Greece Social Media Ban Locks Out Under-15s From 2027

The Greece social media ban is now official law. Lawmakers in Athens voted to shut kids under fifteen out of apps like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, and the rules kick in on the first of January, twenty twenty-seven. If you have a younger sibling, cousin or group-chat friend who is not quite fifteen yet, this one hits close to home.

According to The Next Web, parliament approved the bill late on Thursday after a debate that dragged on for more than sixteen hours, and the result was reported across Europe on Friday. Only the governing New Democracy party backed it. PASOK declined to take a side by voting present, while SYRIZA, Greek Solution, the Communist Party, Niki and Course of Freedom all voted against.

What the new law actually says

The ban is not tied to a list of brand names. Whether a service falls under the rules depends on how it works, not what it is called, so the law is aimed at social platforms in general rather than just the big three. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are the obvious targets, and Engadget notes that X is covered too.

There is no loophole for permission slips, either. Parents cannot sign off so a child can keep using the platforms, and accounts that already exist are not exempt, according to The Next Web. The law also does not introduce fresh fines for kids or for their parents. The pressure lands on the companies.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis first announced the plan in April, and he did it on TikTok, which is a pretty spicy plot twist. He called the measure difficult but necessary, according to Al Jazeera. He has also given the platforms roughly two and a half months to build age checks that protect privacy.

How age checks will work without doxxing your kid brother

Here is the part Gen Z will care about. Greece is not asking every user to upload a passport selfie. Instead, if a platform cannot work out someone's age, it shows a QR code that links to Kids Wallet, a government app. That app only tells the platform whether the user is over or under fifteen, with no name and no date of birth attached.

Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou said the government does not hand platforms any of its children's personal data whatsoever, as reported by The Next Web. Engadget adds that parents would need to install state-backed apps, either Kids Wallet or Gov.gr, paired to the child's device to block access. It is a clever idea on paper. Whether teens find a workaround is another story entirely.

Who has to enforce it

Greece's broadcasting council and its data protection authority will oversee platforms operating in the country. For the very largest services, enforcement sits with the European Commission under the Digital Services Act, which means companies that ignore the age rules could face fines under EU law, per Engadget. Greece is also one of seven EU countries working with the Commission on a shared age-verification tool.

Papastergiou defended the speed of the move in parliament. He argued it would have been very easy to do nothing and wait for a perfect European law, but that children are sinking into the internet every day, according to Engadget. Minister of State Akis Skertsos told lawmakers the country has no more time to waste.

Greece joins a crowded club, with mixed results

Greece is not the first. Al Jazeera reports that about twenty countries now restrict young people's access to social media, with Australia, France, Brazil, Indonesia, Austria, Denmark and the United Kingdom among those that have introduced or plan similar limits. Australia's ban on social media for under-sixteens took effect in December twenty twenty-five, and Engadget reports that age verification there has been hard to pull off.

France is the cautionary tale. Its Constitutional Council struck down an under-fifteen ban on the fourteenth of August, ruling that it went too far in restricting freedom of expression, as The Next Web points out. Greek opposition parties also challenged the new law on practical and legal grounds, so a court fight is not out of the question.

Not everyone in the Greek parliament wanted a hard ban for all under fifteens. PASOK pushed for a different bill that would have banned social media for under-thirteens and used parental controls for thirteen and fourteen-year-olds, according to Al Jazeera. Meanwhile the European Commission recently proposed the EU Kids Act, which sets an outright ban only for children under thirteen.

Why it matters beyond Greece

Supporters say algorithms built to keep eyes glued to screens are doing real damage to young people's mental health, and Greek polls show the ban is widely popular with adults, per Engadget. Greece already banned phones in schools back in twenty twenty-four, so this feels like the next step in a bigger push to pull teens off their screens.

Critics counter that bans are tough to enforce and may push kids toward less regulated corners of the internet. That debate is only getting louder as more governments follow. For a deeper look at how tech rules are changing, check out our tech coverage.

The real test comes in the new year. If the age-check system works smoothly, other EU countries may copy Greece. If it flops, the Greece social media ban could become another warning for lawmakers who want to regulate the feed.