Download "The protection of minors on VSPs: age verification and parental control" 

How can European law ensure that children and minors don't watch harmful video content on their screens?

The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) is the European legal text which contains safety measures. More specifically the protection of minors on VSPs falls under Article 28b (1) of the revised AVMSD.

This new report - The protection of minors on VSPs: age verification and parental control  -  by the European Audiovisual Observatory examines the provisions in European law and looks at the different solutions found and implemented by the various EU member states and the UK. The study has been co-financed by the European Commission under Creative Europe.

Following the executive summary and methodology note, chapter three provides a comparative analysis of the different ways in which the EU member states and the UK have included the AVMSD provisions in their own national legislation. Issues dealt with include age of use of VSPs and age verification, for example. The various parental control systems which have been developed are also listed and analysed: monitoring functions, content blocking or filtering mechanisms, limiting screen time and direct messaging functions, and content rating. This chapter rounds off with a look at protection measures specific to adult VSPs which have a special obligation to prevent children from accessing content. The authors also look at the additional rules referring to (v)bloggers. 

Chapter four delivers detailed country summaries for the 27 EU member states plus the UK. For each country the authors zoom in on the national transposition of the AVMSD and look at the types of measures put in place by video sharing platforms.  This chapter also provides a list of all VSPS under the jurisdiction of each national regulatory media authority. 

This new report is completed by eight very useful country by country tables which summarize in tabular form the various findings of the report.

The information has been gathered through a network of national experts and analysed and structured by the Observatory team with the coordinating experts Ivana Kostovska, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and Sally Broughton Micova, University of East Anglia.

A must -read round up of the rules in today's Europe which aim at protecting children form harmful content available on video sharing platforms.