EU planning to ban under 16s registering on websites without parental consent

The EU is due to approve new harmonised data protection regulations today that will see under-16s banned from providing their personal details to any website - including social media - without their parents' permission.

The typically ill-thought-out regulations would make it illegal for the likes of Facebook and Twitter to allow under-16s to sign up for their services and prevent charities offering personalised support services for victims of bullying or sexual abuse. Breaching the regulations will attract fines of up to 4% of the company's turnover.

The idea that a child can be held criminally responsible at the age of 10 but needs "protecting" from giving their name to Facebook is ridiculous but you only have to look at the EU cookie directive to see how utterly clueless the EU where technology is concerned.