Greece Finalizes Social Media Age Ban for Under-15s

The Greek parliament has formally adopted a law that prohibits children under the age of 15 from accessing major social media platforms. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who initially proposed the measure earlier this year, described the legislation as a difficult but necessary step for the country. The new regulation is scheduled to become active on January 1, 2027, marking one of the first instances of such a mandate within the European Union.

The legislation targets widely used services including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X. To enforce the ban, these platforms are required to implement age-verification methods that are both proportionate and reliable. This approach shifts the burden of compliance onto digital service providers, requiring them to actively distinguish between users who meet the age threshold and those who do not.

Government officials emphasized that the move was a proactive response to growing concerns about youth online behavior. Dimitris Papastergiou, the minister for digital governance and AI, argued that waiting for a comprehensive European law would have been an easier but less responsible path. He stated that children are increasingly immersed in the internet, and that the government has a duty to act. "It would have been very easy to do absolutely nothing today and wait for the perfect European law," Papastergiou said, adding that the challenge is present and immediate.

Non-compliance with the new act will result in fines under the existing EU Digital Services Act. To assist families, the state is introducing specific applications called Kids Wallet or Gov.gr. Parents will be required to download these apps, which will be paired with their child’s device to block access to banned platforms. These tools are designed to protect user privacy by utilizing "age tokens," a mechanism that verifies a user’s age while minimizing the collection of personal data.

The bill faced opposition from minority parties in parliament, leading Prime Minister Mitsotakis to rely on his majority to push the measure through. This legislative action builds on previous national efforts, such as the 2024 ban on mobile phones in schools. Opinion polls indicate that the new social media restrictions for children enjoy broad support among Greece’s adult population.

The Greek government views this national law as a catalyst for broader regional change. Mitsotakis has stated that the administration aims to guide the European Union toward similar standards. The European Commission has recently proposed the EU Kids Act, which seeks to address these issues at the union level. However, that proposed legislation currently stipulates an outright ban only for children under the age of 13, making Greece’s under-15 threshold more restrictive.

International precedents offer mixed lessons for implementation. Australia was the first nation to enact a full social media ban for children, but the country has faced significant challenges in effectively carrying out age verification. Greece’s new framework seeks to refine these processes through specific state-backed applications and strict data privacy requirements, aiming to create a more manageable system for both parents and platform operators as the 2027 deadline approaches.