Hi all,
Europe is heading into its August slow down. But before that there are
plenty of age verification fireworks: The Commission’s panel of experts
delivered a report, France passed the EU’s first age verification law and
the Austrian governing coalition say it has agreed on a proposal and will
publish it soon.
=== Age Verification: France ===
France has passed its Loi visant à instaurer une majorité numérique
<https://www.senat.fr/leg/ppl25-903.html>, becoming the first EU country to
enact a social media age ban into law. The law bans under-15s from
accessing social media platforms, with the government targeting September
as the enforcement date. Platforms require express parental consent for
under-15s to sign up, with parents specifying the conditions, time limits
and hours of access — and retaining the right to withdraw consent at any
time.
—
The law explicitly states that the obligations "apply neither to online
encyclopedias nor to educational or scientific directories, nor to
platforms for the development and sharing of free software or open-source
digital projects with an educational purpose." ("ne s’applique ni aux
encyclopédies en ligne, ni aux répertoires éducatifs ou scientifiques, ni
aux plateformes de développement et de partage de logiciels libres ou de
projets numériques à vocation éducative en source ouverte.").
—
Before passage, the European Commission reviewed the French text under the TRIS
procedure
<https://technical-regulation-information-system.ec.europa.eu/en/home> and
drew three red lines: national authorities cannot expand their powers in
ways that encroach on the Commission's own DSA enforcement jurisdiction;
any list of restricted platforms must rest on a clear, legally sound
definition; and the parental consent mechanism must be clearly specified.
If an EU law is eventually adopted covering the same ground, the French law
wouldn’t apply anymore. An EU law is something the French government has
stated it wants.
=== Age Verification: Austria ===
Austria's coalition government announced an agreement on a social media ban
<https://www.parlament.gv.at/gegenstand/XXVIII/ME/132> for children under
14, covering TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, but not WhatsApp.The
law focuses on what it defines as “video-sharing platforms”. The draft law
will now undergo legal review before being notified to the European
Commission under TRIS. Positions can be submitted until 21 September. The
proposal closely focuses on amending Austria’s audiovisual media rules.
Wikimedia projects are unlikely to meet the legal threshold of a
"video-sharing platform" as currently defined in the proposal, based on a
first analysis.
=== Age Verification: Spain ===
Spain is advancing its own package of measures under the existing minors'
protection bill (Proyecto de Ley Orgánica para la protección de las
personas menores de edad en los entornos digitales (121/000052)
<https://www.congreso.es/public_oficiales/L15/CONG/BOCG/A/BOCG-15-A-52-1.PDF>).
The Spanish government's approach combines access restrictions, platform
liability and criminal sanctions — a notably broader set of instruments
than the French or Austrian models.
—
These obligations target device makers, commercial services offering adult
or harmful content or gambling-like features, social-media-style
registration that relies on data-consent rules, and platforms that must
already restrict adult audiovisual content. They do not, according to our
own analysis, impose a general age-gating or identity-verification
requirement on all websites or information services. The proposal is still
in committee.
=== Age Verification: Sweden & UK ===
As a reminder, Sweden's proposal (reported last month) explicitly excludes
Wikipedia by name. The Swedish report reasoned that digital encyclopedias
fall outside scope because they lack many of the social networking and
connection features that make social media platforms specifically risky for
children. The UK is also preparing to announce further rules for access of
under-16s to online platforms, but no text is published yet.
=== Age Verification: European Commission ===
The Commission's special panel on child safety online, chaired by Prof.
Jörg Fegert and Dr. Maria Melchior, has delivered its report
<https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/d833504d-5ec3-4fac-945f-38e7…>.
The headline recommendation is a harmonised EU-wide access restriction to
social media and other digital services for children under 13. The burden
of proof, the report argues, should shift to social media platforms: until
they demonstrate their services are safe by design, they should not allow
access to children under 13. The report also distinguishes between age
groups (e.g. 10-12, 13-15, 16-18) and the different risks and regulatory
options at each stage.
—
The Commission is expected to make a legislative proposal on child safety
and age verification sometime after the summer recess but before Christmas.
