EU probes Snapchat over suspected child protection failings

US messaging app Snapchat has around 97 million monthly active users in the 27-nation bloc and is a wildly popular platform with teenagers and young adults.

The European Commission said it was looking into whether Snapchat breached digital content rules by "exposing minors to grooming attempts" as well as to information about the sale of illegal products like drugs.

The probe is the first into Snapchat under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) law, which has come under attack from President Donald Trump's administration.

Snapchat said the safety and wellbeing of its users was a "top priority".

"As online risks evolve, we continuously review, strengthen, and invest in these safeguards," a spokesperson said.

"We have fully cooperated with the commission to date -- engaging proactively, transparently and working in good faith to meet the DSA's high safety standards -- and we will continue to do so," the spokesperson added.

The commission -- the EU's digital watchdog -- said its broad investigation would focus on five areas to find out whether Snapchat ensures a high level of safety, privacy and security for children online.

Snapchat is for users aged 13 and over but the EU suspects the app does not have sufficient measures in place to stop younger children from accessing it.

Another fear is that Snapchat is "not adequately protecting" children from being contacted by users seeking to sexually exploit or recruit them for criminal activities, for example, by allowing adults to pretend to be minors.

The EU also suspects Snapchat's default settings do not provide "sufficient" privacy for children and that the platform's tools are ineffective in stopping minors from seeing the sale of age-restricted items like vapes and alcohol.

Finally the investigation will focus on Snapchat's mechanisms for notifying illegal content, which the commission said seem to be neither easy to access nor user-friendly.

"Snapchat appears to have overlooked that the Digital Services Act demands high safety standards for all users. With this investigation, we will closely look into their compliance," EU tech tsar Henna Virkkunen said in a statement.

Snapchat is among over 20 very large online platforms that must adhere to the DSA's tougher rules or risk fines that could reach as high as six percent of their global turnover, or even a ban for serious and repeated violations.

There is no deadline for the completion of the investigation but Snapchat can offer commitments to address the EU's concerns.