Cyprus Joins Other EU Member States In Efforts To Protect Minors In The Digital Environment

Protection of minors is a topic that keep digital businesses awake at night. Legislators and regulators worldwide are moving fast in their effort to ensure online safety for minors. The European Union is not an exception, with its high standards of safety and privacy online.

Cyprus, as an EU Member State, is also making steps towards finding an efficient solution to protect children in the digital environment.

The European Commission’s recommendation

On April 29^th, 2026, the European Commission (the “Commission”) adopted a recommendation “on establishing a common framework for EU wide Age Verification technologies”. This recommendation introduces a new approach to age verification for online platforms, in collaboration with EU Member States. This initiative forms part of a broader EU framework that contains provisions regarding the protection of minors online, including the Digital Services Act (the “DSA”), the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, the EU consumer protection acquis, and the upcoming Digital Fairness Act.

Through this initiative, the Commission has developed an open-source technical solution for an age verification application that is supposed to enable users in the EU to prove their age when required, either to access adult-restricted content or to comply with any other age requirement under EU or Member State laws.

How the app works

The Commission developed a blueprint published as open-source, that is intended to be customized by Member States and market players to further develop an age-verification solution customised to their needs.

This solution is based on state of the art zero-knowledge proof technology. The users’ data are not shared with the online platform requesting the age verification. The application only provides a confirmation of whether the user meets the required age threshold.

At the same time the application itself does not track the websites visited by the user, to provide a higher level of protection of the users’ privacy.

Member State involvement

The Commission is currently working with Member States to turn the solution into national apps or to integrate it into existing national ID apps.

Frontrunners in this effort are seven Member States, namely Cyprus, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, which are working closely with the Commission on national implementation. The solution is expected to be available across the EU by the end of 2026.

Cyprus’ contribution

Cyprus is participating in the age verification scheme by implementing the proposal through the national application “Digital Citizen”, which operates under the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy. This is the official mobile app of the Government of Cyprus, through which citizens can create and maintain official documents in digital form, equivalent to printed documents, for any legal use within the Republic of Cyprus.

Interestingly, this age verification solution comes at the same time as a bill was announced and is being drafted to set the minimum age for creating a social media account at 15, which could require privacy preserving age verification solutions.

It should be noted that this proposal is not an isolated instance, but a part of a broader emergence of age-restrictions on information society services that has spread across different EU Member States.

Practical implications

• A tool for compliance or additional burden?

An approved age verification mechanisms may be a useful tool to help businesses to comply with the DSA, which requires online platforms to ensure a high level of privacy, security and safety for minors online.

At the same time, keeping up with all the different laws that each Member State sets may lead to additional costs for companies, particularly where different national approaches emerge. To the extreme that for some companies it would be more reasonable to limit access to the product in a particular country rather than to bear the costs of compliance with local framework and implementation of national digital ID tool in addition to the EU-wide DSA framework and other digital regulations worldwide.

It is also important to note that the implementation of systems aligned with the EU Age Verification Scheme is currently encouraged rather than mandatory. As a result, differing levels of adoptions between Member States could lead to regulatory inconsistencies and potential competition concerns within the internal market.

• Would the Cyprus ban of social media for children under 15 apply only to social media or broader online digital products, like video games?

Do not be misled by the ban being announced for “social media”. Following other countries introducing similar regulations it is more likely than not that video games, mobile apps, and other digital products may fall under the scope of such prohibitions regardless of them specifically targeting minors or having social interaction elements as key features of a product.

It is important for the legislator to understand the digital market in its diversity and their social impact of different products to carefully formulate the scope of regulations and possibly establish differentiated obligations and liability.

• Would age restrictions align with the existing national legislation?

Following these developments and the introduction of new laws restricting access to certain online services based on age, the practical application of certain national laws may need to be reassessed.

For example, under the Cyprus Data Protection Law (Law 125(I)/2018), only children aged fourteen (14) and above can consent to the processing of their personal data by information society services, without the need for parental approval.

However, if access to social media platforms were to be restricted for minors aged fifteen (15) and below, this may affect how such national consent provisions operate in practice.

These concerns may be addressed when the proposed legislations are formally enacted and the age verification solution becomes publicly available across the EU. We will continue to monitor developments in this area in order to assist our clients with compliance obligations.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.