=== CSAM Stop Gap Bill ===
The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union successfully
passed a new interim stopgap regulation
<https://eulawlive.com/council-reinstates-interim-regulation-allowing-volunt…>
in July 2026. This temporary measure restores the legal basis for online
service providers to voluntarily detect and remove child sexual abuse
material (CSAM) until April 3, 2028, closing a legal gap that had existed
since the previous temporary rule expired on April 3, 2026.
—
The European Parliament initially rejected the temporary patch, as they are
negotiating with the Council on a permanent CSAM Regulation (which we have
written about in this report many times). Many parliamentarians fear that
extending the temporary measure will take pressure off the negotiations.
However, the parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola (EPP MT) invoked a rarely
used second reading procedure
<https://www.europarl.europa.eu/olp/en/ordinary-legislative-procedure/overvi…>
which changed the majorities needed. Under it, the absolute majority of 361
MEPs was needed to reject the regulation. This quirk was deliberately built
into the EU’s rules to tilt legislators toward adoption, instead of eternal
deadlocks. However it almost never gets used, as mentioned above.
—
The Parliament ultimately voted to send the bill back to the Council with
cosmetic changes. The Council then adopted it.
=== Digital Omnibus ===
A coalition of MEPs — Elena Sancho Murillo, Marina Kaljurand, Brando
Benifei and José Cepeda (all S&D) — has tabled an amendment proposal to
remove actor-specific licences from the Digital Omnibus and preserve
standard open licensing for public sector information. This has happened as
part of the proceedings in the Industry, Research and Energy committee
(ITRE). An open letter
<https://communia-association.org/2026/07/06/open-letter-protect-open-standa…>
led by Communia and signed by many Wikimedia organisations asked for such
an edit. A position paper
<https://communia-association.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/One-pager-Exclu…>
by Communia, Wikimedia Europe and Creative Commons explains the issue.
—
The European Parliament is expected to negotiate and vote on its position
in autumn. Trilogue negotiations with the Council are anticipated October
to December and the final votes in February 2027. Of course all this is
subject to delays.
=== Competitiveness Fund ===
The European institutions are negotiating a €264 billion Competitiveness
Fund
<https://commission.europa.eu/publications/european-competitiveness-fund_en>
to run alongside the EU's 2028–2034 multiannual budget. The European
Parliament has now voted to explicitly mention open source, with
open-source software, protocols and standards added to the list of
activities that should be prioritised for funding. This means that open
source may become a strategic investment, not merely a procurement
preference.
=== Data Retention Coming ===
The Commission's legislative proposal on data retention
<https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2026/789333/EPRS_BRI(202…>
has hit another delay, but is nevertheless coming. The impact assessment is
stalling and needs another revision. The Commission still intends to make a
proposal later this year, but the timeline is sliding further into Q4. For
Wikimedia projects anything beyond a three-month IP address retention
period (current state) would potentially be an issue.
===END===
--
Wikimedia Europe ivzw
Dear all,
This email is to share two things.
First, Wikimania is NOW! There is an excellent line-up of public policy
related sessions. I've listed them all for you in this blog post
<https://diff.wikimedia.org/2026/07/20/understand-the-forces-shaping-free-kn…>
[1]. These sessions are either run by members of various public policy
teams across the open knowledge movement, or provide very useful context
about an issue that is a priority area for us (think AI, online safety).
Will you be there? Pop it in our Signal chat if so! Multiple members of the
WMF Global Advocacy team will be in attendance:
- Stan Adams: All things USA policy, online safety, licensing and
standards.
- Costanza Sciubba Caniglia: Information integrity, elections, and UN or
major international internet governance discussions.
- Me!
Second, Ziski (me) is back in office - if I owe you a response via email,
please don't hesitate to let me know. It also means I'm going to start
reviving this mailing list and sharing updates about internet governance
conferences, funding opportunities, partnership ideas, alerts about cool
things some of you are doing, the usual,
See some of you in Paris, and others on the web,
Ziski
__
[1]
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2026/07/20/understand-the-forces-shaping-free-kn…
Franziska Putz (she/her)
Senior Movement Advocacy Manager
Global Advocacy, Wikimedia Foundation
Fputz(a)wikimedia.org
UTC Timezone