Youth Digital Protection in Europe: CyberSmart is research for our Erasmus+KA220-CyberSmart project proposal. If you work with young people online. Or if you want to understand the real state of digital safety in Europe, this post matters. The threats are real, the legal tools exist. And the response is finally beginning to match the scale of the problem.
Think about what it means that 97% of children in the EU interact with the internet every single day. That number is not a milestone to celebrate. It is a responsibility. And for too long, the systems meant to protect young people have not been equal to it.
Every day, one in six adolescents in the EU experiences cyberbullying. Young people face AI-generated phishing scams. Criminal networks recruit them as money mules through social media. Groomers and abusers exploit young people through image-based abuse in online spaces that platforms originally designed for connection. The consequences range from anxiety and depression to criminal records and financial ruin.
The gap between the scale of the problem and the quality of the response. It has been the defining failure of digital governance for a decade. Sector responses have remained fragmented. Companies have optimised platforms for engagement at the expense of safety. They have left young people to navigate an increasingly sophisticated threat landscape without the tools to protect themselves.
European Commission Data
In 2023, European Commission data revealed that 92% of Europeans view online child sexual abuse as an increasing threat. That figure reflects not just a crisis of crime — it reflects a crisis of trust. Young people, parents, and educators no longer believe that the current system is adequate. They are right.
But there is a way forward. The Digital Services Act, the BIK+ strategy, and coordinated projects like CyberSmart are not incremental improvements. They represent a fundamental shift in how Europe thinks about protecting young people online — moving from reactive safety to structural resilience.
That shift is the subject of this research report. And if you care about what the evidence says about online safety for young people, you are in the right place.
For more depth on related research, explore our Research Posts. You can also connect with the team at Learning for Youth on LinkedIn for the latest updates on EU digital safety initiatives.
Key takeaways
Youth digital protection in the EU is no longer a peripheral concern — it is now a legislative priority. The Digital Services Act introduces binding obligations for online platforms that serve minors, including a ban on targeted advertising based on profiling and a requirement for age-appropriate default settings. Platforms that fail to comply face significant enforcement action from Digital Services Coordinators across Member States.
The BIK+ strategy provides the pedagogical counterpart to the DSA’s legal framework, structuring Europe’s digital education response around three pillars — safe digital experiences, digital empowerment, and active youth participation. Together, these instruments are beginning to shift responsibility for online safety from individual users to the platforms and systems that shape their digital environments.
Projects like CyberSmart KA220-YOU and Cyber Shield demonstrate that the most effective responses to online harm are multi-disciplinary. They integrate youth work, psychological support, media literacy, and policy engagement into a coherent framework that addresses the full spectrum of online risks — from cyberbullying and sexual exploitation to financial fraud and account hacking.
The integration of Zero-Knowledge Proof cryptography into the EU age verification solution marks a significant technical advance. Platforms can confirm a user’s age without collecting personal data that hackers could breach or third parties could misuse. This directly addresses the long-standing tension between child safety and privacy rights.
Perhaps most importantly, young people themselves are increasingly active participants in shaping the digital policies that govern their lives. Youth representatives are calling for regulation at the system level — targeting addictive design, infinite scroll, and engagement-maximising algorithms — rather than restrictions that limit access or punish users for the failures of platforms.
What you will learn
You will gain a clear understanding of the legislative architecture that governs youth digital protection in Europe, including the specific obligations the Digital Services Act places on platforms and the three-pillar structure of the BIK+ strategy that supports digital empowerment across Member States.
You will learn how cyberbullying, sexual exploitation, and financial fraud operate in practice — with specific data on prevalence, mechanisms, and the demographic groups most at risk. This includes a detailed look at how AI is accelerating the sophistication of social engineering attacks targeting young people.
Understand how evidence-based educational toolkits like SELMA and KID_ACTIONS bridge the gap between policy and practice, and why educators increasingly recognise social and emotional learning as more effective than technical safety education alone at reducing bullying perpetration.
You will discover the technical safeguards — from multi-factor authentication to Zero-Knowledge Proof age verification — that form the layered security system recommended by ENISA and cybersecurity experts for protecting families and young people online.
