Recital 36

Given the particular vulnerabilities of minors and the risks that online games may pose to their privacy, safety and security, it is important that providers of online games implement safety by design measures tailored to the specific characteristics and risks stemming from those online games in order to offer minors an age-appropriate experience. Such risks relate in particular to unsolicited communication in the video games, age-inappropriate content, and design mechanisms which can lead to addictive behaviours and excessive use. Online games with open communication expose minors to contact-related risks, including cyberbullying, harassment, and those seeking to groom, sexually abuse or extort minors, human traffickers and those seeking to recruit minors into criminal gangs or promote violence, radicalisation, violent extremism and terrorism, as perpetrators often use the digital space to reach out to children. Similarly certain settings may expose minors to content, interactions or functionalities that may be harmful, including in circumstances where children are unregistered on the service. Providers of online games should therefore implement safeguards to prevent the service from being used to entice minors to initiate contacts on other services which may pose a risk to their privacy, safety and security. This could be done through restricting link-outs where this may pose a risk to minors and by implementing warning messages to minors. Video gaming platforms may also increase the risk of minors being exposed to age-inappropriate content. Where video gaming platforms allow recipients of the service to create individual video games, the provider of the video gaming platform should put in place the necessary software and organisational measures to allow the provider of the newly created video game to comply with applicable rules.