Greece Bans Social Media for Children Under 15 Starting January 1, 2027

Greece’s parliament approved a bill on Friday that bars children under 15 from using social media platforms, with the restriction set to take effect on January 1, 2027. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said platforms have about two and a half months to put age checks in place and protect user privacy, according to Reuters.

The vote followed a session that began on Thursday and continued past midnight, according to Cosmos Philly. Only the governing New Democracy party supported the bill in principle, while PASOK voted “present” and other opposition parties voted against it.

Who is covered, and how age will be counted

When the restriction begins in 2027, children born in 2013 or later will be barred from covered services, according to Cosmos Philly. Children born in 2012 will be treated as old enough, even if their 15th birthday falls later in the year. The rule covers existing accounts as well as new ones, and parents cannot override it by giving consent. There is no exception for supervised accounts held by 13- or 14-year-olds.

Government guidance names Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn as examples of covered services, but the law does not contain a fixed list of platforms. The treatment of services that mix social networking with video sharing or messaging still needs clarification, according to Cosmos Philly. The restriction does not ban general internet access, smartphones, or educational technology.

How checks and enforcement would work

Platforms will be responsible for applying the age limit, and the government says they must use checks that are reliable and proportionate rather than simply accepting a date of birth typed in by a user. Greece has pointed to two government applications, Gov.gr Wallet and Kids Wallet, as possible tools. Under the approach described by Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou, a platform could receive confirmation that a user meets the minimum age without receiving the user’s name, exact date of birth, or identification number.

Enforcement will run through the European Union’s Digital Services Act. In Greece, the National Council for Radio and Television and the Hellenic Data Protection Authority will oversee the restriction in their own areas, and existing European rules allow penalties reaching 6 percent of a company’s worldwide annual turnover for qualifying violations. Those fines are not automatic, and children and parents will not face new fines or criminal penalties under the measure, according to Cosmos Philly.

The government says the restriction is meant to protect children from risks linked to heavy social media use. The government named disrupted sleep, trouble concentrating, cyberbullying, and exposure to harmful content among the risks it cited. Ministers have said technology companies must take more responsibility for younger users rather than placing the task entirely on parents.

Opposition parties and parliament’s Scientific Service raised questions during the debate. PASOK proposed an alternative that would allow 13- and 14-year-olds to hold restricted accounts under parental supervision. In an October 21 report, the Scientific Service said the law does not define every covered service precisely, and it examined whether a blanket restriction is proportionate given children’s rights to freedom of expression, access to information, and participation in social life.

Greece is not the first country to set an age limit. Australia began enforcing a minimum age of 16 for social media accounts on December 10, 2025, according to Cosmos Philly. In France, the Constitutional Council struck down an under-15 restriction in August 2026. The European Commission has proposed an EU KIDS Act that has not been adopted, under which children younger than 13 would generally be barred from social media accounts while 13- and 14-year-olds could use limited accounts managed by a parent or guardian.

In the United States, there is no nationwide social media age ban of this kind. Federal law, through the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, generally requires covered services to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13, but it does not prohibit children from using social media. Florida law prohibits children under 14 from holding accounts on certain platforms and requires parental consent for 14- and 15-year-olds, and a federal appeals court on October 14, 2026, overturned an injunction blocking enforcement while a constitutional challenge continues.

Reporting based on coverage by Reuters and Cosmos Philly.