The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Wednesday said the European Union’s age-verification app is technically ready and will be made available shortly.

This development came amid an EU-wide effort to better protect minors online.

“When it comes to the safety of children online, the situation is extremely worrying,” Ms Von der Leyen told journalists. “One child in six is bullied online. One child in eight is bullying another child online.’’

Several national governments across the EU plan to introduce a minimum age for using social media platforms, but a reliable age-verification tool in line with the bloc’s strict data protection standards has not yet been made available.

Ms Von der Leyen said that France, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus and Ireland already announced they would integrate the app into their national IT systems.

Urging more countries to do the same, von der Leyen reiterated her concerns about excessive social media use among young people.

“Social media platforms offer highly addictive designs, infinite scrolling that is feeding the addiction, short videos (for) snap attention spans, highly personalised content,” she said. “This environment does not benefit young, developing minds.”

Ms Von der Leyen called for a “harmonised European approach” to measures to better protect minors online and said an expert group will present recommendations by this summer.

(dpa/NAN)