Protection of minors: Arcom prioritizes the roadmap of its "committee of experts on the young public" around the fight agains Internet risks for persons under 18, on the occasion of the committee's 20th anniversary

On Tuesday November 25, 2025, the French regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication (Arcom), represented by Laurence Pécaut-Rivolier, member of the Arcom College in charge of the "Protection of Audiences" working group, brought together the members of Arcom' s Young Audiences Expert Committee, the members of Arcom's Committee of Experts on Young Audiences to mark the twentieth anniversary of this historic tool used by the regulator to inform its thinking and action on the protection of persons under 18 in relation to the screen, both in terms of audiovisual services (regulation of certain content, awareness raising campaigns...) and digital services (collection of opinions and feedback as part of studies, online platform hearings, etc.).

On this occasion, it was announced that the committee's work will focus on the fight agains the dangers that the Internet and social networks can represent for children and teenagers.

Faced with the rise of these new communication tools, which have become a must-have for youngsters, who use them massively and spend several hours a day on them from the age of 11, Arcom wanted to mobilize its committee of experts on this major social issue, in order to fight agains the six main risks identified by the Authority for 11-17 year-olds, in the ground-breaking study it carried out among more than 2,000 youngsters and 2,000 parents, published on September 25.

To this end,the eighteen members of this interdisciplinary committee of experts, which includes qualified figures from the fields of medicine (pediatricians and psychologists), education (teachers and researchers) and child protection (Défenseur des enfants, associations), will be asked for their opinion as part of the implementation of the two key measures of the action plan for the protection of persons under 18 on the Internet announced by Arcom last September, namely :

• Monitoring compliance by online platforms with their Terms of Service (TOS), in particular the ban on access to their services by under-13s.

• The monitoring and analysis of algorithms and functionalities made available to minors by platforms, in order to verify how these are adapted to teenagers, and more specifically, that they do not expose them to risks of potentially shocking content for their age, of being put in contact with ill-intentioned adults, or of addiction, such as infinite scrolling - all of which are risks for the mental and physical health of youngsters.

This roadmap will also be accompanied by the creation of an unprecedented panel of teenagers.

This panel, set up by research institutes, will be mobilized by Arcom on any subject requiring it, in order to involve persons under 18 in the reflections, solutions and notices proposed by the regulator, notably to make the Internet a safer place for them.

Find out more about Arcom's youngsters' expert committeehere.