EU Child-Safety Panel Delivers Report
Child Safety Report Sets the DFA’s Direction as S&D Eyes the Lead and Meta Faces Addictive-Design Scrutiny
The co-chairs of the European Commission’s Special Panel on child safety online have published and presented their final report, “Child Safety Online: Protecting and Empowering Minors in a Digital World”, to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The Commission-established panel brought together experts, practitioners and youth and parent representatives to assess online risks to minors and potential age restrictions for social media. Although independent, the report is intended to inform future EU action and explicitly identifies the Digital Fairness Act and the revision of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation as key legislative opportunities. The DFA is expected to be highly influenced by the report.
Some recommendations include:
A harmonised EU-wide access restriction below 13 for “social media+”, expressly including AI companions, with access permitted only under parental supervision or for educational purposes. Member States could impose higher thresholds from age 13.
Harmonised and adaptable design rules covering infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications and problematic personalised recommender systems.
A reversal of the burden of proof: providers should demonstrate that services and features are safe for minors before making them accessible; adult features should remain disabled until effective age assurance.
Age assurance should avoid processing identity documents or biometric data for age estimation, with zero-knowledge proofs specifically recommended to prevent identification and tracking.
The DFA should establish a baseline applicable across apps, video games, streaming, e-commerce and other commercial services, not only large platforms. The report also links addictive design to potential product-defect liability, including medically recognised mental harm.
S&D Reportedly Set to Lead on the DFA
According to Euractiv, the S&D Group is expected to secure Parliament’s rapporteurship for the Digital Fairness Act. Christel Schaldemose is a possible candidate; she previously served as Parliament’s rapporteur on the Digital Services Act.
Commission Finds Meta’s Addictive Design in Preliminary Breach of the DSA
On July 10th 2026, the European Commission has preliminarily found Meta in breach of the Digital Services Act over the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook. The case targets infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and highly personalised recommender systems, with the Commission concluding that Meta failed both to assess their effects adequately and to implement effective mitigation measures. Default teen time-management tools were considered too easy to dismiss, while parental controls placed excessive technical and practical burdens on parents. The Commission suggests disabling autoplay and infinite scroll by default, introducing effective screen-time breaks and reducing the engagement orientation of recommender systems.
The case is an important test of how far the DSA’s systemic-risk framework can address addictive design through enforcement. It may also strengthen the case for the DFA to establish clearer design requirements or specific prohibited practices applicable beyond the largest online platforms and across a broader range of consumer-facing digital services.
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