Greece Sets January 1, 2027, Deadline for Under-15 Social Media Ban

The Greek government has officially enacted a legislation prohibiting social media use for children under the age of fifteen, setting a firm implementation date of January 1, 2027. This regulatory move finalizes a proposal that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis introduced earlier this year, marking Greece as one of the first nations within the European Union to impose such a strict age restriction on digital platforms.

The new law targets major social networking services, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X. It mandates that these platforms deploy age-verification methods that are both proportionate and reliable to ensure compliance. The legislation represents a significant step in the country's broader digital governance strategy, aiming to regulate how minors interact with online spaces.

Dimitris Papastergiou, the minister for digital governance and AI, defended the necessity of the measure during the parliamentary proceedings. He noted that waiting for a comprehensive European framework would have been the easier path, but the current state of children’s online activity demanded immediate national action. Papastergiou described the situation as a challenge where children are increasingly immersed in the internet, arguing that a responsible government must act accordingly.

Enforcement of the act will rely on existing regulatory frameworks, specifically the EU’s Digital Services Act, which provides a mechanism for fining non-compliant services. Additionally, the law introduces a parental control requirement where guardians must install state-backed applications on their children’s devices to block access to banned platforms.

To address privacy concerns, the government has developed two specific applications, Kids Wallet and Gov.gr. According to Papastergiou, these tools utilize "age tokens" to verify a user's age while minimizing the amount of personal data disclosed. This approach is designed to protect user privacy by avoiding the collection of excessive information during the verification process.

The path to enactment was not without political friction. Minority parties in the parliament opposed the bill, but the ruling majority secured its passage. The move follows a 2024 decision to ban mobile phones in schools, indicating a continued trend toward restricting minors' access to digital technology in educational settings. Recent opinion polls suggest that the adult population in Greece largely supports this new restriction on social media use for children.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis has indicated that Athens hopes to influence broader European policy, stating that the goal is to push the EU in the same direction. The European Commission has recently proposed the EU Kids Act, which aims to standardize regulations across the bloc. However, that proposed EU legislation currently stipulates an outright ban only for children under the age of thirteen, making Greece’s under-fifteen threshold more restrictive.

Greece is not the first country to tackle this issue; Australia previously enacted a full social media ban for children. However, Australia has faced significant challenges in implementing effective age-verification systems. As Greece prepares for the January 2027 deadline, the success of its "age token" system will be closely watched as a potential model for other nations seeking to balance digital access with age-appropriate regulation.