Children can bypass age checks through factory resets, using alternative app stores or accessing social media sites on desktop computers.
As Europe debates whether to restrict children's access to social media, Big Tech has a proposal: put the app stores in charge.
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Meta argues that parents should have the option to approve or reject their children’s requests to download social media apps and that their age should be verified in the process. In Snap Inc.’s view, app-store verification would give “more consistent age signals” from the device, which would help keep underage users off apps they shouldn’t be using.
But this approach on its own would fall short of creating a safer online environment, experts tell Euronews Next.
“Parental control … gives the impression of being in control, but it does not address the systemic issues, the addictive features,” said Simeon Debrouwer, policy advisor at European Digital Rights.
The limits of app-store control
While many app stores exist, two dominate the global market: Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. Both already offer parental control tools.
Apple’s “Ask to Buy” feature notifies a parent when a child attempts to download or purchase an app, which allows them to approve or decline the request. Parents can also create a child account that shares the age range with apps to enable built-in protections, or set age-based content restrictions so mature or 13+ apps may not appear at all.
Google’s Family Link allows parents to set screen-time limits, set content filters in the search bar and on YouTube, as well as monitor their child’s location through their phone.
But parental authority largely stops at the download button under this model, said Serge Egelman, research director at the University of California, Berkley.
“Once [the app download] is approved, then a lot of the parental controls end … there aren’t many ways of controlling what happens in the app,” he said.
He added that parents might not know how to use these tools effectively and could potentially approve apps that they should not have by accident.
App store restrictions put pressure on parents who often rely on their children for technology questions, according to Ekaterina Hertog, associate AI professor at the Oxford Internet Institute.
“These restrictions have to work for families in different situations, for parents who are more or less available for their children and more or less confident online,” she said.
'The devil is in the details'
Children could find their own workarounds, such as approving a download request directly from a parent’s phone without permission or bypassing controls entirely.
“The most well-known is just to reset the phone to factory settings,” Debrouwer said.
“You just press for a long time on the button… and when you get to the setup screen again, you set up your phone without parental control.”
Tech-savvy children could go even further by installing a different operating system (OS) after the reset, one that does not rely on Apple or Google software, Debrouwer said. It could give them easier access to alternative app stores such as F-Droid, which hosts free and open source apps.
“The child could, in theory, install [an app they want] from another store,” Debrouwer said. “These alternative OS, they’re not dangerous, they’re not bad, they are normal, but you don’t even need to rely on them if you want to bypass parental controls.”
Age restrictions in app stores also do not address whether children are able to access social media sites from desktop computers.
To know whether age restrictions would work through the app stores, the “devil is in the details,” Hertog said.
“We haven’t talked about how the age verification would be achieved, if it's through images or people getting their face scanned to prove they’re over a certain age,” she said, noting that children could produce fake images to bypass the restrictions.
Could Europe do this?
Several US states, such as Utah, Louisiana, California and Texas, have passed or are considering “app store accountability” laws that would mandate app store age checks for users under 18. The Texas law was blocked by a federal judge over free speech concerns.
A federal App Store Accountability Act, which could force app store providers to verify users’ ages when opening their accounts, is being examined by a US Senate committee.
In the European Union, however, regulators lack the legal basis to directly regulate app stores, Debrouwer said. Before the end of 2026, the EU’s Digital Fairness Act (DFA) will come into force, which is supposed to “enhance the level of protection of consumers online,” by tackling harmful design features on digital platforms.
Debrouwer said regulators could enforce the incoming DFA and existing legislation, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA), the rules for online services, to mitigate risks without resorting to outright bans or restrictions on children’s social media use.
There is also a need for governments to rethink what success looks like, shifting away from the number of children restricted from these platforms and instead towards how to improve the platforms for everyone, Debrouwer said.
"Banning children from these places instead of making these places safe for children and for everyone else basically means letting the platforms off the hook for the harm they do,” he added.
