The Japanese consortium that operates the global media franchise Pokémon has lobbied the head of Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) in advance of it drafting a policy on children’s data protection rights, writes Colin Coyle.

US representatives of the Pokémon Company International met data protection commissioner Helen Dixon earlier this year to discuss issues such as the digital age of consent and how companies are expected to verify their customers’ ages.

While the digital age of consent is 13 in the US, last year Ireland set its digital age of consent at 16. This means companies such as Pokémon — which has sold more than 300m video games worldwide, mostly aimed at children — must make “reasonable efforts” to verify that consent is given by