Greece social media ban for children under 15 puts the scrolling fight in parents’ corner

Greece’s parliament approved the Greece social media ban for children under 15 on Friday 23 October 2026, banning under-15s from social media platforms amid growing concerns over the impact on minors’ health and safety, Reuters reported. The law does not start tomorrow. It comes into force on 1 January 2027, Reuters reported.

For families, the vote settles one argument and opens another. Settled: the state is willing to set an age line. Open: who enforces it at the kitchen table, on the bus, at midnight under a duvet — parents, platforms, or an app neither side fully controls yet?

Information verified through 24 October 2026.

How the Greece social media ban for children under 15 would work

The hard part was never the headline. It’s social media age verification for children that protects privacy at the same time.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said platforms have about two and a half months to devise a way to verify users’ ages while protecting their privacy, Reuters reported. Two and a half months, from late October, lands right against the 1 January start. There is very little slack in that timetable.

Greece is not building the answer alone. It is among seven European Union countries seeking an age-verification solution with the European Commission, Reuters reported.

Tools already exist, at least on paper. Greece’s Kids Wallet and Gov.gr Wallet could help verify age without exposing unnecessary personal information, and platforms may use other compliant solutions instead, Analytics Insight reported. Bytes Europe describes the Kids Wallet flow this way: parents link the app with their child’s data, and during a check a digital confirmation shows whether the age limit has been reached, without the platform receiving all of the child’s personal data, Bytes Europe reported.

Existing accounts count, too. The rules will affect current accounts as well as new registrations, with platforms required to check ages again, and regulators monitoring compliance through the EU’s Digital Services Act framework, Analytics Insight reported. So a 13-year-old with an account opened last year is not grandfathered in. That detail will matter in a lot of households.

Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou defended the law in a debate lasting several hours as necessary, effective and proportionate, and compatible with EU law, Bytes Europe reported. “It would be very easy today to do absolutely nothing and wait for the perfect European law,” he said, arguing that uncontrolled internet use, which can make children addicted and harm their mental health, must not continue, quoted by Bytes Europe.

Parents and endless scrolling debate at home

The government’s framing is aimed squarely at parents, not at teenagers. Greece says it is standing by parents to help curb the “endless scrolling” that deprives children of sleep, concentration and time with their friends, Reuters reported.

That language will sound familiar in any home where a phone has won an argument about bedtime. Sleep. Concentration. Time with friends in the same room. The parents and endless scrolling debate is rarely about whether scrolling is endless — walk past a sofa at 11 p.m. and check — it’s about whether a parent saying no should have to fight a product designed by thousands of engineers at the same time.

Supporters of bans, in the government’s telling, get backup: the rule is the rule, not just Mum or Dad being difficult. Critics of bans elsewhere have raised a different worry, and France shows where it can lead legally. A similar French law was struck down by the Constitutional Council in August, Reuters reported. Bytes Europe gives the reasoning: the Council ruled the French ban disproportionately interfered with freedom of expression and communication, Bytes Europe reported. President Emmanuel Macron still backs a ban and has asked Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to draft a legally sound revision, Bytes Europe reported.

No opposition or parent-group position on the Greek vote itself appears in the Reuters report. Treat claims about a united parent welcome, or a teen revolt, as unproven until someone actually reports them.

Greece is not first, and Europe has not finished

Australia was the first country to pass legislation curbing social media use by minors, doing so last year, Reuters reported. Greece puts itself among the first EU countries to introduce such a measure, according to public broadcaster ERT News, Bytes Europe reported.

Brussels is moving on a parallel track. The European Commission presented the EU Kids Act in September, proposing a complete social media ban for under-13s and independent accounts only from age 15, and the proposal is now being debated by the European Parliament and member states, Bytes Europe reported. The Greece under-15 social media law 2027 start date therefore sits inside a bigger negotiation. A Greek family could face a national rule in January and an EU rule, in different shape, later.

Analysis: Laws like this live or die on a boring question — can you prove age without building a database of children? Greece has given platforms weeks, not years, to answer it, and has pointed at wallet apps as the privacy-preserving route. If Kids Wallet works smoothly, other EU states will copy it fast. If it leaks, lags or locks out teenagers who are old enough, the French court’s reasoning starts to look like a preview. Watch the verification method, not the speeches. That’s where this law becomes real, or doesn’t.

Sources

1. Reuters — “Greece passes social media ban for children under 15” — 23 October 2026 — https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/greece-passes-social-media-ban-children-under-15-2026-10-23/
2. Reuters via 96.3 Jack FM — “Greece passes social media ban for children under 15” — 23 October 2026 — https://963jackfm.com/2026/10/23/greece-passes-social-media-ban-for-children-under-15/
3. Analytics Insight — “Greece Approves Social Media Ban for Children Under 15” — October 2026 — https://www.analyticsinsight.net/news/greece-approves-social-media-ban-for-children-under-15
4. Bytes Europe — “Greece bans social media for under-15s” — 23 October 2026 — https://www.byteseu.com/2474093/