The EU’s New Kids Act, Explained

What von der Leyen announced

On 16 September 2026, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Alongside announcements on energy, defence and migration, she introduced a new child-protection proposal: the Kids Act.

She framed it as a “gradual and differentiated approach” — “each age has its own sensitivities and therefore each will have its own tailored protection level.” In her own words, the plan breaks into three bands:

• Under 13 — “no social media under the age of 13.”
• 13 to under 15 — no personal account; instead, “only mini accounts set up and supervised by parents or guardians, with limited features and a time restriction to one hour a day.”
• 15 to 18 — personal accounts allowed, but “safe design will be an obligation for the platforms” — shifting the burden of proof onto platforms to show they aren’t using addictive design, exposing minors to increasingly extreme content, or allowing AI-generated sexualised images of children.

A second, broader initiative was also flagged: the Digital Fairness Act, due this autumn, addressing addictive design “harming everyone” — not only minors.

Not law yet — what happens next

It’s worth being precise about where things stand. The Kids Act was announced as a proposal the Commission is set to table formally in the days that follow — it is not yet in force, and like any EU regulation it still needs negotiation and approval by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU before it becomes binding law. The exact thresholds could still change. We’ll follow the official text and update this piece if the details shift.

Why this matters for schools and teachers

Whatever the final wording, the direction is clear: European policy is moving toward treating platform design — not just content — as the problem. That connects directly to what we already cover in Digital Wellbeing: Attention, Phones and School Life, Cyberbullying: Prevention and Response in Schools, Digital Literacy: Teaching Students How Platforms Are Designed, and Media Literacy: Teaching Students to Verify What They See — all built around the same question the Kids Act is now asking at EU level.

A smaller, warmer moment in the same speech

Introducing the founders of ICEYE — a European satellite company now valued in the billions — von der Leyen noted that Rafał Modrzewski and Pekka Laurila “initially met through Erasmus.” Modrzewski came to Finland on an Erasmus exchange, joined a small satellite project at Aalto University, and met Laurila there. A small reminder of what one exchange can turn into.

We’ll be watching for the Kids Act’s official text and will report back once it’s formally on the table.