It’s the latest probe into platforms over failures to protect kids under the bloc’s powerful Digital Services Act, after investigations were launched into AliExpress, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, TikTok and four porn platforms, News.Az reports, citing Politico.
***
The probe lands amid growing scrutiny of the impact and liability of technology platforms towards kids. EU countries have put the issue of minors’ protection at the top of their agenda and are pressuring the Commission to do more.
A landmark social media addiction trial in California on Wednesday found Meta and YouTube negligent for designing addictive social media platforms that harmed a child, ordering them to pay $3 million in compensatory damages.In its probe into Snapchat, the EU could fine Snap, the parent company, up to 6 percent of its annual global revenue if it’s found to have breached the digital rules.
A Snapchat spokesperson said in a statement that “The safety and wellbeing of all Snapchatters is a top priority” and Snapchat is designed “with privacy and safety built in from the start — including additional protections for teens.”
“As online risks evolve, we continuously review, strengthen, and invest in these safeguards,” the spokesperson said, adding the company has “fully cooperated with the Commission to date” and “will continue to do so throughout this investigation.”
The Commission said it will pursue multiple angles of investigation including whether the platform does enough to assess the age of its users, which Snap does through self-declaration. In separate findings announced Thursday, the Commission said self-declaration by four porn platforms — asking users to tick a box to declare their age — is insufficient to protect kids.
Snap’s age verification system for figuring out if minors under 13 years old are on the platform may be one of the “weakest on the market,” a senior Commission official said. The risk on Snap with regards to age verification is two-sided, the official said: children are posing as adults, and adults also pose as children to approach minors.
The Commission is also looking into whether Snapchat is doing enough to protect kids from “being contacted by users with harmful intent, such as sexual exploitation or recruitment for criminal activities.” This grooming includes the risk of radicalization, said another senior official.Investigators will check if Snapchat is adequately preventing the risks of the sale of illegal and age-restricted items such as vapes, alcohol and drugs, and whether Snapchat’s mechanisms for reporting illegal content are user-friendly.
Finally, the Commission said that “Snapchat’s default settings do not provide sufficient privacy, safety, and security protections for minors.” It said the “Find Friends” system recommends children and teens to adult users, and the platform keeps push notifications on by default, hooking users on the platform.
The EU probe follows a detailed investigation by the Netherlands Consumer and Competition authority, which is in charge of implementing the law nationally.
Snap is already in talks with the Commission to pilot an age verification system that the EU executive is developing along with six EU countries, the second official said.
That could allow users to prove they are over 18 without revealing personal data, and would be an appropriate way for Snap to meet its obligations under the DSA, the official signaled.
