The European Commission presented the draft Kids Act on 16 September, and the provision that will matter most to people outside Europe is not the age limit.2 MacRumors 2026-09-16 Presented 16 September 2026; AI companion providers must avoid designs fostering unhealthy emotional attachment; mandatory age verification via official apps; von der Leyen set the thresholds at thirteen for social media and fifteen for a personal account. Open source It is the verification.
The headline rules are clean enough to state in a sentence. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen set two thresholds: no social media under the age of thirteen, and no personal account under the age of fifteen.2 MacRumors 2026-09-16 Presented 16 September 2026; AI companion providers must avoid designs fostering unhealthy emotional attachment; mandatory age verification via official apps; von der Leyen set the thresholds at thirteen for social media and fifteen for a personal account. Open source Beneath that sit four tiers. Children under three get nothing. Ages three to twelve are confined to child friendly services through accounts their parents fully control. Thirteen and fourteen year olds may use social media and video sharing on accounts a parent establishes, with restricted contacts and time limits. At fifteen a user may open an account alone.1 TechSpot 2026-09-16 Tiers of under three, three to twelve, thirteen to fourteen and fifteen plus; coverage includes chatbots, AI companions, games and app stores; fines up to 6 percent of global revenue, about 12.1 billion dollars against Meta 2025 revenue; Commission age checking app urged on member states by year end. Open source
The scope is the part that separates this from earlier European child safety law. The Act reaches social networks, video platforms, app marketplaces, online games, AI companions and conversational chatbots, with exemptions carved out for online encyclopedias, educational tools, public service apps and software repositories.3 Briefs.co 2026-09-16 Exemptions for encyclopedias, educational tools, public service apps and software repositories; oversight fee capped at 0.03 percent of worldwide sales; non profits may file complaints on behalf of minors and parents; approval by governments and lawmakers typically takes years. Open source Providers of AI companions carry a substantive design obligation on top of the age gate: they must avoid designs that foster unhealthy emotional attachment or expose children to harmful interactions.2 MacRumors 2026-09-16 Presented 16 September 2026; AI companion providers must avoid designs fostering unhealthy emotional attachment; mandatory age verification via official apps; von der Leyen set the thresholds at thirteen for social media and fifteen for a personal account. Open source
Penalties run to 6 percent of global annual revenue, with a separate oversight fee capped at 0.03 percent of worldwide sales.1 TechSpot 2026-09-16 Tiers of under three, three to twelve, thirteen to fourteen and fifteen plus; coverage includes chatbots, AI companions, games and app stores; fines up to 6 percent of global revenue, about 12.1 billion dollars against Meta 2025 revenue; Commission age checking app urged on member states by year end. Open source 3 Briefs.co 2026-09-16 Exemptions for encyclopedias, educational tools, public service apps and software repositories; oversight fee capped at 0.03 percent of worldwide sales; non profits may file complaints on behalf of minors and parents; approval by governments and lawmakers typically takes years. Open source Measured against Meta 2025 revenue of 200.97 billion dollars, the ceiling approaches 12.1 billion dollars.1 TechSpot 2026-09-16 Tiers of under three, three to twelve, thirteen to fourteen and fifteen plus; coverage includes chatbots, AI companions, games and app stores; fines up to 6 percent of global revenue, about 12.1 billion dollars against Meta 2025 revenue; Commission age checking app urged on member states by year end. Open source Minors and parents may authorise non profit organisations to bring complaints to national regulators or directly to the Commission, which adds a private enforcement channel alongside the public one.3 Briefs.co 2026-09-16 Exemptions for encyclopedias, educational tools, public service apps and software repositories; oversight fee capped at 0.03 percent of worldwide sales; non profits may file complaints on behalf of minors and parents; approval by governments and lawmakers typically takes years. Open source
Why verification is the load bearing provision
An age rule is only as real as the mechanism that checks age, and the Commission has built the mechanism. Services must confirm user age through the official EU verification app or an equivalent method, at account creation and at game download.1 TechSpot 2026-09-16 Tiers of under three, three to twelve, thirteen to fourteen and fifteen plus; coverage includes chatbots, AI companions, games and app stores; fines up to 6 percent of global revenue, about 12.1 billion dollars against Meta 2025 revenue; Commission age checking app urged on member states by year end. Open source 3 Briefs.co 2026-09-16 Exemptions for encyclopedias, educational tools, public service apps and software repositories; oversight fee capped at 0.03 percent of worldwide sales; non profits may file complaints on behalf of minors and parents; approval by governments and lawmakers typically takes years. Open source The Commission has urged member states to deploy the app by the end of the year.1 TechSpot 2026-09-16 Tiers of under three, three to twelve, thirteen to fourteen and fifteen plus; coverage includes chatbots, AI companions, games and app stores; fines up to 6 percent of global revenue, about 12.1 billion dollars against Meta 2025 revenue; Commission age checking app urged on member states by year end. Open source
This is where a child safety statute becomes an architecture decision for everyone. A platform cannot verify that a user is over fifteen without establishing something about every user who is not. Whatever the intended design, the operative effect of a mandatory age check is that anonymous access to a general purpose chatbot stops being the default in Europe. The adult who declines to verify is not protected by the adult exemption. The adult who declines to verify is simply out.
