Today, the Special Panel on child online safety advising President von der Leyen on child online safety, convened for a second meeting. Today's meeting focused on current EU rules and initiatives to protect minors online, shared by experts advising Member States, as well as international approaches, such as Australia's social media minimum age. This meeting follows yesterday's presentation by the Commission of the final EU age verification app, the most privacy-preserving and user-friendly tool to protect children online.
President Ursula von der Leyen, said: "We must protect our children in the online world, just as we do in the offline world. And for that, we need a harmonised European approach. Yesterday, I presented our EU age verification app - this is our European solution. With the highest privacy standards in the world. I encourage all our Member States to start customising our app so it can be used by citizens soon. Because this tool will help parents protect their children across platforms."
The participants of the full-day meeting included youth representatives, legal specialists, computer scientists, medical professionals and child rights advocates. The discussions focused on new and improved approaches at EU level, as well as non-legislative initiatives that can ensure children are safer online.
The meeting builds on insights from the first panel meeting , which examined the latest research on the opportunities and risks associated with children's online activities, such as social media, gaming, AI applications and messaging platforms.
