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The European Union has opened a formal investigation into whether Snapchat has breached Digital Services Act (DSA) regulations regarding the safeguarding of children using its app.
Regulators say that the company, whose audience demographic has always skewed young, may not be doing enough to protect minors from grooming and "recruitment for criminal purposes." The EU is also looking into whether Snapchat's younger users are too easily accessing information on how to buy illegal drugs and age-restricted products.
Brussels argues that while Snapchat requires users to be at least 13 years of age to sign up for an account, its self-declaration age assurance system may not be an adequate means of ensuring those younger than the minimum age can't engage with the platform. The European Commission also says the current measures fail to assess whether users are younger than 17 years old, which it says is necessary for an "age-appropriate experience." It also alleges that adults are able to exploit the current system to lie about their own age and impersonate minors.
Investigators believe that the app itself doesn't allow for other users to report accounts they suspect are being used by people younger than the minimum age requirements. Moreover, they argue that reporting illegal content found on the app is not easy enough, and that Snapchat may not be informing its users about "possibilities for redress."
Other issues being looked at by the European Commission include child and teen accounts being recommended to other users by Snapchat's Find Friends feature and insufficient guidance on available account safety features.
The investigators are now in the process of gath
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