Minors, privacy consent and online vulnerability: Reflections in the light of the general data protection regulation (eu) 2016/679

The continuous evolution of online technologies and services, increasingly based on the datafication towards users, and the occurrence of data breaches, even against children, resulting from still insufficient protections in the latest technologies despite the application of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 for over a year now, raise particular concerns. While, on the one hand, the improvement of technological security measures will represent a greater guarantee for users, and in particular for minors, the current context still leads to questioning the adequacy of the privacy legislation, with specific attention to children and their new faculty to give consent to the processing of personal data in relation to information society services, based on strict age thresholds and not on the actual capacity for discernment of the data subject.