Many platforms already include safeguards designed specifically for teens.

Behind the screen, curiosity can sometimes lead teens towards hidden digital risks.

The platform will use age estimation technology and identity checks to verify users’ ages, while stressing that privacy safeguards remain in place.

The challenge lies in protecting children online while ensuring that solutions remain fair, coordinated and realistic for the long term.

In some cases, parents are no longer able to work due to ill health; in others, they have been retrenched, retired on modest pensions, or face a combination of setbacks.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said platforms will be required to implement strict age verification systems, describing the current online ecosystem as a digital space where regulation has failed to keep children safe.