We assess with high confidence that this is the provision with the largest spillover beyond the Union, for the same reason every European platform rule has spilled over: a developer maintaining one global account pipeline builds to the strictest requirement it faces and ships that pipeline everywhere. The Kids Act does not need extraterritorial reach to change what an American user encounters at sign up. It needs only to be cheaper to comply with globally than regionally.
The design obligation is the harder problem
The requirement that AI companions avoid fostering unhealthy emotional attachment is the least tractable clause in the draft.2 MacRumors 2026-09-16 Presented 16 September 2026; AI companion providers must avoid designs fostering unhealthy emotional attachment; mandatory age verification via official apps; von der Leyen set the thresholds at thirteen for social media and fifteen for a personal account. Open source Age can be checked. Attachment cannot. Every property that makes a conversational assistant useful, including memory of prior conversation, responsiveness to tone and a consistent persona, is also a property that produces attachment. A regulator asked to distinguish a helpful assistant from an unhealthy one will be drawing a line through product design with no measurement standard behind it.
We assess with moderate confidence that this clause, if it survives to final text unchanged, produces conservative over compliance rather than careful line drawing. The rational response of a developer facing an undefined obligation and a 6 percent ceiling is to strip warmth and memory from any product a minor might reach, and then, because the pipeline is global, from the product everyone reaches.
Who carries the cost
The compliance burden falls unevenly and not where the drafting suggests. A company with a verification vendor relationship and a trust and safety organisation absorbs an age gate as a line item. A smaller developer shipping a conversational product into Europe absorbs it as a reason to leave, and the non profit complaint channel means it can be brought before a regulator without a public authority deciding the case is worth pursuing.3 Briefs.co 2026-09-16 Exemptions for encyclopedias, educational tools, public service apps and software repositories; oversight fee capped at 0.03 percent of worldwide sales; non profits may file complaints on behalf of minors and parents; approval by governments and lawmakers typically takes years. Open source The predictable effect of a 6 percent ceiling paired with private complaint rights is consolidation among the firms already large enough to be named in the draft.
What to watch
The timeline first. This is a draft, not law. It requires agreement from EU governments and the Parliament, and that process routinely spans years.3 Briefs.co 2026-09-16 Exemptions for encyclopedias, educational tools, public service apps and software repositories; oversight fee capped at 0.03 percent of worldwide sales; non profits may file complaints on behalf of minors and parents; approval by governments and lawmakers typically takes years. Open source Nothing changes for any user this year, and coverage treating the announcement as enacted policy is wrong.
Second, whether the exemption list holds and how it is read. Educational tools and software repositories are exempt.3 Briefs.co 2026-09-16 Exemptions for encyclopedias, educational tools, public service apps and software repositories; oversight fee capped at 0.03 percent of worldwide sales; non profits may file complaints on behalf of minors and parents; approval by governments and lawmakers typically takes years. Open source A general purpose assistant is used for education constantly and is the interface to software repositories for a growing share of developers. If the exemptions are read narrowly, general assistants are inside the regime. If read broadly, a great deal of the Act's chatbot coverage dissolves. The final text on that boundary is worth more attention than the age numbers.
Third, whether the verification app is adopted by member states on the Commission's timetable.1 TechSpot 2026-09-16 Tiers of under three, three to twelve, thirteen to fourteen and fifteen plus; coverage includes chatbots, AI companions, games and app stores; fines up to 6 percent of global revenue, about 12.1 billion dollars against Meta 2025 revenue; Commission age checking app urged on member states by year end. Open source An age gate without deployed infrastructure is a compliance obligation with no compliant method, and the year end target is aggressive for twenty seven administrations.
Fourth, the American parallel. California has already enacted restrictions on addictive social media features for under sixteens and required independent child safety audits for chatbots.1 TechSpot 2026-09-16 Tiers of under three, three to twelve, thirteen to fourteen and fifteen plus; coverage includes chatbots, AI companions, games and app stores; fines up to 6 percent of global revenue, about 12.1 billion dollars against Meta 2025 revenue; Commission age checking app urged on member states by year end. Open source If a state regime and the European regime converge on similar verification architecture, the global default arrives without any federal decision, and the question of what an anonymous American may do with a chatbot will have been settled by a Sacramento statute and a Brussels draft.