A strong continuing trend has emerged across Europe: 92% of Europeans consider the need to further strengthen children and young people’s protection online as a top policy priority.
Protecting children is a high priority for 92% of Europeans
These findings reflect a growing and sustained concern, as evidenced by the first figures from Special Eurobarometer on the Digital Decade, an annual survey carried out in the context of the State of the Digital Decade report.
These results confirm last year’s edition, where over 9 in 10 Europeans stated it is urgent that public authorities take action to protect children online, in particular to address:
- the negative impact of social media on their mental health (93%),
- cyberbullying and online harassment (92%),
- assuring mechanisms to restrict age in appropriate content (92%).
Barriers to using AI
This year’s survey focuses on the barriers holding Europeans back from using artificial intelligence (AI).
While the 2025 findings underlined the need of aligning AI and new digital technologies with fundamental rights, values and digital freedoms, the 2026 results expose deeper concerns, including on:
- privacy or data protection (39%),
- accuracy or incorrect information (36%),
- ethical issues or misuse of generative AI tools (32%).
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Furthermore, an overwhelming 87% of Europeans agree that online manipulation (such as disinformation, foreign interference, AI-generated content, deepfakes) pose a threat to our democratic processes.
A key message is that Europeans are increasingly demanding safeguards in a highly digitalised environment, with 80% of Europeans thinking the development of AI should be carefully regulated to ensure safety, even if such oversight imposes certain constraints on AI developers.
Concerns over online platforms
The EU has regulated the behaviour of online platforms, such as social media and online marketplaces.
However, Europeans still report feeling personally impacted by:
- fake news and disinformation (53%),
- the misuse of personal data (47%),
- insufficient protections for minors (41%).
Concerns over fake news and child protection have seen the sharpest increases since 2024, each increasing by 8 percentage points.
The full Special Eurobarometer on the Digital Decade results will be published in June 2026 as part of the 2026 State of the Digital Decade report package.
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