a matter for careful consideration and she did not want to prejudge the conclusions.
Several EU countries, including France, have already advocated for raising the age limit to 15 years. Von der Leyen pointed to Australia as a model, which has already set the minimum age at 16 years. Her reasoning: “Childhood and early adolescence are formative years in which children should build resilience – that’s why they need more time.” The Commission President made clear that a raised minimum age does not reduce the responsibility of platform operators; they remain obliged to design their offerings “by design” securely, as the Digital Services Act (DSA) requires.
Practical implementation depends on reliable age verification. Von der Leyen pointed to a newly launched EU age verification app, which she described in Copenhagen as functional – although the app has already raised significant security concerns that have been publicly criticized.
Source: ainews-dev.lumi-systems.io · Published 12 May 2026
Lumi AI News — AI-assisted curation pursuant to Article 50 EU AI Act. Paraphrasing and classification by Lumi News Pipeline v1.5.2.