EU says Meta failed to keep under-13s off Instagram and Facebook

The European Commission said Meta did not do enough to keep children under 13 off Instagram and Facebook, finding that the company’s age controls were not effective enough to block underage users or quickly remove them once they got in.

Brussels said the preliminary finding, announced on April 29, 2026, pointed to a breach of the Digital Services Act because Meta failed to diligently identify, assess and mitigate the risk of minors using the two platforms. Meta’s own terms and conditions set 13 as the minimum age, but the Commission said its enforcement measures and age-assurance methods did not appear strong enough to match that rule in practice.

The case goes to the core enforcement question now facing regulators: how far a platform can be required to verify age without creating new privacy problems through aggressive checks on users. The Commission said it had specifically questioned Meta’s age-assurance and verification methods, signaling that the issue is not just whether a platform writes down an age limit, but whether it can enforce one at scale.

The finding also fits into a broader child-safety concern that the Commission set out when it opened formal proceedings against Meta on May 16, 2024. At that stage, Brussels said it was worried that Facebook and Instagram systems, including their algorithms, could foster behavioral addictions and create “rabbit-hole effects” for children. The 2026 decision drew on Meta’s September 2023 risk assessment report, the company’s replies to Commission information requests, public reports and the Commission’s own analysis.

For Meta, the practical burden is now clear. It would need to show that its controls can better distinguish children from adults, prevent under-13s from signing up in the first place, and remove them promptly when they are detected. Anything less leaves the company exposed to the Commission’s argument that the minimum age on paper is not being enforced in reality.

The stakes are high. If the Digital Services Act case is ultimately upheld, Meta could face a fine of up to 6% of its global annual revenue. The pressure comes on top of other EU action against the company, including separate proceedings opened on April 30, 2024 over deceptive advertising, political content, notice-and-action mechanisms, researcher data access and election-monitoring tools.

Meta has also already been fined in another EU case. On April 23, 2025, the Commission imposed a €200 million penalty under the Digital Markets Act over the company’s “pay or consent” advertising model. Together, the two cases show Brussels testing whether it can force a dominant platform to change its behavior in practice, not just in policy language, while avoiding a system that solves one harm by introducing another.