Cyprus’ social media ban in practice

When President Nikos Christodoulides announced last week that Cyprus is poised to implement a social media ban for children under 15, he blithely mentioned that the age verification system would be via the ‘Digital Citizen’ application, a – so far – non-mandatory digital storage for personal data.

It immediately set alarm bells ringing among those wary of being forced to download an app which stores all their personal information and who are eager to keep their online digital presence to a minimum. In short, will the ban set up to protect the young inevitably affect us all?

And then there is the question of whether following the broader international trend pioneered by Australia, which introduced a similar ban in December 2025, will actually work. A recent report on the effectiveness of the ban found that 61 per cent of Australian 12 to 15-year-olds who had accounts on restricted platforms before the ban still had access.

“The Republic of Cyprus is among the EU member states which are moving forward immediately with the implementation of the European technical proposal for age verification in the online space,” Christodoulides said on April 16. 

He was responding to the announcement by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who had presented the EU’s age verification application the previous day when she assured that when using the app, social media users will remain “in full control” of their own data, “because we do not want platforms to scan our passport or face”.

European Commission spokesperson for tech sovereignty, Thomas Regnier, explained how the verification system is supposed to work.

“The work is concluded at technical level by the European Commission. The member states may now produce it as a standalone app or integrated into their solutions [such as the ‘Digital Citizen’ app],” Regnier told the Cyprus Mail.

Regnier asserted that the app is “fully privacy-preserving”, with its function simply being the confirmation of the user’s age, stressing that the platform itself would not receive any information about the user.

“Once the app receives the proof of age, the link between the provider of the proof and the user is cut and no data flows,” he said.

EU verification mechanism as a blueprint

Using the above verification mechanism as a blueprint, Cyprus is currently moving forward with preparations to integrate the application on a national level.

“As with several other member states, Cyprus intends to integrate this solution into its national digital wallet, the Digital Citizen app,” Deputy Research Minister Nicodemos Damianou told the Cyprus Mail.

As the Cyprus Mail understands, this in effect means, that the use of the ‘Digital Citizen’ app, which had been announced as non-compulsory and has until now around 145,000 users islandwide, could soon be mandatory in order for anyone to access social media.

When asked directly, the deputy ministry of research neither confirmed nor denied this.

“What will be required is that platforms perform adequate age verification checks, not the use of a specific application. However, in practice, a tool will be needed to enable this verification, and at national level this will be provided through the Digital Citizen app,” Damianou said.

As an open-source application, the EU verification mechanism’s code is susceptible to modification and enhancement by anyone, including member states and beyond.

Regnier assures the safety of the application, saying that the verification mechanism has been designed in accordance with stringent privacy standards underpinned by ‘zero knowledge proof’, but what does this actually mean?

The US tech magazine Wired describes zero knowledge techniques as “mathematical methods used to verify things without sharing or revealing underlying data”.

These support sensitive interactions, improving their security and making them more private.

“Think of a payment app checking whether you have enough money in your bank account to complete a transaction without finding out anything else about your balance,” Wired explains.

Critic alleges surveillance potential of verification app

But analysing the planned ban in a recent opinion piece for the Cyprus Mail, Andreas Shialaros, a Cyprus-based lawyer who deals with digital rights and data protection issues among other areas, warned of the wider implications of the ban.

“Once you give a state too much power, it will be difficult to take it back,” he said.

Shialaros warned that the rollout of the verification mechanism could lay the foundation for broader surveillance, including the monitoring of platforms and who accesses them from where.

“Let us be precise about what this means. This is not simply a tool that checks whether a child is old enough to use Instagram. It is a state issued digital gateway positioned between every citizen and the online world,” he said.

Shiralos suggested that the issue at hand was not whether data would be collected against our will, but rather whether we can trust that it wouldn’t be.

“Our children deserve safety. But they also deserve to inherit a society where digital freedom is not quietly traded away in their name, while we all applaud,” he said.

Then, there’s the question of whether the age verification actually works among the tech savvy youth.

A relevant study conducted by the British-based charity, the Molly Rose Foundation, conducted to analyse the effects of the social media ban in Australia, found that many social media platforms fail to shut a majority of underage accounts, raising concerns over the effectiveness of the ban.

“Three in five, 61 per cent, Australian 12 to 15-year-olds who had accounts on restricted platforms before the ban came into force still have access to one or more accounts,” the foundation found.

According to their study, the number of underage social media users remains high with 53 per cent of previous TikTok users, 53 per cent of YouTube users and 52 per cent of Instagram users still able to access an account on these platforms, many of them using virtual private networks (VPNs) or other workarounds to manipulate their location.

Verification system to be implemented by 2027

Digital citizens, so far so good, but what about non-citizens?

For migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, social media platforms are of particular importance, as they are frequently the sole means of maintaining communication with their families abroad.

But anyone who has been trying to access governmental services with a non-Cypriot identity card knows how much of a struggle the latter can be. Now how will foreigners be able to access social media in the future?

“Alien registration documents are expected to be integrated into the Digital Citizen app by the end of the year,” Damianou said.

According to the minister, the overall legislative process is expected to be completed by 2027, with Cyprus currently aiming for the implementation of the age verification mechanism by the end of 2026 or early 2027, in line with other member states such as Greece.

“We are starting to discuss the final design of how the technical age-verification mechanism is expected to be incorporated into our national solution,” Damianou said.

The next steps on a national level include the announcement of an action plan, the drafting of a relevant bill, an impact assessment on children’s rights, as well as a public consultation through voice of the citizen platform, including input from youth organisations.

“We expect that a transitional period will follow, allowing platforms to comply with the new requirements,” the deputy minister said.

Much of the work will be outsourced to big tech

While the government seems to have a fairly clear plan on how to approach the new verification system, it is evident that much of the work will need to be undertaken by the social media themselves and this is likely to pose significant challenges.

Australia, which has had a social media ban for children under 16 in place for almost five months, provides some lessons on social media age limits in general.

In a report published at the end of March 2026, the Australian e-safety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, raised serious concerns about the compliance of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTub.

“As a result of those concerns, I have announced today we are now moving from a compliance monitoring to an enforcement stance,” she said, with Australia having since imposed civil penalties of up to AU$49.5 million for non-compliance with the new regulations if the platforms do not take “reasonable steps” to keep youngsters from creating accounts.

Meanwhile European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is confident that the application can be utilised as a reliable tool for big tech, saying that there are “no more excuses”.

“The EU age verification app is our answer to all the platforms who said there is no solution to check the ages of users accessing their services,” the commission said.

The Cyprus Mail contacted Meta for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.