Newly elected MEP for Ireland South, Cynthia Ní Mhurchú has called on the European Parliament to introduce a minimum age of 16 for children registering social media accounts
Social media platforms currently require users to be 13 years old, a age that Ní Mhurchú argues is too young for children to handle the content they are exposed to
Cybersafe Kids, an Irish charity, has found that 84% of Irish children aged 8-12 have their own social media accounts, despite the minimum age requirement of 13.
The digital age of consent is the minimum age a user must be before a social media or internet company can collect, process and store their data. In Ireland, this is currently 16 which means that children between the age of 13 and 16 years must have parental permission to sign-up to social media for the purpose of data collection.
Ms Ní Mhurcú spoke to our news reporter Martin Quilty, you can listen back to the interview below
