The Netherlands and Spain are pushing the European Commission to establish an EU-wide minimum age for social media use, potentially extending to video games and AI chatbots, with harmonized enforcement across member states. The proposal aims to prevent a patchwork of national regulations while respecting fundamental rights and using age verification frameworks to minimize privacy risks.
Claude is now restricted to users 18 and older. Anthropic has implemented safety systems to detect underage users and will disable accounts accordingly. Users can verify their age through Yoti using facial estimation, ID documents, or a digital ID app, with all personal data deleted after verification.
OpenRockets proposes MAPLE (Minor Authors Public License for Expression), a new open source software license designed to preserve authorship attribution for creators under 18. The license grants standard open source freedoms while maintaining a durable record of minor authorship, treating youth-created software as serious intellectual property from its first publication. The initiative seeks 100,000 signatures on Change.org to advance the licensing standard.