The idea is supported by Meta and Snap Inc. They believe that parents should confirm the installation of social networks, and the age of the user should be checked at the level of the account in the app store, euronews writes.
According to the idea, this will allow to determine more accurately whether a person has reached the right age to use a particular service.
However, experts doubt that this approach will solve the problem. Parental control in the App Store and Play Store already exists, but it is mostly limited to the download stage. Once the application is installed, the influence of parents is drastically reduced – it is almost impossible to control behavior within the platform.
In addition, children often find ways to circumvent the restrictions: from using the parent’s phone to completely resetting the device to factory settings. More advanced users can install an alternative operating system or use third-party app stores, such as F-Droid. And access to social networks from computers is not affected by such measures at all.
A separate question is how exactly age will be confirmed. Verification by documents, photos or biometrics raises privacy concerns and does not guarantee 100 percent protection against circumvention.
In the US, laws requiring app stores to verify the age of users are already being discussed. In the European Union, there is no direct regulation of this area, but the Digital Services Act is in force. And by 2026, the Digital Fairness Act is expected to come into force, aimed at strengthening the protection of online consumers.
According to analysts, the key question is not how to completely block children’s access to social networks, but how to make the digital platforms themselves safer – regardless of the age of the user.
