For years, opening an account on a social network has been as simple as writing an email, choosing a password and declaring a date of birth. In France, this routine is scheduled to change on September 1 for those under 15 years of age. The ban has already passed Parliament, but turning it into something that works will require answering much more difficult questions: how to verify the age of users, what information they will be asked to prove it and what will happen to services that do not only serve to publish photos or videos. That’s where the real test begins.
An overwhelming majority. The decision was supported this Tuesday by both French chambers: 243 senators voted in favor and only 2 against, while the National Assembly approved the text by 279 votes to 81. Emmanuel Macron, one of its main promoters, celebrated that France has become the first European country to approve a ban of this scope. The deployment is divided into two periods: new accounts will be banned from September 1 and the restriction will apply to existing ones from January 2027. Of course, the calendar may still be conditioned by the Constitutional Council.
A ban without a closed list. The text does not list the affected platforms one by one, but refers to the European definitions of “online platform” and “online social networking service.” TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat appear as the clearest cases, but the border becomes less evident in YouTube, WhatsApp, Reddit or Roblox, where social functions coexist with other uses. As explained by deputy Laure Miller, in some cases the control will only reach certain tools. Digital encyclopedias and educational or scientific directories are expressly excluded.
Platforms will take over. The text does not provide for fines or other sanctions for minors or their parents. The responsibility will fall on the companies, which must verify the age of their users, prevent new registrations that violate the limit and close the affected accounts when the transitional period ends. Digital Affairs Minister Anne Le Hénanff maintains that the deadline is realistic because verification tools already exist and others continue to be developed.
September will be the litmus test. The date leaves the platforms just a few weeks of summer to convert the legal obligation into controls that work from the beginning of the course. The difficulty lies not only in detecting minors, but also in verifying that the rest of the users exceed the limit without creating a process that is impossible to manage. During the debate, several parliamentarians questioned whether a system of this complexity could be operational so quickly and warned of possible ways to circumvent it, taking the case of Australia as an example.
Privacy is also at stake. Checking whether a person has turned 15 should not necessarily require them to reveal their entire identity. One of the alternatives proposed by the sector is to transfer the verification to the phone itself, instead of requesting documents separately in each application. The approach seeks to reduce the circulation of personal information between different services, although the sources do not detail how it would work or what data each actor would keep. France must prevent access by minors without turning the solution into a new source of sensitive data.
Spain prepares its own ban. Pedro Sánchez announced on February 3, 2026 that his Government would promote the prohibition of access to social networks for those under 16 years of age and would require effective age verification systems. The Executive explained earlier this month that it had presented amendments to incorporate the measure into the Organic Law Project for the protection of minors in digital environments. At the time of writing this article, the initiative is still in the Congressional Justice Commission, in the report phase.
Approving the text was just the beginning. France has been the first European country to bring such a ban to parliamentary approval, after Australia led the way on a global scale. Spain is in a different phase and its proposal can still change during processing, but the underlying problem is shared: transforming a minimum age into an effective control that is proportionate to privacy.
Images | Pixabay | Mohamed Jamil Latrach
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