Meta is failing to prevent under-13s from accessing Facebook, Instagram!
Facebook and Instagram US Tech Giant Meta is accused by The EU Commission of breaching the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA)
Brussels, 29 Apr (EFE).-
The European Commission accused US tech giant Meta on Wednesday of breaching the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA) by failing to prevent children under 13 years from accessing Facebook and Instagram.
“Despite Meta’s own terms and conditions setting the minimum age to access Instagram and Facebook safely at 13, the measures put in place by the company to enforce these restrictions do not seem to be effective,” the Commission said in a statement.
Brussels said that users could enter a false birth date that made them at least 13 years old as there were “no effective controls in place to check the correctness of the self-declared date of birth.”
The Commission also said that Meta’s tool to report children under 13 on its social networks was “difficult to use and ineffective,” since it required up to seven clicks just to access the reporting form.
And even when the company has been warned that a child under 13 had opened an account, “there often is no proper follow-up, and the reported minor can simply continue to use the service without any type of check,” exposing them to “age-inappropriate experiences.”
Brussels said that Meta’s analysis of the risks posed by its social networks was “incomplete and arbitrary” and contradicted “large bodies of evidence” in the EU indicating that between 10 to 12 percent of children under 13 accessed Facebook and Instagram.
“The Commission considers that Instagram and Facebook must change their risk assessment methodology, in order to evaluate which risks arise on Instagram and Facebook in the European Union, and how they manifest. Moreover, Instagram and Facebook need to strengthen their measures to prevent, detect and remove minors under the age of 13 from their service,” it added, warning that failure to do so would trigger a fine up to 6 percent of the total worldwide annual turnover of the provider.
The Commission’s conclusion comes at a time of intense debate about the need to establish a minimum age in the EU to access social media, with several countries already having passed legislation on the matter, including France, Italy, Denmark, and Greece, who have banned social media for children under 15, while Spain has set the limit at 16.
In this context, the European Commission said earlier this month that its privacy-preserving, open-source age verification application was “technically ready” for use.
The application, however, is not mandatory but rather a tool that Brussels is making available to platforms to comply with the Digital Services Act, which obliges them to specially protect minors.
The Community Executive aims for the 27 member countries of the bloc and the platforms to use this app for harmonized, anonymous age checks although tech companies may end up using their own age verification systems. EFE
drs/pd
