Meta advocates for uniform EU guidelines that ensure the protection of children and young people in the digital space. The draft includes age verification, parental consent and age-appropriate content standards for apps used by teenagers.
The rapid evolution of technology makes it difficult for parents to keep track of the many apps their teens use. In addition, despite advances such as teen accounts on Instagram, there is still a lack of a uniform solution for age verification and age-appropriate content. Meta emphasized in an announcement:
That’s why we as an industry need to work with legislators to find simple and effective solutions to better support parents.
Against this background, the group is committed to a new EU regulation that offers teenagers clear and uniform protection on the Internet. And parents also want uniform guidelines: A current survey Morning Consult among European parents found that 78 percent of German parents surveyed support legislation requiring children under 16 to have parental permission to download apps.
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Meta presents draft EU-wide guidelines for protecting children and young people online
Against this background, Meta is dedicated to protecting children and young people online – not just on its own platforms, but in all online activities. The group is committed to EU-wide guidelines that are intended to protect children and young people in all online activities and has already presented a draft of EU guidelines.
These include uniform protective measures for all member states, notification to parents of app downloads by young people under the age of 16, central age verification through app stores or operating systems without passing on sensitive data to individual apps, and the development of uniform content standards and control tools for apps used by teenagers be used.
Simplified age verification and parental consent
Meta suggests that when teenagers download apps, the operating system or app store notifies parents so they can grant approval – similar to purchase confirmations. This solution simplifies age verification and protects privacy by only requiring sensitive identification data to be submitted once. Since the process varies depending on the country, a uniform regulation at European level is required to standardize protection.
Uniform standards for age-appropriate content
Meta calls for industry-wide standards for age-appropriate content that parents can rely on, as different platforms have different rules and processes. Built-in protections should apply to all apps used by teens, especially social media apps that must provide parental control tools such as time limits. There should also be a broader vote on what content is considered age-appropriate, similar to films and video games.
Harmonization of regulation in the EU
Meta calls for an EU-wide regulation that sets uniform standards for all apps used by teenagers in order to better protect parents and teenagers. A recent consultation on the Digital Services Act supports this approach, which has also been well received by other digital platforms and parents. The survey shows that almost 75 percent of European parents support a Europe-wide law requiring parental consent for app downloads by teenagers under 16.
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Source: onlinemarketing.de
