Safer Internet Day is the annual worldwide campaign under the Better Internet for Kids strategy (BIK+) to promote child online safety.
Executive Vice President for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, shared a video message celebrating Safer Internet Day 2025 and outlining Commission priorities for child online safety.
The Commission places a high priority on safeguarding children online and is committed to tackle cyberbullying, addictive design, and the effects of social media on mental health with stakeholder consultations to garner widespread feedback on these initiatives.
Actions and initiatives
With the enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Commission has already initiated significant measures to safeguard children online, including launching investigations into online platforms related to the protection of minors.
Alongside this, the Commission is currently formulating guidelines for all online platforms to ensure a high level of privacy, safety, and security for young users.
There are other ways the Digital Services Act helps to protect minors online, which you can read about in our child-friendly booklet.
The Commission is also working towards a European approach to age verification. The work has now started to deliver a secure, privacy-preserving, and interoperable solution in 2025, in preparation for the EU Digital Wallet’s availability by the end of 2026.
In the meantime, to help young people playing games online know their rights and recognise manipulative in-game marketing tactics, the Commission is currently running the AdWise Online awareness campaign.
A safe internet is also needed to ensure that European consumers feel more confident online and contribute to growth and competitiveness. With the Digital Fairness Act proposal in 2026, the Commission will aim to close the current legal gaps to better protect consumers from being exploited, misled, or tricked by unfair online practices.
Throughout its work on child safety online, the Commission engages with children and young people, empowering and involving them directly, as demonstrated in the first evaluation of the Better Internet for Kids Strategy. Next month, Executive Vice President Henna Virkunnen will meet young people in Helsinki to discuss the role of social media platforms in democracy.
Resources
On the Better Internet for Kids portal, hundreds of articles, guides and studies are available in all European languages for children, parents and teachers.
At the national level, the EU’s co-funded network of Safer Internet Centres provides a contact point for children, parents, teachers and carers on digital questions via helplines and fights against online child sexual abuse via hotlines.
Read more about Safer Internet Day.