Social media, age verification to protect minors online

The free European age verification app is technically ready and will soon be available to citizens. This is the announcement made this week by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in the same week as the second meeting of the EU 'Special panel on child safety online' took place, the results of which are expected to lead to a strengthening of digital safety for children online by this summer.

The app will allow users to prove their age when accessing online platforms, just as shops ask for ID from those buying alcoholic beverages. The commitment of the European institutions has intensified in recent times - think of the investigations launched against TikTok and Grok, the artificial intelligence of X - also because, recalled von der Leyen, one in six children are victims of online bullying while one in eight is an online bully.

Social media platforms have highly addictive designs that lead to an endless scrolling which, in turn, fuels addiction, including behavioural addiction, and can generate states of anxiety, depression, aggression and self-harm, as Stefano Vicari, director of child neuropsychiatry at the Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital, recently recalled. For Vicari, however, it is important that, alongside the introduction of bans, an educational campaign involving adults is put in place. In Italia, for example, the Patti Digitali Ets Foundation has more than 20,500 families and more than 240 local groups active in 16 regions calling for both more rules and more digital education. From Italia, moreover, the class action injunction against TikTok, Facebook and Instagram, whose first court cases are expected in May.

The Italian government is also aware of the risks that young people can run. Participating on Thursday in a videoconference on possible national and European initiatives to strengthen the security of the digital space for minors, President Meloni recalled the measures taken so far in Italia: the banning the use of smartphones in the classroom; the verification of the age of majority for access to online pornographic material; the parental control for certain sites and platforms; the possibility of removing online content deemed harmful to psycho-physical development or inciting hatred or violence; the gradual spread of digital and media literacy courses in middle and high schools, the so-called 'digital patent'.

There remains, however, a bipartisan proposal on the protection of minors online and the prohibition of use by children under 15 years of age in Parliament, from October 2025.