Cyprus is moving closer to restricting social-media access for children below a set age, after the European Parliament’s Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection proposed establishing a digital age of majority at 16 across the EU.
Deputy Minister for Research, Innovation and Digital Policy Nikodimos Damianou announced last Friday that Cyprus will join a pilot project to develop a safe, interoperable solution for online age verification. The initiative, launched by Denmark, which currently holds the rotating EU Council Presidency, aims to protect minors from harmful digital content, particularly on social platforms.
In parallel, the leaders of Denmark, Cyprus, Greece, France, Spain and Slovenia co-signed a letter to the President of the European Commission expressing a shared intention to create a single “digital age of adulthood” within the EU. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has already moved to ban social media for children under 15, while in September Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis signalled a ban for those under 16. In June, French President Emmanuel Macron also came out in favour of blocking access for under-15s, saying France would act nationally if no EU-wide approach emerges.
Sources told Politis that Cyprus’s Deputy Ministry is examining several scenarios and has not yet settled on a specific age limit. However, on Wednesday the Parliament’s Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee backed a proposal to set 16 as the minimum age for accessing social networks, video platforms and AI assistants across the EU, unless there is parental consent, and 13 as the absolute minimum for any social network.
The proposal, tabled by Danish MEP Christel Schaldemose (S&D), passed with a large majority in committee and is due to go before the full Parliament in late November. Meanwhile, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has opened a debate on whether such a measure should apply EU-wide and expects recommendations from expert groups by year’s end. Although the 27 member states remain divided, momentum behind a common digital age of majority appears to be growing; EU digital ministers signalled their support for von der Leyen’s initiative last week.