EUU, Alm.del - 2024-25 - Bilag 56: Notat samt høringssvar vedr. beskyttelse af børn online

Europaudvalget 2024-25
EUU Alm.del Bilag 56
Offentligt

Case no.

2024 - 2955

Document no.

103429

Date

29/10/2024

The Danish government’s response to the Commissions call for evidence

regarding Article 28 of the Digital Services Act.

Firstly, the Danish Government would like to express its appreciation for the chance to respond

to this consultation. Protecting minors online is a huge priority of the government to which

strong enforcement and effective implementation of the DSA is pivotal. Accordingly, we agree

with the Commission that the heart of the DSA’s approach to the protection of minors is article

28(1) and therefore urge the Commission to be ambitious in developing the guidelines as they

will be a highly appreciated addition to ensuring effective and smooth enforcement of article

28 in all Member States.

In this regard,

we are closely following the Commission’s formal proceedings against Meta and

TikTok, as these cases concern the protection of minors. It is of particular interest to examine

the interaction between the provisions on systemic risk in article 34 and 35 and article 28, which

are relevant in the case concerning Meta. We support further work along these lines in the

continued enforcement actions under the DSA, as outlined in the mandate of Commissioner-

Designate Virkkunen.

In the following, we elaborate our key priorities for the guidelines:

•

Following a risk-based approach to the protection of minors

•

Making use of default settings to ensure a baseline of safety for minors

•

Moving forward on effective and privacy-preserving age verification

•

Considering systems for selecting and displaying advertisements

Risk-based approach to the protection of minors

We encourage and fully support the Commission’s

willingness to take an inclusive approach

and allow the guidelines to have a broad scope of application across design, features, function-

ing and use of platforms that are accessible to minors.

Consideration should be given to creating guidelines that consider the fact that many online

platforms have mixed target groups and users. This entails outlining clear and practical defini-

tions of what constitutes inappropriate content for children and young people and how the

particular type of content should be categorized based on its harmful nature. As a potential

contribution hereto, a national study authorized by the Danish Parliament on the definition of

harmful content and functions is currently under development. If the guidelines categorize plat-

forms such as e.g. pornography, gaming, social media etc. and identify the typical risks of these

particular types of platforms, it will help the specific industry to identify and mitigate risks.

EUU, Alm.del - 2024-25 - Bilag 56: Notat samt høringssvar vedr. beskyttelse af børn online

The protection of minors online presents a multitude of concerns regarding lack of effective

age verification, harmful content, harmful commercial practices,

excessive collection of minor’s

user data as well as the effect of online platforms on minors wellbeing etc. Particularly, the

exploitation of

minors’

limited cognitive skills and the commercial or other improper processing

and dissemination of their user data gives rise to the need for protection of minors from expo-

sure to content that is harmful and not age-appropriate.

The Danish Government recommends a restrictive approach, where we acknowledge that mi-

nors have a right to access the benefits that the services can provide under the parental super-

vision or with parental consent and to the extent that they are not harmful to them. However,

it is important to underline that parental supervision does not alleviate in any way the respon-

sibility of platforms to protect minors from age-inappropriate and harmful content. The guide-

lines should take this into account as such an approach will enable the engagement of minors

and force the industry to focus on the promotion of experiences that are safe and age-appro-

priate to minors.

Nevertheless, social media and gaming platforms are primarily driven by the companies' finan-

cial considerations. This sometimes takes rather extreme forms, where the services through

game elements and microtransactions exploit children and young people financially. The Dan-

ish Government believes that action should be taken against these forms of practices. Examples

of this are loot boxes and in-game currencies.

Hence, the Danish Government

supports the Commission’s intention to use risk-based

stand-

ards that apply across the EU. These standards should be enforced consistently across Member

States, ensuring that all relevant online platforms adhere to the same level of protection in

order for all minors in the EU to enjoy the same protection.

To support the Commission’s work to define the best interests of

minors in the digital area, we

emphasize the need to examine the online experiences of minors and their perspectives, as

outlined in the Political Guidelines for the Next European Commission.

Default settings that ensures a baseline of safety for minors

Default settings play a crucial role in protecting minors online by offering a baseline of safety

without requiring a proactive effort from the minor. They typically restrict access to age-inap-

propriate content, shielding children from harmful material.

The guidelines may elaborate on which default settings platforms should put in place. This may

include time notifications, financial spending limits, or the basic possibility of activating a con-

sent requirement for financial spending Depending on the individual case, other monitoring

and control options with regard to content that can impair the physical, mental or moral devel-

opment of minors could be considered. Default settings may also include features being turned

off for minors and giving parents better tools to monitor and control how minors use different

services. Mechanisms such as "geolocation", "seen" and "read" could be turned off as a default

setting for minors. It could also be considered whether the "like" function should be made less

visible, e.g. not showing to minors how many likes you get. Functions such as "streak", "infinite

scroll", "auto play", and algorithmic "feed display" or algorithmic friend recommendations

could also be prohibited or minimized towards minors as a default setting.