You will leave with a grounded perspective on where EU youth digital protection policy is heading — including the push for longitudinal research into AI and VR impacts, the expansion of peer-to-peer mentoring, and the 2026 mandate for interoperable age verification across all Member States.
Youth digital protection and the EU legislative framework
The two instruments that define Europe’s approach to protecting young people online are the Digital Services Act and the BIK+ strategy. They operate at different levels — one as binding law, the other as a strategic roadmap — but they share a common architecture. Regulators and platforms must make digital services safer by design, instead of expecting individual users to stay vigilant at all times.
How the DSA safeguards youth digital protection
The Digital Services Act is the most consequential piece of digital legislation the EU has produced since the GDPR. For young people specifically, its most important provision is the concept of “protection by design.”
Any platform that permits minors to register, or directly targets younger users, must protect their privacy and security with proportionate measures.
Under Article 28(1), these platforms are prohibited from using targeted advertising based on profiling when the user is a minor. This is not an opt-out — it is a default prohibition. Furthermore, the Commission’s 2025 guidelines recommend that platforms set minors’ accounts to private by default and disable geolocation, camera, and microphone access unless core functionality explicitly requires them.
Digital Services Coordinators in each Member State carry out enforcement. Very Large Online Platforms — those with over 45 million monthly EU users — face the most rigorous scrutiny, including mandatory systemic risk assessments that must specifically address the impact of platform design on the fundamental rights and well-being of children. The era of unchecked self-regulation is over.
The BIK+ strategy’s three pillars for youth empowerment
The EU structured the BIK+ strategy, adopted in 2022 as the digital component of the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, around three foundational pillars. The first pillar focuses on creating safe digital experiences — shielding children from harmful content, cyberbullying, and sexual harassment through both platform obligations and educational support.
The second pillar addresses digital empowerment, ensuring that all children — including those from vulnerable or marginalised backgrounds — have the skills to express themselves safely, recognise manipulation, and make informed choices about their digital lives. The third pillar emphasises active participation, placing young people not just as the subjects of digital policy but as its co-creators.
Evaluation reports from 2025 confirm that BIK+ has successfully catalysed cross-sector collaboration. However, significant challenges remain around the complexity of reporting mechanisms and the consistency of protection across Member States. Experts are now calling for harmonised regulatory frameworks and long-term research into the developmental impact of generative AI on children.
Cyberbullying remains a youth digital protection crisis
One in six adolescents in the EU has experienced cyberbullying. One in eight admits to having perpetrated it. These figures are not declining because social media companies design environments to maximise engagement without considering the emotional consequences of interaction.
The impact does not affect all young people equally. Girls, children with disabilities, and minority groups report significantly higher levels of online victimisation, along with elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and social exclusion. For these groups, the digital environment is not a space of connection and opportunity — it is frequently a source of sustained psychological harm.
The EU Action Plan and its three pillars
The European Commission built its Action Plan Against Cyberbullying around three operational pillars. The first pillar promotes a coordinated EU approach to protection by ensuring that Member States apply the DSA and the AI Act consistently to address harmful platform behaviours. The second focuses on early-age prevention and awareness, embedding anti-bullying education into national curricula through social and emotional learning programmes.
The third pillar establishes robust reporting and support mechanisms. Member States are deploying an online safety app that allows young people to report abuse, store and submit evidence, and receive immediate tailored assistance. This tool directly addresses the well-documented gap between how often cyberbullying happens and how often young people report it to adults or authorities.
Research consistently shows that developing empathy and conflict resolution skills reduces bullying perpetration more effectively than technical safety education alone. This is why social and emotional learning — rather than simply teaching young people how to block and report — is increasingly central to the EU’s prevention strategy.
The SELMA toolkit for youth digital protection education
The SELMA toolkit, developed under the “Hacking Hate” initiative, provides practitioners with over 100 customisable resources integrating SEL, media literacy, and citizenship education. SELMA organises its resources into three age-differentiated pathways. The first targets 11 to 13-year-olds and builds emotional vocabulary. The second targets 14 to 16-year-olds and addresses protected characteristics. The third equips educators with the Yale RULER programme to deliver SEL-based lessons.
The KID_ACTIONS toolkit complements SELMA by focusing specifically on understanding, preventing, and responding to cyberbullying.
Both toolkits use the principle of “critical hacking” to teach young people not only to identify problems in the systems around them, but also to actively work to fix them. This framing transforms digital safety education from a passive exercise into an act of civic agency.
Online sexual exploitation and youth digital protection
The scale of online sexual abuse targeting young people is alarming. A 2023 Eurobarometer survey found that 92% of Europeans regard the growth of online child sexual abuse material as an increasing threat. This reflects an environment where sophisticated sextortion tactics, image-based abuse, and grooming through gaming platforms have all increased in prevalence and complexity.
The EU’s response combines legal mandates — requiring platforms to detect and report abuse — with the development of specialist support infrastructure for victims. The most significant operational development in this area is the Help4U platform, launched by Europol and the CENTRIC research institute.
Help4U was designed around a specific insight — that young victims typically search for information online before they are willing to speak to an adult. The platform provides a private, accessible environment for finding trusted advice through multiple modalities — reading, chat, or location-based service referral. Its privacy-first design includes a quick-exit button and an accessibility-led interface. It expanded from five pilot countries to fifteen Member States by late 2025, and serves as a model for how digital tools can lower the barrier to help-seeking without compromising user safety.
The INHOPE network of hotlines provides the operational backbone for removing child sexual abuse material from the internet. The INHOPE network of hotlines provides the operational backbone for removing child sexual abuse material from the internet. With 57 member organisations in 52 countries, INHOPE works alongside national law enforcement and designated trusted flaggers to identify and remove illegal content swiftly. This global coordination helps close the velocity gap between the moment harmful content appears and the moment authorities and platforms take it down.
AI-driven fraud and its impact on young people
Europol’s IOCTA 2026 identifies the integration of artificial intelligence into criminal networks as the defining trend in online fraud. Generative AI enables fraudsters to automate and personalise social engineering campaigns at a scale that was previously impossible. Phishing messages, fake investment opportunities, and romance scams are now tailored to individual targets based on data scraped from social media, making them significantly harder to identify as fraudulent.
The recruitment of money mules — individuals who transfer illegally obtained funds on behalf of criminal networks — is a particular concern for young people. Minors are targeted through social media advertisements offering easy money for simple financial tasks. What appears to be a casual side income is, in fact, participation in a serious crime that can result in a criminal record and the permanent loss of banking services. Europol is explicit that ignorance of the scheme’s criminal nature is not a legal defence.
Defensive awareness is the first line of protection. Young people are encouraged to verify the legitimacy of companies before accepting any financial arrangement, check for secure HTTPS protocols before entering personal data, and never share banking credentials or identity documents with unknown contacts. The European Cybercrime Centre provides strategic analysis and operational support to help Member States disrupt these criminal networks — but individual awareness remains essential.
Building youth digital protection through cybersecurity habits
ENISA — the EU Agency for Cybersecurity — frames effective digital security for families not as a single technical solution but as a layered system of habits. The goal is to make the user a harder target, reducing the surface area available to potential attackers through consistent, low-effort protective practices.
Multi-factor authentication is the single highest-impact habit for most users. Enabling MFA on email, social media, and banking accounts prevents account takeovers even when passwords are compromised. Combined with unique passwords for every service — managed through a password manager — this creates a security baseline that significantly reduces the risk of account-based attacks.
Regular software updates close the vulnerabilities that malware and hackers exploit. Home network security — using WPA3 encryption and changing default router passwords — limits the exposure of all devices connected to the network. A quarterly privacy audit of social media settings and an annual review of unused accounts and permissions further reduce the data available to bad actors. These habits are not technically complex. The barrier is awareness and consistency, not capability.
Zero-Knowledge Proof and the EU age verification solution
The EU age verification solution, built on the European Digital Identity Wallet framework, represents a significant advance in privacy-preserving compliance. It uses Zero-Knowledge Proof cryptography to allow a user to prove they meet an age threshold — such as being over 18 — without revealing their actual date of birth, name, or any linkable identifier to the platform.
