On 13 July 2026, the co-chairs of the EU special panel on child safety online, convened by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, presented their report with recommendations to protect and empower minors in a digital world. The report draws on the expertise of various stakeholders (including young people, civil society organisations, researchers, and health professionals) who attended three meetings convened by the co-chairs in recent months. The European Commission will use the report for its next steps in ensuring a safer digital environment for children and young people. COFACE President, Dr. Antonia Torrens, attended the first meeting to present COFACE’s recommendations.
COFACE welcomes that the report takes a tech-neutral approach, given that its scope refers to social media and other digital services (social media+). We also welcome the safety-by-design and age-appropriate approaches. Furthermore, we support that the report recognises the complex and heterogeneous social and individual situations and backgrounds of children and young people. The report brings together a comprehensive list of recommendations, including the co-creation of guidelines for parents; mainstreaming digital education and literacy actions for minors, parents and caregivers, teachers and educators; creating more opportunities and adequate infrastructure to support offline activities; and ensuring sufficient public funding and common standards for civil society organisations and peer counselling.
The report’s main recommendation for protecting children online seems to be a harmonised EU-wide access restriction to social media and other digital services for minors under 13, with the exception of parental consent or for educational purposes. As mentioned in the report, COFACE would like to emphasise that any potential age restrictions must fully respect children’s rights and be proportionate and balanced against their best interests. COFACE believes that therefore the following recommendations in the report should be prioritised and efficiently resourced: 1) to shift the burden of proof to social media and other digital services providers to demonstrate that their products and services are safe for minors, 2) to extend and harmonise rules on key safety features in the design of social media and other digital services. COFACE also welcomes a swift adoption of measures to ensure social media and other digital services providers have clear obligations to prevent, detect, report and block child sexual abuse online, including in interpersonal communication. Online child sexual abuse is one of the most harmful risks that can occur to children in the online environment. Having a long-term regulation in place to prevent and detect this specific risk, and which is complementary to the Digital Services Act, is a logical step in making the online environment safer for children.
As stated in our position paper, technology companies know their products and services best and should ensure safe digital experiences by being held accountable for their due diligence obligations. In a previous joint statement, COFACE and over 170 other organisations and experts have been calling for mandatory independent EU ex-ante risk assessment, age-tiered child safety pre-certification and regular independent auditing for all services accessible to children. We will continue following closely how these recommendations will be translated into concrete policy actions and how this will look like in practice. COFACE stands ready for continued support to the European Union institutions to better protect children and young people in the online environment.
Find the full special panel report, summary and document with tips for parents and caregivers here: Special panel – European Commission.
