On September 14–15, 2026, a draft European Commission document — first reported by Reuters and subsequently covered by TechSpot, MediaNama and Plataforma Media — revealed that the EU is preparing to propose the "EU Kids Act," a bloc-wide law that would bar children under 15 from independently using social media, video-sharing platforms, AI chatbots and online games. The proposal was slated for formal presentation on Thursday, September 17. It is a draft, not law: EU member states and the European Parliament still have to negotiate it, and the text could change substantially before adoption.

Why It Matters

Age assurance is the single most consequential regulatory variable in adult and intimacy tech right now, and the EU is about to become its largest coordinated market. Age verification mandates built for porn platforms in Texas, Louisiana and the UK have already reshaped traffic patterns and pushed users toward VPNs; a bloc-wide mandate that reaches social media, video platforms, chatbots, games and app stores is a far larger compliance surface, and one that sexual wellness brands quietly depend on. Brands that market on Instagram and TikTok, AI companion developers, and any sextech app distributed through the Apple or Google stores will all sit downstream of whatever verification infrastructure this creates. The 6%-of-global-revenue penalty figure is the number to watch during negotiation, because it determines whether large platforms treat compliance as an engineering project or a line item. And the timeline matters: this is a draft heading into trilogue, so the realistic enforcement horizon is years, not months. But the direction of travel is now unambiguous — the regulatory default in Europe is shifting from "platforms moderate content" to "platforms must know how old you are before you get in the door."

The structure is a tiered age ladder rather than a single cutoff. Per the reporting, users aged 15 and over could open their own accounts. Parents could set up introductory, supervised social media and video-sharing accounts for 13- and 14-year-olds, with restricted contact lists and strict time limits. Children aged 3 to 12 would be confined to child-friendly services on accounts fully controlled by a parent, and under-3s would have no access at all. Platforms would be required to verify age at account creation, run age checks before game downloads, provide parental controls, offer simple reporting routes for harmful material, avoid addictive design patterns and harmful recommender feeds, and pay a supervisory fee to fund enforcement. The draft reportedly carries penalties of up to 6% of a company's annual global revenue.

The clause that matters most for this industry is the explicit inclusion of AI chatbots and app stores in scope. Every companion-AI regulation to date — the wave of US state laws in Georgia, Tennessee, California, Oregon and Washington, plus China's recent moves against "AI boyfriend" apps — has had to argue its way from social-media rules into conversational AI. The EU draft simply puts them in the same bucket from the start, alongside the app stores that distribute them. For a category built on emotional intimacy with minors-adjacent user bases, that is a structural change, not a marginal one.

MediaNama traces the policy lineage clearly: the European Parliament called for parental authorization for under-16s in November 2025 and asked the Commission to consider a harmonized digital age of 13; Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the proposed Digital Fairness Act in May 2026, targeting infinite scroll, autoplay and push notifications; in February the Commission made a preliminary finding that TikTok's addictive design could breach the Digital Services Act; and by July an expert panel had recommended a floor of 13. The Kids Act draft is the legislative consolidation of all of it — and it lands well above the panel's recommended floor.

Sources

Update — 2026-09-16

Initial entry — story first created.

Update — 2026-10-05

The proposal is official, there's a feedback deadline, and one member state isn't waiting. The European Commission formally adopted the EU KIDS Act ("Keeping Internet Digital Spaces Accountable and Trustworthy") on September 17, 2026, as the draft above predicted. The Commission's own explainer confirms the age ladder: no social media accounts under 13, guardian-controlled accounts at 13–14 with parental tools always on and a maximum of one hour a day, and independent accounts from 15. Safety-by-design duties apply to social media, video platforms, games, AI chatbots and app stores, as the leak suggested. Platforms must check existing accounts within six months of the rules applying, and self-declared birthdates are explicitly not enough.

The age-verification design is the part that matters most for adult and intimacy tech. Per the Commission FAQ and Pearl Cohen's analysis, providers must use certified, independent age-verification solutions: an EU age-verification app and, later, the European Digital Identity Wallet. The text says that "any age assurance measure shall be zero knowledge proof," meaning the platform learns only whether the user is over or under the threshold, and every member state must offer at least one free verification method. Platforms that already estimate age with high confidence from signals such as account age or credit card do not need to re-verify most adults. Public feedback is open until November 26, 2026.

Greece is moving ahead on its own. Per ProtoThema (October 4), Greece will legislate a 15-year social media age limit from January 1, 2027 without waiting for Brussels, enforced through its "Kids Wallet" age-verification app.

Why it matters now: The KIDS Act does not cover porn sites directly. They already fall under the DSA and national laws. But it would build a bloc-wide, government-certified, zero-knowledge age-verification layer that every regulated service can use. Adult platforms, sexual-wellness apps and AI-companion services would then face a common EU standard instead of 27 national ones. It is the same device- or wallet-level model Aylo has been arguing for in the UK. The November 26 deadline is the industry's opportunity to influence how that layer is scoped.

New Sources