What happened
On 29 October 2026, the European Commission announced it is blocking member states from adopting or applying national laws restricting minors' access to online services that overlap with the proposed EU KIDS Act, using the TRIS standstill procedure to impose a 12-month freeze. Austria is the first country caught (its under-14 draft ban is paused until late July 2027); France and Greece are exempt because their review periods ended before the proposal. The KIDS Act (tabled 17 September 2026) sets age-based account thresholds and certified age-verification requirements, and explicitly applies to AI companions and chatbots — which would be supervised under the EU AI Act by the Commission and the EU AI Office, with fines up to 6% of worldwide turnover.
Why it matters
The Commission is using its internal-market powers to pre-empt a patchwork of national child-safety and age-verification rules — including those targeting AI companion/chatbot providers. This creates a single EU compliance horizon and signals that AI-chatbot child-safety obligations will be enforced under the EU AI Act alongside DSA supervision, rather than via divergent member-state laws.
Action needed
Online services, social platforms, and AI companion/chatbot providers offering services to minors in the EU should track KIDS Act negotiations and prepare for EU-level age-verification and safety-by-design obligations; understand that national bans (except France/Greece) are frozen for 12 months, so compliance should be built to the EU-wide standard.