In brief
- The EU KIDS Act is a proposed EU Regulation, published by the European Commission on 17 September 2026.
- It intends to create a harmonised child-safety framework across social media, video-sharing platforms, online games, app stores and AI chatbots and companions accessible to minors. For these services, other than specified AI systems, it will apply regardless of where the provider is located, provided that their service is offered to users established or located in the EU. For AI companions and general conversational chatbots, the test is whether the system is placed on the market or put into service in the EU.
- While much of the Act's focus is on social media and video sharing platforms, it introduces safety-by-design features for online games and gaming platforms that are likely to have a significant impact on the sector.
- Online games will (among other things) be required to limit features that are deemed to encourage excessive or compulsive use by minors, prevent other users from initiating direct contact with minors without their pre-approval, and implement default account settings to increase privacy and security for minors.
- Games providers may need to introduce age assurance or apply the protections for minors to all players.
- The proposal is in draft and subject to a consultation that is running until 3 December 2026. We recommend that businesses respond to the consultation to ensure that their voices are heard.
The EU KIDS Act is a proposed EU Regulation, published by the European Commission on 17 September 2026. We have set out below a summary of the key provisions relevant to online games. If your business needs help understanding these requirements, please contact our Interactive Entertainment team.
Safety by design
All providers of in-scope services, including online games, would be subject to 'safety by design' requirements. For online games specifically, these requirements would include:
- Compulsive/excessive use: services must not be designed in a manner that is intended, or can reasonably be foreseen, to encourage compulsive or excessive use of the service by minors, including through the use of features that a) undermine a minor's decision to discontinue use of the service; or b) incentivise engagement at regular times or with greater frequency. Push notifications designed to draw minors back without being triggered by, or directly related to, their activity on the service, and features like daily 'streaks' and log-in rewards are likely to fall foul of this requirement.
- Contact safeguards: users must not be able to initiate direct contact with a minor unless that minor has pre-approved such contact. Minors must not be included in 'contact recommendations' or similar features, and must be able to easily block other users. Games should not be used to 'entice' minors to initiate contact on other services which may pose a risk to their privacy, safety or security.
- Guardian tools: access by under-13s must run through guardian tools that enable parents to manage account settings and account contacts, and submit reports on the child's behalf. Tools must be 'tailored to the age of the minor', and minors must be informed when guardian tools are being used,
- Privacy defaults: providers must, by default, turn off geolocation/tracking features, access to microphone and camera, recommendations for other accounts, and push notifications.
Minimum age restrictions and age assurance
Crucially, services, including online games, may only derogate from the safety by design requirements set out above once age assurance has established that the relevant user is an adult. For existing accounts, the proposal provides an exception where the provider can establish, with a high degree of confidence, that the user is an adult. In practice, games providers would therefore need either to apply the protections for minors to all players or to implement a form of age assurance for every player other than those covered by that exception. This is likely to have a particular impact on online multiplayer games and mobile games that rely on engagement mechanics such as rewards and notifications.
Age-based restrictions also apply at the point of distribution: app stores must age-rate every app (including games) using a published methodology, and prevent children from accessing or buying apps that are inappropriate for their age.
Alongside these requirements, the Act introduces a separate minimum-age regime for social networking services and video-sharing platform services that pose a risk to minors' privacy, safety or security. It would prohibit under-13s from creating accounts and allow 13- and 14-year-olds only limited, guardian-supervised accounts subject to safeguards. A service would be deemed to pose such a risk if, for example, it offers features that:
- transmit content in real time to an indeterminate number of other users (including through livestreaming);
- enable users to contact, communicate, or otherwise interact with others outside their 'pre-existing connections or subscriptions';
- use profiling-based recommender systems ;
- recommend or prioritise contacts or information not provided by existing connections or subscriptions;
- enable 'uninterrupted content consumption';
- incentivise interactions with the service, its content or other users; or
- send users notifications designed to prompt them to use the service.
AI companions and chatbots
AI companions and conversational chatbots face distinct obligations, including a ban on features simulating interpersonal relationships likely to create emotional dependency in minors, and ensuring that, by default, a minor's past interactions do not shape the system's responses, except where necessary to protect the minor's safety.
Where an AI companion or chatbot is used within a game (or as a functionality of social networking services of video sharing platform), the Act requires that the AI companion/bot is not activated automatically or displayed prominently; that minors are not encouraged to use the companion/bot; and that minors have the option to opt out of using it easily.
Whether an LLM-powered NPC counts as an "AI companion" under the proposal's definition is likely to need product-by-product analysis, particularly for NPCs designed for open-ended, emotionally responsive dialogue.
Monetisation
The Act contains transparency requirements around economic transactions and a ban on exposing minors to variable-reward products. These requirements apply to social networking services, video-sharing platforms, AI companions and general conversational chatbots. Whilst Article 15 does not directly apply these requirements to online games, the proposal nevertheless envisages games monetisation to be addressed through subsequent codes of conduct. This does not, however, exempt AI companions and general conversational chatbots offered within a game from its own applicable obligations.
The recitals state that online games should provide minors equivalent protections from exposure to products that offer random outcomes or gambling-like features and offer transparency as to the real monetary value of transactions carried out using virtual currencies (a principle that is already (among others) being enforced by the EU's CPC Network). However, they provide for sector-specific codes of conduct addressing these protections, recommending that the sector should build on existing frameworks.
Since June 2026, PEGI's criteria for newly submitted games have set a default PEGI 16 rating for paid random items, with PEGI 18 in some cases. The Digital Fairness Act, a draft of which is expected this year, may limit such features more directly.
How Mishcon de Reya can help
This Act, if brought into force as drafted, is likely to impose a significant compliance burden on online games providers. Early preparation is likely to save costs and time, and publishers and developers should start assessing their exposure to the new requirements now.
The consultation is open until 3 December 2026 and we encourage affected businesses to respond to it and highlight potential practical difficulties arising from the draft Act's requirements. Engagement will also remain important as the proposal is considered and negotiated by the European Parliament and Council.
Our Interactive Entertainment team are video games sector specialists. We can help games companies with understanding the potential new requirements, carrying out scope and product audits, and drafting effective responses to EU consultations.