Empowering young people to use the Internet safely and protecting them from potential harm is not just a priority for the European Commission, but for many countries around the world. It is by working together towards this shared goal with like-minded partners that we can best achieve it.
With this in mind, the European Commission, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner and the UK’s Ofcom today issued a joint communication pledging to work together to advance child safety on digital platforms.
Between them, the EU, UK and Australia have set some of the highest standards world-wide when it comes to empowering and protecting young people online. The communication reflects this, with new joint actions to complement ongoing efforts in implementing online safety legislation to ensure a safe and secure online for minors, while also taking into account children’s rights and wellbeing.
In particular, the three regulators will ensure that children have safe, inclusive, and empowering access to digital technologies to help them develop digital skills, media literacy and critical thinking, shaping a more equal digital future.
Furthermore, it is important that service providers make real improvements in the safety of children’s online experiences.
Concretely, the three regulators agreed to set up a group on age assurance to discuss solutions for age verification that ensure privacy, safety and security.
This group will explore how to further build the technical evidence base with respect to age assurance, and where relevant, how regulators can support independent research in this field. This is something the Commission is already working on through its blueprint for an EU-wide age verification solution.
The joint communication follows a roundtable attended by Director-General Roberto Viola of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT), Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant and Chief Executive of the UK’s Ofcom Melanie Dawes.
The Commission, as well as highlighting its work on age verification, also pointed to its recent actions taken under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to tackle online sales of drugs, vapes and other illegal products to minors, as well as to prevent the creation of so-called rabbit holes of harmful material such as content promoting eating disorders.