France enacted the Digital Majority Law on 7 August 2026, requiring social media platforms to implement mandatory age verification for all users and to obtain parental consent for accounts held by children under 15 years of age, with enforcement beginning 1 January 2027 and fines of up to four percent of global turnover for non-compliance. The law mandates that platforms use age assurance technologies certified by France's data protection authority CNIL and prohibits the collection of biometric data solely for age verification purposes, aiming to restrict children's access to platforms that present risks of grooming, cyberbullying and exposure to harmful content.
Age gates determine who may enter a platform but do not monitor what happens once a child is inside, and restricting access for younger users can displace activity to less regulated services or encrypted channels where oversight is absent. Detection modules that identify grooming, sextortion, child sexual abuse material and cyberbullying in real time within direct messages address the underlying harm without requiring every user, including adults, to prove their age, and without foreclosing supervised access for children whose parents, schools or sports organisations choose monitored engagement over blanket prohibition. Guardii operates across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, blocking or flagging hostile contact at the point it occurs and surfacing a child in crisis to the responsible adult or authority.