This resolves a long-standing tension in digital governance. Age verification has historically required platforms to collect and store personal data, creating large datasets that are attractive targets for breaches. ZKP eliminates this trade-off — platforms can comply with DSA age-based content restrictions while collecting no personal data at all. The 2026 mandate for all Member States to implement the interoperable solution marks the first time this technology will be deployed on a continental scale.
Youth digital protection tips that actually work
Enable multi-factor authentication on every critical account
Multi-factor authentication is the most reliable defence against account takeovers. Even if a password is stolen through phishing or a data breach, MFA prevents attackers from gaining access without a second verification step. Set it up using an authentication app rather than SMS where possible — SMS-based codes can be intercepted through SIM-swapping attacks.
Start with email and social media accounts, because these are the highest-value targets. If an attacker gains access to your email, they can reset passwords for almost everything else. Additionally, treat your email account as the key to your entire digital life — and protect it accordingly.
Adopt a scam-aware mindset before sharing any information
The most effective protection against fraud is a default posture of scepticism. Before accepting any job offer involving financial transactions, verify the company independently — not through links provided by the recruiter. Before entering personal details on any website, confirm the HTTPS protocol in the address bar and check whether the domain matches the genuine company.
This posture is especially important for young people being recruited via social media. Legitimate employers do not ask workers to receive payments into personal bank accounts and transfer funds elsewhere. Consequently, if an offer sounds easy and the money seems disproportionate to the task, it almost certainly is a scam.
Understand the difference between blocking and reporting
Blocking an abuser removes them from your immediate experience, but it does not stop them from targeting others. Reporting creates a record. On platforms that take their DSA obligations seriously. It triggers a review process that can result in content removal or account suspension. Both actions matter, and both should be used together.
When reporting cyberbullying or image-based abuse, preserving evidence before blocking is important. Screenshots, URLs, timestamps, and any identifying information strengthen a report and increase the likelihood of meaningful action. The online safety apps being rolled out across EU Member States are specifically designed to help with evidence collection in these situations.
Talk about online experiences with someone you trust
Research consistently shows that young people who experience cyberbullying or online harassment are significantly less likely to seek help from an adult than from a peer. This is partly a design problem. Reporting mechanisms are too complex, and the fear of losing device access is a genuine deterrent. However, talking to someone remains one of the most protective factors available.
For situations involving sexual abuse or exploitation, the Help4U platform provides a private and confidential starting point for young people. Those who are not yet ready to speak to a family member or teacher. The platform was specifically built to meet young people where they are — online, privately, and entirely on their own terms.
Conduct a quarterly privacy audit of your digital footprint
Most young people have no clear picture of how much personal data they have made accessible through social media settings, app permissions, and old accounts. A quarterly privacy audit — reviewing who can see your posts, which apps have location or camera access, and which old accounts still exist — significantly reduces exposure to targeted harassment, phishing, and data harvesting.
Furthermore, it is worth checking whether your email address or phone number has appeared in any known data breaches. By using free tools like Have I Been Pwned. If your credentials have been compromised, change the relevant passwords immediately. And enable MFA if you have not already done so.
Learn to recognise grooming behaviours before they escalate
Grooming rarely announces itself. It typically begins with attention, flattery, and the gradual establishment of a private communication channel away from the platform where initial contact was made. Understanding these patterns — and being willing to name them — is itself a form of protection. The CyberSmart project specifically addresses the lack of training in the youth sector. For handling grooming and image-based abuse. And its resources are designed to equip both practitioners and young people with this recognition.
Parents and educators should be aware that the digital channels where grooming occurs most frequently are not necessarily those they are monitoring. Gaming platforms, live-streaming services, and private messaging apps are now primary environments for contact-based risk. Awareness of these environments — without surveillance or excessive restriction — is the appropriate response.
Support youth involvement in digital policy decisions
The most powerful long-term protection for young people is not a technical tool — it is agency. Young Europeans are increasingly demanding a seat at the table in shaping the digital policies that govern their lives. They are calling for the regulation of addictive design, the removal of infinite scroll and engagement-maximising recommendation systems, and the enforcement of platform accountability for the harms their systems produce.
