Draft law on a “digital wallet” is the next step in the possible introduction of social media age verification, the T\u00e1naiste has said.<\/p>\n
Simon Harris believes that children under the age of 16 should not be on social media.<\/p>\n
He told the Press Association that he was “not for turning” on his personal view but added that the measure would require an age verification system.<\/p>\n
“I’m meeting parents right across the country – and I know from talking to other political leaders in other countries that they’re experiencing the same – where parents are really concerned about the mental health and the wellbeing of their children.<\/p>\n
“And what effectively is, in my view, experimentation with that mental health and wellbeing online in a world that we’re still learning about.”<\/p>\n
Mr Harris said minimum age requirements applies in several areas, such as voting, drinking, and driving.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t mean that sometimes people can’t work around it, it doesn’t mean someone can’t buy a drink under age – but we still societally say there’s an age – and I think we are in that space on social media.”<\/p>\n
Mr Harris said the “next step” the Government will take is the introduction of legislation for a digital wallet.<\/p>\n
The proposed digital wallet app will be a place to securely access versions of documents like a birth certificate or driving licence for quick access, verification, and EU compatibility.<\/p>\n
The T\u00e1naiste said: “The Government as a collective hasn’t made a decision in relation to an age-specific restriction on social media.<\/p>\n
“I have a very strong view that you shouldn’t be on social media under the age of 16.<\/p>\n
“But regardless of where the final policy ends up, you can’t implement any such policy unless you have a way of age verifying – so I expect in the next month the draft law on the digital wallet which will enable the age verification to come to Cabinet.”<\/p>\n
Mr Harris said he was “encouraged” by the number of his fellow European People’s Party leaders who “are saying we need to act on this”.<\/p>\n
He added: “During the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union, we will make online safety for children a priority and try and get people around the table to see if there is a common view.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Draft law on a “digital wallet” is the next step in the possible introduction of social media age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[165,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-525943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-mobile","9":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}