Doherty calls for immediate introduction of social media age verification

Fine Gael MEP for Dublin Regina Doherty has called on the European Commission to implement their plan for age verification on social media.

At present, the European Commission only plans to implement the plan by the end of 2026, but Doherty says the issue is too urgent wo wait.

The Digital Services Act and Electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Transactions regulation is in the early stages of implementation, with digital wallets for age verification being developed to protect minors on large social media platforms.

While pilots have begun and tenders have been issued, the current plan would only see verification become widespread by the end of 2026.

Doherty said “we can all see now the damage being done to children accessing social media platforms at too young an age, and content that we see daily on most of these big platforms has the potential to be really harmful to young eyes. Age verification is a priority but under the current plan it won’t come into force for nearly two more years, that’s just not good enough.

“The new Commission, working with the big platforms, should immediately put into place a plan to ensure age verification becomes mandatory in the first 100 days of their mandate.”

She said that the Comission must “begin protecting young people from some of the dangers of the online world. Meta, Twitter and Tiktok all agree, no child under the age of 13 should have access to their sites.”

“The European Commission agrees too; in the technologically advanced age we find ourselves in, for the sake of the mental health of young minds, we should be able to restrict use of these platforms to the minimum age and up.”

“Some countries have begun to look at implementing their own methods, and the European Commission has started a pilot but we need a harmonised European-wide solution now.”