Default privacy settings may also be useful for limiting the sharing of personal information,

helping to prevent unwanted contact. Defaults can disable location tracking and ensure that

interactions on platforms are limited, minimizing exposure to online predators or cyberbullying.

This also entails ensuring that user profiles of minors cannot be found by search engines, and

that contact details and the communication of underage users are not published. The visibility

of the profile of minors can be limited to a self-selected group of people and unwanted contact

by strangers made impossible. Default settings create a consistent layer of protection, ensuring

that even less tech-savvy families benefit from safety measures, reducing the chances of minors

being accidentally exposed to risks.

EUU, Alm.del - 2024-25 - Bilag 56: Notat samt høringssvar vedr. beskyttelse af børn online

When a service that may contain content only suitable for adults is accessible to both minors

and adults, the service should be designed in a way that is considered safe for minors to use

(safety-by-design). This means that the service by default must design its algorithms, functions,

design, availability, etc. in such a way that all users, including minors, will not be able to access

non-age appropriate content/functions and meet the highest level of security as standard.

Older users will be able to change this by changing the default settings.

Effective and privacy-preserving age verification

If providers are to ensure safe and secure platforms with age-appropriate content and inter-

faces, the provider must have a firm awareness of the age and maturity level of their users.

Effective age verification is a prerequisite for this. It should be as clear as possible that an

”age gate“ based on the self-declaration

of a user cannot be used as an argument that a plat-

form is aware that its users are not minors.

The Danish Government fully supports the need for a harmonized legislative and regulatory

framework at EU level to avoid fragmentation within the digital single market. We support

that age verification principles and other requirements must be integrated into a mandatory

harmonized framework that ensures uniform levels of protection for minors in all EU member

states.

To this end, the Danish Government fully supports ongoing efforts and the Commissions in-

tention to make use of the EUDI Wallet as the common and trusted public tool for age verifi-

cation available for all citizens across EU, not least considering its privacy-preserving potential

and the obligation in the EIDAS2 Regulation of VLOPs to facilitate the use of EUDI Wallet.

In the context of the guidelines and given the urgency of the matter, we need to wholeheart-

edly consider what can be done as we await the full implementation of the EUDI Wallet. To

this end, it is very positive that the Commission has announced that it is working on an inter-

mediate “age

verification

application” to be aligned with the upcoming EUDI Wallet and func-

tional already in 2025. While further details regarding the project are needed, it is evident

that such a solution can only become a success if the Commission pursues a coordinated and

collaborative approach with timely involvement of relevant stakeholders, including especially

Member States. It should also be possible for Member States to develop their own wallet so-

lution and work in line with the age verification application as long as the same technology is

used.

We also support the work of the taskforce on age verification established by the Commission

to develop practical standards for age verification to ensure a high level of privacy, while un-

derlining the importance of synergies and coordination between different ongoing age verifi-

cation efforts.

Porn sites, Social media, gaming and gambling platforms are of particular relevance due to

their content type and wide range of users. The guidelines should therefore particularly ad-

dress how these types of platforms should implement age verification and what the minimum

requirements are to be in accordance with the DSA.

The guidelines should touch upon how GDPR and the protection of minors regarding data pri-

vacy and data handling comes into play regarding age verification and profiling. Data minimi-

zation is part of this, meaning that any system must be designed to limit the collection of per-

sonal data to what is strictly necessary for the verification, and thus not keep the data when

the verification is completed. It should also be clear that the personal data cannot be used for

other purposes, including commercial purposes.

Systems for selecting and displaying advertisements

A separate issue is advertisements shown to minors by particularly influencers which pertains

to e.g. weight loss drugs and dangerous products and unhealthy foods and drinks. We believe

that there should be increased requirements for transparency in influencer marketing and ad-

vertising on social media, especially when it comes to the protection of minors.

EUU, Alm.del - 2024-25 - Bilag 56: Notat samt høringssvar vedr. beskyttelse af børn online

To ensure that the DSA and UCPD complement each other, the Danish Government recom-

mends that the Commission looks at whether article 5, 6 and 7 in the UCPD should include

requirements to present advertisements on online interfaces in a way that corresponds with

the requirements in article 26 in the DSA. Thus, all commercial content on online platforms

should be marked using a commercial disclosure mechanism provided by the platform. Article

28 does not concern advertising specifically, but we urge the Commission to consider whether

the guidelines for article 28 should touch upon standardized advertising for minors.