Supporting this participation. Whether through school councils, national youth consultations, or EU-level engagement like the BIK Youth panels. It is itself a form of safety investment. A generation that understands how digital systems work and has the confidence to demand change from those who build them is ultimately more resilient than any filter or app alone.
Understanding youth digital protection through analogy
The seatbelt principle
Before seatbelts became mandatory, the dominant approach to road safety was to teach drivers and passengers to brace for impact. The introduction of mandatory seatbelts shifted responsibility from the individual to the vehicle designer. Wearing a seatbelt is still necessary. But the car itself is now designed to make survival more likely, regardless of individual behaviour.
Youth digital protection is at the same inflection point. For years, responsibility for online safety was placed almost entirely on young people and their parents. Avoid bad websites, don’t talk to strangers, and don’t share personal information. The DSA represents the shift to the seatbelt principle. Platforms are now required to be designed with protection built in, not bolted on after the fact.
This does not eliminate the need for individual digital literacy. Seatbelts did not replace the need to learn to drive. But it does mean that the consequences of a mistake are no longer catastrophic by default — because the system is finally designed to absorb some of that risk.
The immune system analogy
A healthy immune system does not prevent all exposure to pathogens — it builds the capacity to respond effectively when exposure occurs. Children who grow up in overly sterile environments sometimes develop weaker immune responses because their systems have not been tested and strengthened through encounter.
Digital resilience works similarly. Young people who are educated about online risks, who have experience recognising manipulation and deception, and who have trusted support networks to turn to when something goes wrong are significantly better equipped than those who have simply been kept away from perceived dangers. Total restriction is neither possible nor desirable — the goal is a trained immune system, not a sterile bubble.
This is precisely the logic behind the CyberSmart project’s focus on digital youth work, resilience, and the development of practical defensive skills. The aim is not to remove young people from the digital environment — it is to ensure they enter it with the knowledge and support to navigate it safely.
The city planning analogy
A well-designed city does not simply warn pedestrians about dangerous intersections. It builds pavements, installs traffic lights, and designs streets so that safe navigation is the path of least resistance. The individual still needs to look both ways — but the environment itself has been structured to reduce unnecessary risk.
Algorithmic environments can be designed the same way. Infinite scroll, autoplay, and engagement-maximising recommender systems are the equivalent of removing pavements and traffic lights to increase vehicle throughput. They prioritise one form of efficiency at the expense of the safety of everyone using the space. Youth representatives across the EU are now arguing — with increasing success — that these design choices are regulatory failures, not personal ones. The DSA’s move towards disabling addictive features by default for minors’ accounts is the first step in rebuilding the pavements.
Frequently asked questions about youth digital protection
What is youth digital protection and why does it matter now?
Youth digital protection refers to the combination of legal, technical, educational, and social measures designed to keep young people safe from harm in online environments. It matters now because the scale and sophistication of online risks targeting young people — from cyberbullying and sexual exploitation to AI-driven fraud — have outpaced the protective systems that were designed for a simpler digital era.
With 97% of EU children online daily, the stakes are not abstract. Every day without adequate protection is a day in which real harms occur to real young people. The European Union’s current legislative and programmatic response represents the most serious attempt yet to match the scale of the problem — but enforcement remains uneven across Member States, and the work is far from complete.
What does the Digital Services Act actually require platforms to do for youth?
The DSA requires platforms accessible to minors to implement “protection by design”. Safety must be built into the platform’s architecture, not left to users to configure. Specifically, platforms must ban targeted advertising based on minor profiling. Provide simplified and localised terms of service. Prohibit dark patterns and manipulative interface design, and set minors’ accounts to private by default.
Very Large Online Platforms, those with over 45 million users, must also conduct systemic risk assessments. Addressing the impact of their design choices on children’s fundamental rights and well-being. Digital Services Coordinators in each Member State oversee compliance. Platforms that fail to meet these obligations face significant regulatory consequences.
How does cyberbullying affect young people’s mental health?
The evidence is consistent and sobering. Young people who experience cyberbullying report significantly higher rates of anxiety, depression, and social withdrawal than those who do not. The impact is particularly severe for girls, children with disabilities, and minority groups, who face higher rates of victimisation and encounter additional barriers to reporting and receiving support.
