EU age assurance debate intensifies as Macron seeks bloc-wide social media law

French president Emmanuel Macron is calling on European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to support an EU-wide regulation putting a minimum age on social media platforms, with attendant requirements for age assurance measures, ahead of her State of the European Union (SOTEU) address next week.

France’s own social media legislation – one of the first efforts in Europe to follow the model set by Australia in December 2025, which has spurred the market for biometric age assurance solutions – hit a roadblock last month when the Constitutional Council ruled that it amounts to an infringement on free speech.

Macron’s appeal could be seen as a way to leapfrog the French council’s decision by hooking its fate to the stance of the bloc as a whole.

Reuters quotes a letter from Macron to von der Leyen, in which he states his belief that it has “now become essential to go further and, through a new European legislative text, harmonize a ban on access to social media platforms for children under the age of 15, in order to protect all children across the Union.”

The European Commission chief has prioritized many of the same online safety goals targeted by France’s stalled law, and could prove to be the ultimate arbiter of the fate of social media age laws in Europe.

Macron is preparing to vacate the French presidency in 2027, having served his maximum of two terms. With a presidential election in 2027, a change in government could alter France’s approach to social media regulation, underscoring why an EU-wide framework may prove more durable than national legislation.

Hybrid model more politically digestible: Khan

The SOTEU address could see Ursula von der Leyen pivot from the plan Macron is pushing toward something more malleable. In a post on LinkedIn, Ronny Khan, senior adviser for the Norwegian Digitalization Agency, suggests “the emerging model is moving away from a hard EU-wide prohibition and toward a minimum-age rule combined with parental authorization and platform-design obligations.”

That could see the bloc establish a harmonized baseline age with a parental consent requirement, but allow member states to increase it as they deem necessary.

But Khan notes, gesturing at Australia, that “a second policy pillar may ultimately be more consequential than the age limit itself: regulation of addictive platform design.”

Lack of movement risks policy fragmentation

Regardless of the shape it takes, a statement from von der Leyen on the age assurance issue is expected during the SOTEU address. And, for now, the regulatory momentum behind online safety legislation is still stronger than any geopolitical pushback.

A report in Euractiv quotes Micheál Martin, prime minister of Ireland, who says, with regard to the commitments expected in von der Leyen’s address, “we are anticipating fairly concrete proposals and ideas and I think there is an opportunity for a European-wide position in respect to protecting children online.”

That said, there is also a brewing concern that, should the Commission continue to drag its feet on the issue, national frameworks will become the preferred route for many nations, leading to regulatory fragmentation.

Privacy groups push for stronger safeguards

And, despite broad public support, there remain those who believe biometric age checks for social media are a shortcut to mass surveillance and the end of the free internet. EU Perspectives reports on a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) that is aiming to collect a million signatures opposing “mandatory digital identity and age checks online,” in order to win a public hearing in the European Parliament.

A stated goal of “Stop Killing The Internet: No Digital ID & No Age Verification” is “creating a wider public debate about how the internet should be governed without fragmenting it into national systems.” But in general, it argues for more responsibility for platforms and governments, and less for users. It calls for digital education, protections against predatory behaviour and curbs on addictive design.

Moritz Katzner, the general director for European affairs and the United States advisory at Stop Killing the Internet, says that while the Commission has freely offered its age verification tool, and methods such as double-blind architecture and zero knowledge proofs (ZKP) can limit the information disclosed to individual platforms, “my concern is about the wider infrastructure and the precedent it creates.”

Meanwhile, European Digital Rights (EDRi) has published commentary arguing that “there are ways to ensure online safety without resorting to widespread, mandatory age verification.”

“If lawmakers still insist on using age-gates, however, then it’s essential that this be done via tools which respect the highest standards of privacy, cybersecurity and data protection, and which are available to all without discrimination. The Commission promises a tool which supposedly respects these ‘highest standards’, but hasn’t delivered yet.”

The call from EDRi is for the European Commission to mandate the ZKP model for member states customizing its age assurance “blueprint” (or “white label app,” depending on the day), rather than simply recommending it, as it does now.

Yet even then, it says, “several governments do not intend to follow the Commission’s proposed technical specifications. This means that we could get 27 shades of age-verification apps, one for each Member State, with different designs, technologies and privacy protections.”

Toto, we’re not on Netscape anymore

The concern about whether or not the best privacy-preserving tools are being used is valid. As is worry about patchwork regulations.

Regrettably, EDRi concludes its argument with the sort of hyperbole that ignores the reality of what it is defending. “Age verification marks the end of free access to the internet,” it says. “We should refuse to build it – whether at EU or national level – while refusing is still an option.”

Statements such as this are loaded with assumptions that can no longer go uninterrogated. The notion of “free access to the internet” is screaming for clearer definition, and for an honest distinction between the internet writ large and what Big Tech has turned it into.

The online world is no longer a cute collection of HTML pages, Geocities accounts and Winamp players. Nearly everything online already has a gate of some kind: sign in using your email address, or create an account to proceed. (In Canada, where Biometric Update is headquartered, the BBC is now a subscription-based online service.) The free internet is a nostalgic idea, which works to benefit the dozen or so individuals who control almost all of it.

Tech evolves, and dreamed-of utopias mature into common realities. Defending “the free internet” now effectively aligns with legal arguments from Meta and X, which say social media corporations and their addictive products are as important to free expression as libraries.

Regulation is a key part of what allows innovative technology to become part of the common good. Until social media companies embrace it by following laws, there remains a huge open question about whether or not the harms of Instagram and X outweigh whatever good they purport to do.

Article Topics

age verification  |  EU age verification  |  Europe  |  European Digital Rights (EDRi)  |  France  |  regulation