Spain Announces New Measures to Protect Children from Social Media

TapTechNews June 5th news, according to Reuters, Spain announced several measures on Tuesday local time, including ensuring that smartphones have parent control functions by default, which is one of the new measures to protect local children from the harmful effects of social media.

Spanish Justice Minister Feliz Bolanos said after the cabinet meeting that the government will also make it a criminal offense to produce deepfake AI-generated images involving sexual content and to share pornographic materials with children.

In addition, the age of consent for data protection will be raised from 14 to 16 years old, and the country will also introduce a digital restraining order to prohibit some users from contacting others online. Feliz said, We want to reassure families that when their children are in the digital environment, they can be sure that the Spanish government will take care of them.

It is understood that the relevant bill needs to be approved by parliament before it becomes law.

TapTechNews note: The European Union introduced the Digital Services Act last year, which contains some specific protection measures for children. At the same time, countries in the European Union region have also begun to initiate the legislative process to respond to public concerns.

France has previously introduced similar regulations that all connected devices must provide parent control functions by default; the UK's Cybersecurity Act, which took effect in October last year, requires platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or YouTube to delete illegal content and check whether the user's age is at least 13 years old by effective means.