On the interface site a report was published on the protection of minors online. From the executive summary of the report:

Children and young people today grow up in a highly connected digital environment that provides access to educational content, entertainment, and peer communities but also exposes them to significant risks including cyberbullying, grooming, harmful or pornographic content, addictive design features, and the misuse of personal data. These risks are not only well documented in academic literature and civil society reports; they have also become a central concern for policymakers at the European Union (EU) and EU Member State levels.

In early June 2025, French president Emmanuel Macron announced his intention to have social media banned in France for under-15s ‘in the coming months’ if no progress was made at the EU level on this matter. Since then, the French Delegate Minister for AI and Digital Affairs, Clara Chappaz, has been on a crusade to rally other Member States to the cause. Cyprus, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, and Spain soon joined forces in supporting the idea of having EU-wide age check mechanisms. Just over two weeks after President Macron’s announcement, 21 ministers from 13 Member States signed an op-ed asking to take decisive action ‘now’ to protect children online. For them, the existing legal framework ‘remains insufficient’.

Over the past fifteen years, though, the EU has adopted an increasingly dense set of measures and instruments to protect minors online. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), the Digital Services Act (DSA), and the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) all contain provisions that specifically address children’s vulnerabilities. Complementary non-binding instruments—such as the Better Internet for Kids+ (BIK+) Strategy—reinforce the EU’s commitment to providing a safe and empowering digital environment for minors. At the Member State level, governments have introduced their own rules and enforcement models, notably France with its Loi SREN and Germany with its long-standing Jugendmedienschutz-Staatsvertrag.

However, despite these initiatives, minors remain insufficiently protected. The gap between what the existing framework requires and what happens in practice is striking. This paper’s central argument is that the key problem today is not a lack of legislation or awareness but a failure of implementation and enforcement. (…)

The central message is that, in the short run, more legislation is not the solution. Instead, the EU and Member States should focus on making the existing rules work by ensuring that minors’ rights are not just recognised in law but protected in practice. Only by closing the implementation gap can Europe fulfil its ambition of providing children with a digital environment that is truly safe, empowering, and respectful of their rights.

It fits in well with my view of fundamental rights in the EU: fine words and high aspirations, but when it comes down to it, they are not enforced.