The European Commission has adopted the EU KIDS Act, a legislative proposal aimed at strengthening online safety protections for children across the European Union.
The proposal would prohibit social media platforms from allowing access to children under the age of 13. It would also set an EU-wide minimum age of 15 for minors to open their own account, described by the Commission as a gradual approach to age-based access controls.
The measure sits alongside, rather than within, the EU AI Act, but the two frameworks are likely to intersect in practice. Many social media platforms rely on AI-driven recommender systems, content moderation tools, and age-verification or age-estimation technologies, some of which may fall within scope of the AI Act depending on their function and risk classification.
Organisations that operate platforms accessible to minors in the EU should note that age-verification and age-estimation systems are an area of active regulatory attention. Where such systems use AI to infer a user's age or profile behaviour, they may attract obligations under the AI Act in addition to any requirements introduced by the KIDS Act.
As the proposal moves through the EU legislative process, its final scope and interaction with existing digital and AI legislation, including the Digital Services Act and the AI Act, are likely to be clarified further.
For organisations preparing for the EU AI Act, this development is a reminder that compliance planning should account for overlapping EU digital regulation. As a compliance matter, platforms serving or potentially serving minors should begin mapping which of their systems, particularly age assurance and recommendation technologies, could be affected by both frameworks.