Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to amendment No. 102. I also spoke to it when we spoke on the section in the previous debate. This amendment seeks to ensure that service providers will introduce robust measures to ensure a minimum age verification of account holders of 15 years of age. We met with various companies during the pre-legislative scrutiny and so on. The companies have varying minimum age requirements for accounts but in reality, and we all know the facts, there are children as young as ten and 11 years of age who hold social media accounts. They have gotten around the verification processes the companies have. We need to bring in robust measures and set a minimum age across all social media companies and hold companies accountable for the verification method they use in order to make sure we do not have young children on social media in this regard. A significant part of this Bill is about child safety, and the best way of protecting our younger children is to not have them on some of these platforms. This is an opportunity to make the companies accountable for putting in the robust measures that are needed to make sure children do not get around their various security measures.