Denmark has shown its on-side with online age limits for children, setting a new standard for how society, and the tech industry, protects children.
They just announced a political agreement on age limits on social media, stipulating 15 years without parental consent and 13 with parental consent, said one expert.
Both parties must comply with the agreement, and could opt for infrastructure to verify the ages of the users provided by the state or the private sector. SVM government, the Danish Social Democratic Party and the Conservative People’s Party equally strive to achieve the “new breakthrough” in child online safety.
However, Minister of Digitalization Caroline Stage explained that the legal age limit would not be set at 15 years old, not to create “overly rigid rules” in a modern world. She suggested the potential for parents to want to make the final decisions over their teen’s social media use could factor. In exceptional instances, there will be circumstances where parents can choose to grant their consent to access from the age of 13, but this has been perceived by the parties backed out of the agreement as the “cat’s-eye”, and adding dangerous pressure onto children.
But in favour parties say, the norm will be for minors and young people under 15 not to use social media until they reach the right milestone. They concluded the age limit of 15 is when “children and young people are most vulnerable” to online harms, and peer pressure to be on social media.
On the other hand, the SF, the Unity Party, the Social Democrats and the Alternative Party want a uniform higher national age limit of 15 years on social media regardless, so young people are more likely equipped to manage the array of exposure on the internet.
The parties will present an app capable of verifying users’ ages reliably, which is scheduled to be ready in the spring.
The expert said this infrastructure is the “European Identity Wallet completing age verification and probably supported by QEAA to express parental consent”.
As such, they believe it aligns with the pilot executed by Denmark.
