The European Commission is preparing to present an "EU Kids Act" that would restrict unsupervised access to social media, video-sharing platforms, online games and AI chatbots for children under 15, according to Reuters and multiple European outlets that have seen the draft proposal. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and tech chief Henna Virkkunen are expected to formally unveil the plan later this week, in what reporting describes as the bloc's most sweeping child-safety measure for digital services to date.

What the draft proposes

The proposal introduces tiered access by age rather than a blanket ban. Children under 13 would face the tightest restrictions. Those aged 13 to 14 could use social media and video-sharing platforms only through parent-opened, closely supervised accounts with limited contacts and strict time limits. From age 15, minors could open their own accounts. AI chatbots — including companion and conversational AI products, not just social platforms — are explicitly named alongside social media and gaming as services covered by the age tiers, reflecting growing EU concern about minors' unsupervised use of AI companions.

To enforce the tiers, the draft would require companies to implement age verification as a condition of granting access, rather than relying on the self-declared birthdates most platforms use today. Covered services would also have to provide parental-control tools, offer reporting mechanisms for harmful content, and pay a supervisory fee to fund enforcement.

Why now, and what's still unsettled

The push follows a string of incidents and research this year linking unsupervised chatbot use to harm in minors, adding AI companions to a child-safety debate that, in the EU, previously centered on social media feeds and recommendation algorithms. A Commission document reported by Reuters frames the philosophy directly: the bloc's approach should let minors benefit from digital services "while protecting them from abuse and exploitation," limiting tech companies' access to children rather than the other way around.

As a proposal rather than adopted law, the EU Kids Act would still need to go through the European Parliament and Council before taking effect, a process that typically takes months to years and where age-verification mandates in particular tend to draw pushback from industry and privacy advocates. Exactly how "AI chatbot" is defined in the final text — and whether it extends to general-purpose assistants like ChatGPT or Gemini as well as companion apps — will shape how directly it lands on AI vendors once the full text is published.