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-38e7d0bd5326_en?filename=Special-panel-report.pdf. 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-voluntary-detection-of-online-child-sexual-abuse-material/ 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/overview 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-standard-licences-for-public-sector-information/ 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-Exclusive-agreements-the-Digital-Omnibus.pdf 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(2026)789333_EN.pdf 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===