EU Kids Act could force age verification for online games across Europe

The EU Kids Act lands before the European Parliament on Thursday, and if it passes, gamers across Europe could be required to verify their age before accessing certain online games. The legislation is designed to protect children from online harm and has been in discussion for over a year.

Documents obtained by Euractiv state the act will oblige providers of social media services and video-sharing platforms to perform age verification when users open new accounts. That requirement would extend beyond social media to AI chatbots and online games deemed risky to minors — though industrial AI, AI office tools, and educational services are explicitly excluded. The exact scope of which games qualify as risky to minors has not been defined in the available documents.

The EU proposal arrives as age verification is becoming a global pressure point for the games industry. PlayStation began rolling out age checks in Ireland and the UK in April, gating features like voice chat, messaging, and streaming behind verification via facial scan, mobile number, or government ID. Australia went further this month, requiring Steam users to add an Australian credit card to access R18+ content under the Age-Restricted Material App Distribution Services Code — a method that's already drawing criticism from adult players who don't own one. In the US, there's no federal-level mandate yet, though several states have passed their own laws, and the debate sits squarely at the intersection of child safety advocacy and online privacy concerns.

The risks of age verification systems themselves are also under scrutiny. Discord recently paused its global age verification rollout after hackers accessed 70,000 images of users' government IDs — a breach that underlines exactly why privacy advocates are pushing back hard. How the EU Kids Act handles data security around verification will likely be a central point of debate when it reaches Parliament on Thursday.