Online platforms will not be obliged to check the age of the users, the European Commission announces. Brussels rejects a request of 12 Member States
Social networks, photo: © Mikhail Primakov | Dreamstime.com
The European Commission excluded Monday the opportunity to impose online platforms to use users' age tools, rejecting a request formulated by 12 EU Member States, reports EFE. taken over by Agerpres.
Within the Law on digital services, which obliges companies to combat illegal contents, the European Commission will present in mid -July the guidelines that online platforms must follow to protect the minors.
In this context, the ministers of digitalization in Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the Walloon region of Belgium sent a letter to the Vice -President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, and to the European Commission for the European Commission And competences, Roxana Minzatu, asking the community executive to impose platforms to use tools that allow the age of users.
“The crisis that affects the psychic health and the well-being of our children has reached a critical point, exacerbated by the uncontrolled extension of the social platforms, which prioritize participation to the detriment of safety,” the letter is motivated.
Responding to this request, the vice -president Henna Virkkunen said that the Community Executive “did not work on such an approach in the sense that it becomes mandatory for everyone”, as the Law on digital services, by which the European Commission elaborates its directives in this chapter, does not provide “the basis for checking age”.
Instead, the European Commission encourages platforms to use tools to verify users' age when providing services to people over 18 – such as selling alcohol, pornography or online gambling – but does not require them to do so.
Also, the European Commission authorizes these platforms to estimate the age of customers when the terms and conditions of the platform allow an account for people under 18 years of age, thus ensuring a balance between the protection of minors and the right to confidentiality.
