The European Commission has preliminarily found Meta\'s Instagram and Facebook in breach of the Digital Services Act (DSA) for failing to diligently identify, assess and mitigate the risks of minors under 13 years old accessing their services.
For example, when creating an account, minors below 13 can enter a false birth date that makes them at least 13 years old, with no effective controls in place to check the correctness of the self-declared date of birth.
Meta’s tool for reporting minors under 13 on the platform is difficult to use and not effective, requiring up to seven clicks just to access the reporting form, which is not automatically pre-filled with the user’s information. Even when a minor under 13 is reported for being under the age threshold, there often is no proper follow-up, and the reported minor can simply continue to use the service without any type of check.
From the linked press release: