Think tanks associated with centre-left parties in Spain, Germany, France, Italy and Portugal are calling for the European Union’s proposed Kids Act to go beyond age limits and screen-time restrictions. Their main argument is that regulation should change the products and market conditions that shape children’s online experiences, not place the burden primarily on children and their parents.
The European Commission’s initiative, presented in September, is intended to reduce potential harms linked to social networks, online video games and artificial-intelligence chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. The proposals include banning access for children under 13, introducing a gradual entry into online services and limiting screen exposure to one hour a day until the age of 15. The proposal remains pending approval.
The think tanks want the legislation to include interoperability. This would allow users of one platform to access, read and write on another without opening a new account or leaving their existing service. In their view, that could make platforms less closed and reduce users’ dependence on a single digital space.
The discussion was hosted in Valencia from 2 to 4 September by Fundación Avanza, an organisation linked to Spain’s PSOE. Its director general, Berna León, said the meeting was intended to help political parties examine the issue in greater depth. After three days of talks, the participating organisations prepared a document that they plan to present in Brussels to members of the European Parliament from different political groups.
The document argues that restrictions aimed at minors will be insufficient unless companies face stronger incentives to change their behaviour. It says the proposed rules should have enough enforcement power to deter businesses that have repeatedly breached regulations and treated fines as an ordinary cost of operating.
The think tanks also point to what they describe as an imbalance of power between large technology companies and public institutions. According to their document, the companies combine substantial economic resources, direct political access and public contracts that can create institutional dependence. It notes that European governments award technology contracts worth hundreds of millions of euros to companies they are also trying to regulate.
For the organisations involved, interoperability could help reduce the market power of major platforms. León argued that it could make it possible to access a service without depending entirely on its registration system and could limit users’ exposure to a platform’s own recommendation system. He added that technology companies had previously argued that interoperability was technically unworkable, but that advances in artificial intelligence had changed the situation.
The proposals also include requiring every digital service launched on the market to pass an inspection certifying that it is safe for minors. The European Commission would, in their view, need the power to suspend harmful functions preventively and to impose fines large enough that paying them would not be an acceptable business expense.
The document further recommends removing the so-called mini-accounts for 13- and 14-year-olds, which require parental consent. Its authors argue that responsibility for making a digital product safe should rest with the platform rather than with parents.
The debate comes as the Commission highlights the amount of time young people spend online. Ursula von der Leyen said that young people in Europe spend an average of four to six hours a day in front of screens, while those who began using social networks before the age of 10 spend around seven or eight hours online each day.
Sources: El País Tecnología.