In favor of Greece’s position for establishing a unified digital age of majority in the European Union, to protect children and teenagers from the harmful aspects of social media, Meta owned by Mark Zuckerberg announced its support today. The tech giant owns Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, Threads and WhatsApp.
This marks the first major technology company to take a clear stance on this issue, supporting the Greek proposal at European level, which aims to protect minors from harmful content as well as digital addiction. The Greek plan is based on the idea of automatic digital age verification for young users, a solution already integrated into the Greek Kids Wallet application, with Meta declaring its acceptance of this age verification model across the EU.
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Meta supports Greece’s proposal for digital age verification in the EU
Meta’s public policy manager for Italy, Greece and Malta, Claudia Trivilino, specifically welcomed the role that Greece has undertaken in the consultations that have taken place at European level in recent months, in which both Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his associates were directly involved.
“I am pleased that Greece is playing a leading role in the vital discussion between EU member states and in the process leading to the non-paper ‘Protection of minors from online risks and harms’. We support the call to the European Commission to implement mandatory, built-in age verification measures in the EU and recommend that it be applied widely across all digital services used by teenagers, to ensure a safer online environment for all”, Ms. Trivilino stated in her LinkedIn post.
“We believe that digital age of majority constitutes an effective solution to ensure that teenagers have safe experiences on the internet“, she added, noting that this Meta decision represents another “particularly important step” in the company’s efforts “to protect teenagers”.
Government officials emphasized that the Greek proposal has gained ground thanks to the effort made at European level since the beginning of the year, immediately after the presentation of the National Strategy for Protection of Minors from Internet Addiction.
Protection of minors takes center stage at the European Commission
The momentum of Greek positions became apparent last month, when the European Commission’s Vice-President for technology affairs Henna Virkkunen expressed Brussels’ intention to establish “mini wallets” with age verification capabilities by summer, modeled on the Greek Kids Wallet, to “bridge” the gap until the European digital wallet is ready at the end of 2026.
The issue of protecting minors from internet dangers has repeatedly been set as a priority by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who has said it is one of the “regulatory battles” that the EU must fight, and he also raised it during his speech at the UN General Assembly last September.