European Commission Launches Investigation into Snapchat’s Child Safety Practices
The European Commission has initiated a formal investigation into Snapchat’s compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA), focusing on the platform’s protection of minors. The probe centers on concerns that Snapchat may be failing to ensure a safe online environment for children, potentially exposing them to risks like grooming, criminal recruitment, and access to harmful content.
Key Areas of Investigation
The Commission’s investigation will focus on five key areas, as outlined in a press release on March 26, 2026:
- Age Assurance: The Commission is scrutinizing Snapchat’s reliance on self-declaration for age verification, questioning its effectiveness in ensuring age-appropriate experiences.
- Protection from Grooming and Criminal Recruitment: Investigators will assess whether Snapchat adequately protects children and teenagers from harmful contact, including sexual exploitation and recruitment into criminal activities.
- Default Account Settings: The investigation will examine whether Snapchat’s default privacy, safety, and security settings provide sufficient protection for young users.
- Dissemination of Harmful Content: The Commission will evaluate Snapchat’s content moderation tools to determine if they effectively prevent the spread of information related to illegal products like drugs, vapes, and alcohol.
- Reporting of Illegal Content: The investigation will assess the accessibility and user-friendliness of Snapchat’s reporting mechanisms for illegal content, looking for potential “dark patterns” that may hinder reporting.
Broader Context: DSA Enforcement
This investigation is part of a broader effort by the European Commission to enforce the Digital Services Act, a landmark regulation aimed at creating a safer digital space for users, particularly children. Similar investigations have been launched into other major platforms, including AliExpress, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, and several pornographic platforms.
Potential Consequences
If found to be in breach of the DSA, Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, could face fines of up to 6% of its annual global revenue, according to Politico.
Snapchat’s Response
A Snapchat spokesperson stated that the safety and wellbeing of Snapchatters is a top priority and that the platform is designed with privacy and safety in mind, including additional protections for teenagers. The company added that it continuously reviews and invests in these safeguards and has fully cooperated with the Commission to date, and will continue to do so throughout the investigation.
Concerns Over Age Verification
The Commission has expressed particular concern about adults misrepresenting their ages as minors on Snapchat, potentially facilitating grooming risks. Euractiv reports that Snapchat’s age-gating systems are among the weakest in the market, relying solely on self-declaration. The platform’s ability to accurately infer the ages of users between 13 and 17 is also considered “particularly poor” by Commission officials.
Additional Findings Regarding Pornography Platforms
Alongside the Snapchat investigation, the Commission has preliminarily found that Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos are in breach of the DSA for failing to ensure their platforms are accessible only to adults.