EU Rules Would Ban Kids Under 16 From Social Media (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader sends word of new data protection rules up for vote in the European Parliament which would make it illegal for companies to handle the data of children aged 15 and younger. Currently, such data processing is prohibited only for kids 12 and under. This would affect European teenagers' ability to use Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and many other social media services. This amendment has been opposed not only by the tech companies involved, but by many child safety experts as well: Janice Richardson, former coordinator of European Safer Internet network, and consultant to the United Nations' information technology body, the ITU and the Council of Europe said: "Moving the age from 13 to 16 represents a major shift in policy on which it seems there has been no public consultation. "We feel that moving the requirement for parental consent from age 13 to age 16 would deprive young people of educational and social opportunities in a number of ways, yet would provide no more (and likely even less) protection." Larry Magid, chief executive of ConnectSafely.org, said: "It will have the impact of banning a very significant percentage of youth and especially the most vulnerable ones who will be unable to obtain parental consent for a variety of reasons."

Comments

It's not exactly as stated in the post.

[Sique]

The actual rules are that if the member states don't set an age limit, the default is 16. Individual member states thus can have lower age limits.

Re:It's not exactly as stated in the post.

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed and the bill also wants to harmonize the data privacy laws across the EU so we don't have another facebook incident over a court ruling.

For those who don't know (warning: soap drama): Facebook was sued in Belgium about using tracking cookies even for non-members of facebook. Facebook argued then that it complied with the privacy laws in Ireland and therefor it should also apply in Belgium. They lost and now they say those cookies are for security and will block public facebook pages for everyone in Belgium. The belgian privacy commission contacted their counterparts and now France, Germany, Netherlands and Spain joined and are asking to apply the ruling.

*dramatic soap drama voice*
What will happen? Will facebook also block public pages in those nations? Will those nations back down for their facebook addicted non-member citizens?

Social Media can still work

[Jack Griffin]

The ban is about third party companies (adults) handling data of people under 16. So if a Social Media product was P2P, or e2e encryption and was unable to snoop on it's users, then it wouldn't be an issue. I'd like to see this extended to all people under 120.

Re:Good!

[Halo1]

Yes, because gay kids seeking support online is valueless, right?

They still can seek support online, also without parental supervision. This ruling only states that Facebook, or any other company or organisation, cannot require them to divulge their personal details (at least not without parental consent). And yes, that does sound like a good thing to me, especially for kids that may be insecure about their sexuality.