Crucially, the harm is not limited to victims. Research indicates that young people who engage in cyberbullying as perpetrators also show elevated rates of mental health difficulties — suggesting that the behaviour is often a symptom of unmet emotional needs rather than simply a conduct problem. This is why social and emotional learning, rather than punitive responses alone, is increasingly central to the EU’s prevention strategy.
What should a young person do if they are being groomed or sexually exploited online?
The first and most important step is to reach out for support — even if speaking to a parent or teacher feels impossible right now. The Help4U platform, available in 15 EU Member States, provides a completely private space to access information and advice without needing to identify yourself or speak to anyone face-to-face immediately. It was specifically designed for young people who are looking for information before they are ready to talk.
Do not delete messages or evidence before seeking advice — this material may be important for any subsequent report to authorities. Do not comply with demands for additional images or payments, as this almost always escalates rather than resolves the situation. And know that you are not responsible for what has happened. Grooming is a deliberate manipulation by an adult exploiting a power imbalance — the responsibility lies entirely with the perpetrator.
How can young people protect themselves from online financial scams?
The most effective protection is a scam-aware mindset applied before any financial interaction. Verify companies independently before accepting job offers, particularly any role involving receiving or transferring money through a personal account. Check for HTTPS protocols before entering personal or financial information on any website. Never share online banking credentials. ID copies. One-time passwords. With any third party, regardless of how the request is framed.
If you suspect you have already been recruited into a money mule scheme. Where you have received money into your account and transferred it elsewhere. Stop immediately and report to your bank and to national law enforcement. Europol is clear that acting as a money mule is a serious criminal offence. But banks and authorities are also aware that young people are frequently targeted and manipulated into these arrangements. Early disclosure significantly improves outcomes.
What is Zero-Knowledge Proof, and how does it protect young people online?
Zero-Knowledge Proof is a form of cryptography that allows a user to prove a specific fact. Such as being over 18. Without revealing any of the underlying data, such as their actual age, name, or date of birth. It is the technical foundation for the EU age verification solution being rolled out across Member States starting in 2026.
For youth digital protection, this matters. Because it removes the incentive to collect data that has made age verification problematic until now. Platforms previously needed to store personal identity data to verify ages — creating large, valuable databases that were frequent targets for breaches. ZKP allows platforms to comply with age-based content restrictions while collecting nothing. This substantially reduces the risk of personal data from minors being exposed through platform security failures.
How are young people involved in shaping EU digital safety policy?
Youth participation is a formal principle of the BIK+ strategy, not an afterthought. The BIK Youth programme creates structured opportunities for young people to participate in the evaluation of existing digital policies and the development of new frameworks. Youth representatives have been particularly vocal in opposing blanket bans and one-size-fits-all restrictions, arguing instead for system-level regulation targeting addictive design.
This shift — from protecting children from the internet to holding platforms accountable for how their systems affect children — is increasingly reflected in Commission guidelines. The recommendation to disable addictive features by default for minors’ accounts under the DSA is a direct result of youth input into the policy process. The most effective advocates for better digital environments for young people are, increasingly, young people themselves.
Conclusion
Youth digital protection in Europe has entered a new era. The Digital Services Act and the BIK+ strategy have created the legal and policy infrastructure for genuine platform accountability. Projects like CyberSmart and Cyber Shield are translating that infrastructure into practical tools, training, and support. For the young people and professionals who need it most. The operational success of Help4U and the INHOPE network demonstrates what coordinated European action can achieve when the political will exists.
But legislation and coordination alone are not enough. The evidence is clear that technical measures must be accompanied by digital literacy, social and emotional learning, and the active participation of young people in shaping the systems that govern their lives. A generation equipped with critical thinking skills, practical defensive habits, and trusted support networks is ultimately more resilient than any app or filter can make them.
The work is not complete. Harmonisation across Member States remains uneven. The impact of generative AI and immersive technologies on young people’s development is still being understood. And the velocity of emerging threats continues to outpace the capacity of any single institution to respond. Join Learning for Youth to stay connected with the practitioners, researchers, and advocates who are committed to building that future. One where safety is a structural feature, not an optional extra.
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