15: The Age Threshold for Greece's New Social Media Law

As digital privacy concerns mount across the continent, Greece has moved to codify one of the most significant recent shifts in European digital policy. The country’s parliament has formally passed a law prohibiting children under the age of 15 from using major social media platforms, a measure that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had initially proposed earlier this year. The legislation is set to take effect on January 1, 2027, marking a decisive step in regulating young users' online presence.

The new regulation specifically targets popular services such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X. Under the law, these platforms are required to implement age-verification methods that are both reliable and proportionate to their scale. This approach aims to balance the need for access control with the practical realities of user privacy, ensuring that platforms cannot simply ignore the demographic shift in their user base.

Government officials have framed the decision as a necessary intervention rather than a perfect solution. Dimitris Papastergiou, Greece’s digital governance and AI minister, argued that waiting for a comprehensive European law would have been an easy way to avoid action. He emphasized that children are increasingly immersed in the internet daily, suggesting that a responsible government must act to protect them from potential harms associated with unrestricted access.

Enforcement of the ban relies on a combination of regulatory pressure and state-backed technology. If platforms fail to comply, they face fines under the existing EU Digital Services Act. Additionally, parents will be required to install specific applications, such as Kids Wallet or Gov.gr, on their children's devices. These apps are designed to block access and verify age using "age tokens," a method intended to confirm a user's age while minimizing the amount of personal data disclosed to the platforms.

The path to passage was not without political friction. Greece’s minority parties opposed the bill, but Prime Minister Mitsotakis utilized his government’s majority to secure its enactment. This move follows the nation's 2024 decision to ban mobile phones in schools, reflecting a broader governmental trend toward limiting digital distractions for young people. Recent opinion polls indicate that the adult population in Greece widely supports this new social media restriction.

The legislation also positions Greece as a potential catalyst for broader EU reform. Mitsotakis has stated that his government aims to encourage the European Union to adopt similar measures. While the European Commission has recently introduced the EU Kids Act, that framework currently stipulates an outright ban only for children under 13. Greece’s choice to set the threshold at 15 distinguishes its approach from both the EU proposal and Australia, which was the first country to enact a full social media ban for minors but has faced challenges in implementing its age verification systems.