On July 14, the European Commission presented guidelines aimed at protecting minors online, alongside a prototype application for age verification as part of the Digital Services Act (DSA). These initiatives are designed to ensure that children and young people can safely navigate the internet while minimizing potential risks.

The guidelines focus on several key areas to enhance the safety and privacy of minors on online platforms. They address the issue of addictive platform designs, recommending that features encouraging excessive use, such as reward systems and read receipts, be disabled for minors. This aims to reduce their exposure to potentially harmful practices.

Another critical aspect of the guidelines is the prevention of cyberbullying. The Commission suggests that minors should have the ability to block or hide users and prohibits the sharing of content posted by minors without their explicit consent. This is intended to protect young users from unwanted exposure to harmful or intimate content.

The guidelines also tackle harmful content recommendations, urging platforms to prioritize explicit user preferences over browsing habits. If a young user indicates they do not wish to see certain types of content, it should not be recommended to them.

To minimize unwanted contact with strangers, the guidelines recommend that minors' accounts be set to private by default, making them invisible to users not on their friends list. This measure aims to reduce the risk of online interactions with unknown individuals.

The age verification application prototype aims to establish a standard for online age verification. It allows users to easily prove they are over 18 when accessing adult content while maintaining control over their personal information. Once age is verified, no personal data is retained, ensuring user privacy.

The application will be tested and customized in collaboration with member states, online platforms, and end-users, with initial trials in Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy. The technical specifications and open-source age verification plan will be available for market players to develop compliant solutions.

In the future, all member states will receive tailored implementation strategies to integrate the solution into their national digital wallets or publish localized applications for end-users. The Luxembourg competition authority will closely monitor the development of age verification applications.

The Digital Services Act primarily aims to create a safe and responsible online environment, imposing specific rules on online intermediary services, especially for very large platforms serving over 10% of the 450 million consumers in Europe.