European lawmakers want to stop teenagers under 16 years from using social media without parental consent but experts are wary of the move.
If the European Parliament approves the legislation, it will be up to member states to set an age limit between 13 and 16 below which children will need explicit permission from parents to open social media accounts.
The new EU data protection legislation, informally agreed upon and approved by the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties committee, is designed to create a uniform set of rules across the EU that are “fit for the digital era”.
The rules would impact social media sites and messaging services such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
MEPs had initially pushed for an EU-wide legal limit of 13 years, which is the current situation on Facebook and a number of other services. However, some lawmakers wanted the age limit to be 16 years.
The Civil Liberties Committee settled for a compromise after a last-minute amendment allowed member states to set the age limit below which teenagers would need parental consent.
European advocacy groups have warned, however, that the new rules will limit teenagers’ educational and social opportunities without necessarily increasing their protection.
Children are very web-savvy, and banning technology is rarely an effective way of addressing problems
Social media strategist Alex Grech, an academic, said a ban was unlikely to be effective and would be difficult to enforce.
“Children today are very web-savvy, and banning technology is rarely an effective way of addressing problems,” he said.
Dr Grech added that the new regulations could highlight the need for a greater understanding of how young people consume information on mobile devices.
He called for comprehensive education from an early age that was more in line with what children actually encountered online. “If banning something can serve as a wake-up call, that can be positive – but we should have woken up a few years ago,” he said.
Nationalist MEP Roberta Metsola, who sits on the Civil Liberties Committee and supported the measures, said the last-minute change in the age limit had been driven by the need to respond to the increased prevalence of cyberbullying.
“I hope the measure can address the massive abuse, but I can’t say whether it will protect every single child,” she said.
Responding to claims that the age limit goes too far, Dr Metsola said: “There was a need to draw a line somewhere and the line was drawn there. I think in this day and age that line is needed.”
Labour MEP Miriam Dalli welcomed any attempt to empower citizens when it comes to their online data – but stressed that education was also key when it came to children.
“The best weapon against online abuse is always education. Not only to ensure that children understand the impact of what they post online, but in order to help parents better understand their children’s behaviour on the internet and how to counteract any issues that their children might face online, such as in-stances of online bullying, which can be extremely severe in certain cases,” she said.
The measure was cautiously welcomed by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.
A spokesman told the Times of Malta that, while age limits could help limit the exposure of children who are not mature enough for social media, maturity was not solely determined by age.
“The setting of legal age limits for use of social media must be accompanied by a strong policy drive to educate children as well as their parents about how social media can be used for oneself and others to experience well-being, not suffering,” the spokesman said.
The new legislation will now be put to a vote in the plenary session at the European Parliament in the new year.
Among other measures, it will provide consumers with the “right to be forgotten” or erased from the databases of companies holding their personal data, and impose fines of up to four per cent of firms’ total worldwide annual turnover as a deterrent to breaking the rules.
philip.lganado@timesofmalta.com