“Estonia believes in an information society and including young people in the information society,” Estonia’s minister of justice and digital affairs, Liisa-Ly Pakosta, told POLITICO.
Tallinn is in favor of enforcing existing rules designed to offer protections, such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, rather than changing the current age restrictions, Pakosta said. That bans children under 13 from consenting to their data being processed, with countries able to increase that threshold.
An age limit on social media would be a “very easy thing to do,” but countries should instead invest in better education for the digital age, she said.
“Estonia believes in an information society and including young people in the information society,” said Pakosta.
If one in 10 children has “problematic” use of social media, as the declaration cites, then the government should figure out what is not working for these children, she added.
Not setting a minimum age threshold for social media is an “easy way out,” because “it is a difficult decision to make and I can see it on a national level,” Caroline Stage Olsen, Denmark’s minister for digital government, told POLITICO when asked about Estonia’s decision not to sign the EU-wide commitment.