Loading story…
The European Commission is reportedly preparing an EU Kids Act that would curb unsupervised access by children under 15 to social-media and video-sharing platforms, AI chatbots or companion services, and online games. The draft would require age verification during account creation and before online-game downloads, restrict addictive design patterns and harmful recommendation feeds, and extend obligations to app stores; noncompliant organizations could face fines of up to 6% of worldwide annual revenue.
The proposal reportedly includes stricter protections for under-13s and limited service functionality for users below 15, with an age-verification “Mini-Wallet” envisioned to validate age using identity documents and facial-biometric comparison before sharing an age signal with services. Critics warn that identity-based checks could burden parents, expose sensitive identity and custody data, weaken anonymity and access to information, and create surveillance-enabling infrastructure. The measure remains a draft and must be approved by EU member states and the European Parliament, leaving its final thresholds, enforcement approach, and implementation date unresolved.
See the reporting duties and controls this puts on the clock.
3 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
The European Commission is reported to be proposing the EU Kids Act, establishing age-based restrictions and supervised accounts for covered online services, including social media, video platforms, chatbots, and games. The draft also includes measures against addictive platform designs and harmful feeds, with potential fines of up to 6% of annual global sales for violations.
The Commission presented a proposed age-verification application called Mini-Wallet, intended to provide services with a data-minimized age signal. The design described would use identity documents and biometric facial comparison against the document photograph.
Brussels identified infinite scrolling, autoplay, and push notifications as concerning platform features and questioned whether Meta was adequately preventing younger children from accessing its platforms.
Vulnerabilities, threat actors, malware, products, organizations, and breaches Mallory has linked to this story.
See what this changes for your reporting obligations and which controls it puts on the clock.
2 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
Map indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
The **European Commission** issued preliminary findings that **TikTok’s product design**—including *infinite scroll*, *autoplay*, *push notifications*, and *personalized recommendations*—may breach the EU **Digital Services Act (DSA)** by failing to adequately assess and mitigate risks to users’ physical and mental well-being, particularly for **minors and vulnerable users**. If confirmed, the Commission said the violations could result in penalties of up to **6% of TikTok’s global annual turnover**, and it signaled expected design changes such as **screen-time breaks**, adjustments to recommendation systems, and disabling or reducing features deemed to drive compulsive use. Separately, **Spain** announced plans to **ban social media access for children under 16** and require **age verification** by platforms, aligning with a broader European trend toward statutory restrictions on minors’ social media use. The announcement follows similar initiatives across Europe, including Australia’s under-16 restriction (cited as precedent), the Netherlands’ push to bar under-15s, French legislation targeting under-14s, and the UK studying a ban for children 15 and under—indicating accelerating regulatory pressure on platforms to implement enforceable child-safety and access controls.
Jun 29, 2026
UK regulators **Ofcom** and the **Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)** issued warnings to major social media and video platforms (including **Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube**) demanding “urgent steps” to implement more robust **age assurance** controls to prevent access by children under 13. Regulators signaled potential enforcement if platforms continue relying primarily on easily bypassed self-declared ages, arguing this enables unlawful collection and use of children’s data and exposes under-13s to services not designed for them; Ofcom requested companies report back on their plans by the end of April. In the US, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the **Kids Internet and Digital Safety (KIDS) Act** on a party-line vote amid Democratic objections that the bill could reduce platform accountability for harms to minors. Criticisms focused on provisions that could **preempt certain state laws**, a **knowledge requirement** that opponents argue may let companies claim ignorance of minors’ presence, and the lack of a proactive **“duty of care”** requirement; proposed amendments to strengthen protections were not adopted.
Jun 29, 2026
The UK government said it is considering restricting or banning social media access for children, with Prime Minister **Keir Starmer** stating that “no option is off the table.” Reported options include improving **age assurance** technology, raising the digital age of consent, imposing phone curfews, and limiting platform design practices associated with compulsive use (including “infinite scrolling”), alongside publishing evidence-based screen-time guidance for parents and tightening school enforcement around phone use. In Parliament, momentum is being driven in part by a proposed amendment to the **Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill** that would require regulated user-to-user services to deploy “highly-effective” age assurance measures to prevent under-16s from becoming users, and would also task the UK’s chief medical officers with publishing age-based advice on children’s social media use. UK officials also indicated they plan to engage with Australia to learn from its under-16 social media restrictions, which Australian authorities said led to millions of account deactivations shortly after implementation.
Jun 29, 2026