Greece Set to Block Under-15 Social Media

Starting January 1, 2027, children in Greece under the age of 15 will be locked out of major social media platforms. The nation's parliament has officially passed the legislation, finalizing a measure first proposed earlier this year by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The new rules apply directly to services such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X, requiring them to implement methods for verifying user ages that are both reliable and proportionate to the risk.

The bill, which the Prime Minister characterized as "difficult but necessary," represents a significant shift in how minors access digital spaces within the country. Officials argue that the regulation is a response to the growing digital dependency among young people. "Children are sinking into the internet every day," stated Digital Governance and AI Minister Dimitris Papastergiou, adding that a responsible government must take action rather than wait for a perfect European solution. "It would have been very easy to do absolutely nothing today and wait for the perfect European law. But the challenge is here," he said.

Compliance with this act will be enforced through penalties outlined in the European Union's Digital Services Act. For parents, the process involves downloading state-backed applications, specifically Kids Wallet or Gov.gr, which must be paired with a child's device to block access to restricted content. According to Minister Papastergiou, these tools are designed to safeguard privacy while minimizing the amount of personal data collected during verification. The system utilizes "age tokens" to confirm a user's age without disclosing additional personal details.

The legislation was advanced by the Prime Minister's government using its majority power, despite opposition from the nation's minority parties. The measure appears to align with public sentiment regarding youth technology use; opinion polls indicate that the ban is widely supported by the adult population. This policy follows a previous initiative from 2024 in which the country barred the use of mobile phones within schools.

Greece's Prime Minister has framed this domestic policy as part of a broader strategy to influence continental standards, stating that the government's "goal is to push the European Union in this direction as well." While the European Commission recently introduced the EU Kids Act to address similar concerns, that specific framework only mandates outright bans for children under the age of 13.

The Greek initiative places the country among the first in the European Union to enact such specific age-based restrictions on social media. While other nations have faced difficulties in enforcing similar measures, particularly regarding age verification, Greece's parliament has moved forward to finalize the framework, setting a firm date for when these digital restrictions will take effect.