Children’s online safety

The EU experience

In November 2025, the EU adopted a¹ resolution to strengthen the protection of children on the Internet due to their sensitivity to destructive content created by AI, gaming addiction, mental disorders caused by social pressure on the Internet, etc. Back in October 2025, the European Commission launched an² investigation into violations by Snapchat, YouTube, the App Store, and Google Play³ regarding the protection of minors in terms of age verification mechanisms, setting stricter default privacy settings for accounts, ensuring that the service design does not cause addiction, etc.

The EU plans to develop:

1) A uniform method for verifying the age of users within the EU. The method should ensure minimal collection of children's data, for example, obtaining only an affirmative or negative answer to the question of whether the⁴ user is 16 years of age in order to use the platform, without collecting data for personal identification.

2) Requirements for device manufacturers and AI application developers to implement data collection control mechanisms to ensure that AI applications do not collect children's data without the consent of a parent or guardian.

3) A ban on platforms financially supporting “child influencers” (e.g., paying for advertising), and the creation of a way to distinguish between content and advertising in applications for children.

4) Requiring platforms to prohibit games that include “lottery” mechanisms (such as “wheels of fortune,” “pay to advance in the game” mechanisms, exchanging game currency for real money, etc.).⁵

5) Requiring platforms and apps to create parental control tools during the development stage (e.g., parents receiving reports on their children's activities on the platform).

The US experience

In November 2025, a bill was⁶ introduced to prohibit data brokers from collecting, using, storing, and distributing⁷ (selling, disclosing) data belonging to minors. The only exception is the collection of data by a broker to determine a person's age. Any data about a person must be deleted after their age has been established, and a mechanism must be created for requesting the deletion of a child's data (e.g., by a parent, guardian, or the teenager themselves).

Russia’s experience

In Russia, Law No. 436-FZ “On the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development” establishes age qualifications for restricting destructive content and defines the obligation of platforms and telecommunications operators to restrict access to content. The trend toward measures to protect children will expand, especially with the development of access to new technologies. For example, it is predicted that the use of AI in children's education alone will grow by 38.5%⁸ per year until 2030.

From the monitoring issue No. 11 (23), November 2025. Download the full issue (PDF) · issue page at the Gaidar Institute