Overview
- Germany’s paediatric association BVKJ said parents are failing to protect children and signalled support for a legal ban around 14 years, with spokesman Jakob Maske warning of clear harms to mental health and learning.
- Researchers led by Marco Gui tracked more than 5,000 Italian pupils and found that creating social‑media accounts before ninth grade was linked with worse standardized test scores, roughly a half‑year learning deficit in some subjects.
- National action is spreading: France has approved an under‑15 restriction set to take effect after the summer, Turkey’s parliament passed an under‑15 law pending the president’s signature, and Australia’s 2025 under‑16 ban showed high rates of youth circumvention.
- Germany’s Family Minister Karin Prien plans interim national rules and an EU pathway using the EUDI Wallet for age checks, but experts favour a 13‑year threshold and warn that technical limits and privacy risks complicate enforcement.
- The next phase will hinge on how regulators solve age verification without widening surveillance, how platforms and Big Tech lobbyists respond, and whether EU coordination can combine privacy safeguards with workable enforcement.