On 12 October 2026 the Greek government presented a bill that would bar children under 15 from social networks. According to Balkan Insight, it takes effect on 1 January 2027 and applies first to Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and Instagram, with other services added gradually. The bill went to a parliamentary committee on 13 October, and the government is aiming for a plenary vote on 22 October.
The strongest case for the ban
The argument for acting is serious. Parents face products built by large engineering teams to maximise engagement, and individual families have little leverage against that. Platform terms already set minimum ages, yet self-declared birthdates are easy to falsify, so those age limits are largely decorative. A statutory age floor gives parents a rule they can point to. It also removes the social pressure of being the only family that says no. Minister Akis Skertsos framed the bill as human-centric regulation of technology, driven by children's health and development. Greece also banned mobile phones in schools in 2024, so this is a continuation of existing policy rather than a sudden lurch.
What the bill actually does
As Euronews reports, the bill bars minors under 15 from social networking services offered by online platforms. Platforms must use age-verification methods that are "appropriate, proportionate and reliable". The Gov.gr Wallet and the Kids Wallet are expected to play a key role. They rely on digital age tokens meant to confirm a user meets the threshold without revealing more personal data than necessary. Companies may choose other technical solutions if they meet EU law.
Enforcement runs through the Digital Services Act. Euronews reports that the National Telecommunications and Post Commission (EETT) acts as Digital Services Coordinator, with the National Council for Radio and Television and the Hellenic Data Protection Authority also holding roles. Cases involving platforms established in other member states go to the authority in that state. Euronews names Article 28 of the DSA, the minors-protection provision, as the anchor. Its coverage does not mention fines, so the penalty regime is something to check once the bill text is public.
The proportionality problem
The design has real strengths. Token-based age proof, rather than document uploads to each platform, is the privacy-preserving direction the Commission itself favours. The Commission's July 2025 package pairs Article 28 guidelines with an age-verification app prototype that lets users prove they are over 18 without disclosing other personal details. Greece is building on that approach rather than demanding that every teenager hand over a passport scan.
The weaknesses lie elsewhere.
- A hard ban is blunter than the Commission's own approach. The Commission's guidelines centre on safer defaults, recommender-system changes and limits on addictive features. Those are design duties that make services safer for every minor. A categorical exclusion instead removes lawful speech, association and information access for a whole age band, including 14-year-olds who use these services for school, hobbies and civic life. Under a speech-protective reading, a restriction on minors' access should be the least restrictive tool that works, and Athens has not published evidence that lesser tools failed.
- Platform selection is arbitrary at the edges. Starting with Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and Instagram, then adding services "gradually", invites displacement. Teenagers who lose one app can drift to unlisted messaging apps, games with chat, or unmoderated corners of the web that carry far greater risk than a mainstream network with trust-and-safety staff. A list-based rollout also leaves open who decides what counts as social media, which is a classic setting for inconsistent enforcement.
- Verification creates its own harms. Every adult must now prove their age too, because platforms cannot exclude children without checking everyone. If the wallet route is the practical default, a state-issued credential becomes the gateway to speech platforms. That is acceptable only if tokens are genuinely unlinkable to the content a user views. The Commission's description of its prototype says no one could track or reconstruct which content an individual user viewed. Greece should hold itself to the same standard in law, not just in product documentation.
The legal question Brussels has to answer
The DSA is a maximum-harmonisation instrument for platform obligations. That is the point of a single rulebook, and why a company can serve 27 markets without 27 compliance regimes. The Commission's guidelines are non-binding, though it says it will use them as a benchmark for Article 28 compliance. Whether a member state can use Article 28 to impose a numerical age floor is therefore contestable. The Commission's own materials, as far as I could verify, do not address national minimum ages. The Euronews report does not mention industry objections, but a national rule that cuts across the harmonised framework is a natural target for a challenge before national courts and the Court of Justice.
The Commission is also still testing how Article 28 works in practice. In October 2025 it requested information from Snapchat, YouTube, Apple App Store and Google Play on age verification systems and on how they keep minors from illegal or harmful content. That enforcement route is the one built to scale across borders.
What lawmakers should do before 22 October
Parliament has about a week with the text. Three amendments would improve the bill without weakening its goal.
- Publish the evidence and a sunset review. Require an independent evaluation after 18 months measuring displacement to riskier services, circumvention and effects on teenagers' wellbeing, with the ban lapsing unless justified.
- Write the privacy guarantee into statute. Age tokens should be unlinkable and carry no browsing data, with enforcement by the Data Protection Authority.
- Define coverage by risk, not by brand. Criteria such as engagement-driven design and open contact with strangers would treat comparable services consistently and reduce displacement.
Child safety is a legitimate public aim, and Greece is right that platform self-regulation has not been enough. But the way a government pursues it matters. A ban that rests on privacy-preserving verification, ships with a review clause and fits within EU law could be a useful experiment. One that is rushed through in nine days, with open legal questions, risks being unwound by courts, leaving families with neither protection nor certainty.