France sets 15 as minimum age for social media nationwide

Ever the libertine, France has set its social media minimum age at 15 years, adding an extra year of scrolling to age assurance legislation following in Australia’s path.

France 24 reports that the nation’s two houses of parliament have given final approval to a law restricting social media platforms to users 15 years and older. This makes it the first country in the EU to formally place age-based regulations on social sites, and the second globally.

The rule is to be implemented in two stages. The first will focus on new accounts: per the BBC, starting in September, users under 15 will not be able to open accounts and age verification will be required on all new accounts. As of January, the rule will extend to all accounts, “meaning everyone in France will have to prove they are over 15 to use social media.”

That will require highly effective, privacy preserving online age assurance tools – and getting the public to trust them.

Indeed, French Digital Minister Anne Le Hénanff justified the brusque implementation by noting that “age-verification tools already exist.” She should know: the French government has already passed laws placing age verification requirements on adult content sites, with a requirement for a double-blind option that retains anonymity.

Social media laws widely popular; EU age verification app less so

The new French regulation requires all social media platforms – not just the largest. That has some of Macron’s critics worried about scope. Another concern is enforcement, which will largely fall to the European Commission, rather than French regulators.

On tech, the law requires sites to use age assurance tech that has been approved by the privacy regulator, Arcom. One such tool is the white label age verification app that the European Commission developed with support from Scytales, intended as a stopgap until the EU Digital Identity Wallet scheme takes effect at the end of 2026.

The commission has urged EU Member States to make use of the app and customize it for local needs. But uptake has not been as enthusiastic as the commission might have hoped, after a somewhat rocky launch that necessitated some quick privacy fixes.

Nonetheless, enthusiasm for age restrictions on social media remains high among the public – and, therefore, with politicians. Outgoing French President Emmanuel Macron has made it a key piece of his final policies (which has drawn some accusations of political opportunism, as he leaves office after a decade). A report in DW quotes a speech Macron gave in April to French high school students. “We left you in this jungle and it robbed you of your attention,” the president said. “We need to slow down and help you become adults, and above all citizens.”

Social media platforms selling surveillance dystopia model

For some – and especially some in the U.S. – social media age restrictions are not the citizenship-building tool Macron imagines. An article in Fortune offers the view from Wall Street, where child-safety laws are two amendments away from being “an identity mandate for the entire user base.” The piece quotes David Inserra, a “fellow for free expression and technology” at the libertarian Cato Institute, who also sits on TikTok’s U.S. Content Advisory Council.

“It’s not just about verifying the age of kids,” Inserra says. “To verify the age of kids, you have to verify the age of everyone, and that means everyone’s ID.”

The factual fragility of that statement is ultimately less important than the underlying notion: that collecting user data for the purpose of age verification is intrusive to privacy, while a social media app that relies on kids broadcasting their daily lives to millions – and collects reams of their data – is merely a robust tool for free speech.

It is in the interest of TikTok and its shareholders to paint Australia’s social media minimum age law as a failure, which Inserra does. Fortune likewise leans into the circumvention argument, while failing to mention that special media platforms have largely failed to implement highly effective age checks – which is to say that, typically, a tool won’t work if you don’t use it.

Fortune also repeats the idea that the UK is considering banning virtual private networks (VPNs) as a way to crack down on circumvention. “They’re also going after VPNs, or considering going after VPNs, in the UK, because once again that’s a way around the system,” Inserra says. Contrast that with the words of UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall from last week: “VPNs have legitimate privacy and security uses and we will therefore not age-gate or ban them.”

Not freedom TikTok fears losing, but money

The social media sector would have everyone believe that the debate is between online age checks and online freedom. That is, fundamentally, a misdirection; social media companies object to age checks for one genuine reason, which is that they risk hurting the bottom line. Witness social gaming site Roblox, which faces a lawsuit from its investors after a fumbled age assurance rollout sent user numbers plunging, with stock prices following suit. The company is reported to have lost $6.7 billion in market capitalization.

As Fortune points out, the U.S. is likely to be much more resistant to any blanket federal legislation on online age assurance. Its constitution and culture have made a conveniently sacred cow out of free speech as an abstract ideal, and opponents of age checks have that foundational document and its status to reach for in shaping legal arguments.

But as countries around the world accept the fact that the internet and our relationship with it has changed since the dot-com days, inasmuch as it is now the private fiefdom of a few massive tech companies, new regulatory efforts are likely to continue globally. The U.S. may find itself yet again isolated in its zeal to protect citizens’ rights to things that hurt their children.

Article Topics

age verification  |  double-blind age assurance  |  EU age verification  |  France  |  legislation  |  social media