The EU KIDS Act is a legislative proposal to make online services safe by design and to regulate minors’ access to social media, video-sharing platforms, games and AI companions. It frames digital literacy like learning to drive: young people should enjoy benefits only when able to manage risks. Citing rising screen time (average 13-18 year-olds spend 4.5 hours daily on school days and 6.1 at weekends) and worrying wellbeing indicators - only half of 9-16 year-olds feel safe online, 38% report sleep problems linked to social media, 33% report stress or anxiety, and cyberbullying is a top concern - the measure aims to reduce harms to health and safety.
Substantively the Act rests on four pillars: a social-media age delay with three access phases (no personal accounts from ages 3-12; guardian-supervised “mini” accounts at 13-14 with limited features; autonomous accounts from 15-17 within safe-by-design environments); mandatory safety-by-design rules (no addictive features like infinite scroll or nocturnal push notifications, child-safe recommender algorithms, private-by-default settings, easy parental controls, no livestreaming for minors); age-assurance using an EU tool or privacy-preserving third-party checks; and stronger enforcement that shifts burden of proof onto very large platforms, requires ex-ante safety reports, fast 90-day investigations and Commission review of new features for platforms with 45 million+ monthly EU users. Some informational services like encyclopedias, educational platforms and news are exempt.
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