Second meeting of Special Panel to advise President von der Leyen on child online safety

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

Today, the Special Panel on child online safety advising President von der Leyen on child online safety, convened for a second meeting. Today’s meeting focused on current EU rules and initiatives to protect minors online, shared by experts advising Member States, as well as international approaches, such as Australia’s social media minimum age. This meeting follows yesterday’s presentation by the Commission of the final EU age verification app, the most privacy-preserving and user-friendly tool to protect children online.

President Ursula von der Leyen, said: “We must protect our children in the online world, just as we do in the offline world. And for that, we need a harmonised European approach. Yesterday, I presented our EU age verification app – this is our European solution. With the highest privacy standards in the world. I encourage all our Member States to start customising our app so it can be used by citizens soon. Because this tool will help parents protect their children across platforms.”

The participants of the full-day meeting included youth representatives, legal specialists, computer scientists, medical professionals and child rights advocates. The discussions focused on new and improved approaches at EU level, as well as non-legislative initiatives that can ensure children are safer online.

The meeting builds on insights from the first panel meeting, which examined the latest research on the opportunities and risks associated with children’s online activities, such as social media, gaming, AI applications and messaging platforms.

The Special Panel on child online safety is co-chaired by Maria Melchior, Research Director at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and Professor Dr Jörg M. Fegert, Director of the Department for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy at Ulm University Medical Centre. The list of participants is available online.

The Special Panel does not have permanent membership and the specialists invited may vary from meeting to meeting, as the President seeks the views of a broad audience.

EU Age Verification App

President von der Leyen and Executive Vice-President Virkkunen presented yesterday the final EU age verification app, the most privacy-preserving and user-friendly solution that will soon be available across the EU on all devices. The EU age verification app is also open source, therefore allowing partner countries to rely on it.

The EU app verifies a user’s age online without sharing any personal information thanks to the ‘zero-knowledge proof’ method. Online platforms can fully rely on the EU age verification app to ensure that children are not exposed to dangerous or harmful content on their services. Under the Digital Services Act, online platforms are legally required to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors in the EU.

In July 2025*, the Commission first presented the blueprint of the app, which it then provided to Member States to test and develop in their national contexts. Seven frontrunner Member States are already piloting the development of the app: France, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Ireland. They are planning to integrate the app into their national eID wallets.

Next steps

The Commission will convene the panel for a third meeting of the social media panel in the coming months. By the summer of 2026, the co-chairs will report to the President on findings and recommendations informed by the Special Panel meetings.

On the EU age verification app, all Member States can now start customising the app to offer it to their citizens.

President von der Leyen is also discussing the protection of children online with global leaders, including in a videoconference today on digital majority age with European partners, hosted by the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron.

*Updated on 16/04/2026 at 17:45