Australia is currently experiencing a national debate with the entry into force of an age limit for the use of social networks for those under 16 years old. It is the first country to implement such a measure, aimed at controlling the harmful effects that these platforms have on children, such as addictions or exposure to adult content. A measure that the Spanish government hopes to imitate from 2026.
This was announced on Thursday by the Minister of Digital Transformation, Óscar López. Currently, the age limit for using these services in Spain is 14, but a new rule proposes to increase it to 16. This is the organic law for the protection of minors in digital environments, the development of which in Congress began in September. Parliamentary sources explain that the text has the possibility of obtaining the support of the rest of the groups, including the PP.
If approved, access to social networks would be blocked for children and adolescents who do not have parental approval.
However, López recalled that the debate on the minimum age “is not appropriate if there is no real age verification system.” “The tool is as important as the legislation,” he stressed. In this sense, the minister confirmed that the age verification tool to implement the measure, Cartera Digital Beta, is already ready at the technical level, as announced by elDiario.es.
Currently it is being tested in a European project with the solutions proposed by other countries, but the minister recalled that Spain “is the most advanced and the only one ready.” This is a project in which the Executive wants to go hand in hand with the EU, but its objective is for the project to complete the implementation of all its mechanisms “in 2026”, he stressed.
Beta Digital Wallet is an age verification tool that helps demonstrate whether a user is over a certain age without revealing unnecessary personal data, as the government explains in its technical documentation. It functions like a digital identifier issued by the Administration: the mobile phone generates a cryptographic proof that the platforms can verify, but without accessing the DNI or storing sensitive information.
The objective is that minors cannot open accounts on social networks or access pornographic pages without this control and, at the same time, guarantee that the process respects the privacy of adults.
With the approval of the Advisory Council
López made the announcement during a press conference following the meeting of the ministry’s Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence, made up of some of the most renowned international experts in this field. This advisory body, whose members receive no financial compensation for advising the government on this issue, met on Wednesday and Thursday in Madrid.
One of the topics that focused the conversations was precisely what is happening in Australia. One of the people who make up the council is Australian Kate Crawford, co-founder of the AI Nos Institute research center and author of The AI Atlas, one of the reference works in this field, which documented the country’s attempt to separate miners from platform algorithms and its most pernicious effects.
“This is a step that is clearly in the right direction,” said Jeroen van den Hoen, a philosopher specializing in technology and AI, professor at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) and member of the advisory board, during the press conference. “From our conversations, we believe that the right thing to do is to provide age verification tools that respect privacy and at the same time guarantee parents some control over what happens with their children online. Everyone is worried about what is happening,” he revealed.
“We have been studying for a long time what happens to young people and children on social networks and what we know is that it is not good,” continued the professor in response to the question from elDiario.es. “The people who provide these platforms, services and applications are not interested in the mental health of minors. On the contrary, they benefit from it, so they are encouraged to develop all kinds of products that are not oriented towards their well-being, quite the contrary. Their interest is that they become more and more addictive.”
To contextualize the debate, which in Australia has mobilized very diverse sectors of civil society, as well as the current one around the regulation of artificial intelligence, the expert wanted to retrieve an opinion from former European Commission Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. “If we had known 20 years ago when social media was introduced what its full impact on society would be, we would not have been so naive. We would have taken the steps we are taking today.”
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