Greece becomes first EU nation to ban social media for pre-teens

Greece has officially joined the growing list of nations restricting young people's access to the digital world, setting a precedent for the rest of the continent.

The Greek parliament has passed legislation that prohibits children under the age of 15 from using major social media platforms. The measure, which Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis described as difficult but necessary, was first announced earlier this year. It is scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2027. This makes Greece one of the first European Union members to implement such a specific age-based restriction on popular online services.

The law targets widely used platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X. To comply, these services must adopt age-verification methods that are both reliable and proportionate to the user experience. This requirement forces tech companies to move beyond simple self-declarations of age and implement more robust checks to ensure that users under fifteen are effectively blocked from creating or accessing accounts.

Dimitris Papastergiou, the minister for digital governance and artificial intelligence, emphasized the urgency of the situation. He noted that it would have been easier for the government to wait for a unified European law, but he argued that the challenge is immediate. Papastergiou stated that children are increasingly immersed in the internet and that a responsible government must act. He highlighted that the new system uses age tokens to confirm a user's age while minimizing the amount of personal data collected, thereby protecting privacy.

To help parents enforce the ban at home, the government will introduce state-backed applications called Kids Wallet and Gov.gr. These tools will be paired with a child's device to block access to non-compliant platforms. Failure to adhere to the new act will result in fines under the existing EU Digital Services Act, providing a financial incentive for platforms to update their verification systems in time for the January deadline.

The path to passage was not without political friction. Minority parties in the Greek parliament opposed the bill, but the governing majority secured its approval. This legislative move follows a 2024 decision to ban mobile phones in schools, signaling a broader strategy to manage technology use in education. Recent opinion polls indicate that the adult population in Greece largely supports this new restriction on children's social media use.

The national move is also intended to influence broader European policy. Mitsotakis has expressed a goal of pushing the entire European Union in this direction. While the European Commission has introduced the EU Kids Act, that proposed legislation currently stipulates an outright ban only for children under thirteen. Greece's higher age threshold may serve as a model for future discussions in Brussels.

Looking ahead, Greece faces the practical challenges of implementation. Australia was the first nation to enact a full social media ban for children, but it has struggled with the complexities of verifying ages accurately. As Greece prepares for the new year, the success of its age-token system and the cooperation of major platforms will determine whether this law becomes a workable standard or a source of friction for young users and their families.