While the EU works on protecting minors, the creator of the messaging app has exposed vulnerabilities in the tool. And psychologist Óscar Páramos adds another layer of concern: “Using the mobile phone as an emotional pacifier to calm children is a serious problem.”
BRUSSELS / VIGO. The European Union has spent months designing mechanisms to verify the age of users on digital platforms, supposedly as a shield to protect minors from inappropriate content. But Telegram founder Pavel Durov has just shaken confidence in that strategy: he claims he managed to break the EU’s age‑verification system in under two minutes.
Durov argues that the tool, far from being a simple age check, could become “a powerful instrument to spy on Europeans.” According to the Russian‑French programmer, the system collects far more data than necessary, opening the door to mass surveillance under the banner of child protection.
“In two minutes we showed that any centralized age‑verification system is useless against a user with minimal technical knowledge,” Durov said on his Telegram channel. “But the worst part isn’t how easy it is to bypass — it’s that the same infrastructure can be used to build a digital registry of all Europeans.”
The mobile phone as the new emotional pacifier
While Brussels debates digital safety, a quieter revolution is unfolding in Galician households. Psychologist and child‑development specialist Óscar Páramos warns of a related issue: the unhealthy relationship we are building with technology.
“Using a mobile phone as an emotional pacifier to calm children is a serious problem,” he says. He notes that more and more parents turn to screens to stop a tantrum, distract a restless child, or “reward” them with device time.
The problem, he explains, is that this prevents children from learning to regulate their own emotions. “A child who gets a phone every time they cry isn’t learning to handle frustration, to wait, or to calm themselves. They’re learning that the solution to discomfort comes from outside — from a screen.”
Two sides of the same coin
Durov’s warning and Páramos’s concerns point in the same direction: misused technology — whether by institutions or within families — can become a tool of control or avoidance instead of a tool for freedom.
The EU insists that the age‑verification system is voluntary and respects privacy. Durov counters that “no voluntary system capable of storing data is truly voluntary.” And while adults debate regulations, children continue receiving a phone every time they cry.
What can be done?
Páramos advises parents: “It’s not about demonizing the phone, but about using it wisely. A child doesn’t need a screen to calm down; they need an adult who accompanies them, validates their feelings, and teaches them — gradually — to breathe, to wait, to ask for help without shouting. You don’t learn that by tapping on a screen.”
In Brussels, the European Commission has not officially commented on Durov’s statements, though EU sources say the system’s security “is guaranteed and any reported vulnerabilities will be investigated.”
Durov has already announced that he will publish a detailed technical guide to support his claims. Meanwhile, Galician parents remain caught in the middle: their children’s phones may be emotional pacifiers — but also, according to Durov, potential surveillance tools in the hands of Brussels.
