Spain proposes new regulations requiring parental consent for minors' social media use

The Spanish government announced on 4 November 2024 a proposed regulatory framework that would prohibit social media access for children under 14 and require explicit parental consent for users aged 14 and 15, forming part of a broader child online safety initiative. The draft regulations would mandate that platforms implement robust age verification and parental authorisation systems, with enforcement responsibility assigned to Spain's data protection authority and penalties for companies that fail to comply, though the specific verification technologies to be used remain under consultation.

Parental consent gates and age verification prevent account creation but do not monitor the conversation after access is granted, leaving the consented child unprotected when a predator makes contact or a sextortion attempt begins. Systems that detect harmful patterns in real time at the message level operate regardless of whether the parent approved the account, identifying grooming escalation, coercive demands, and age-inappropriate contact as they occur: Guardii's filters for grooming, sextortion and predatory behaviour intercept these threats across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord and other platforms before they reach the child, blocking hostile approaches and surfacing the child at acute risk to the parent or safeguarding authority, protecting within the approved use rather than relying solely on the access decision.