Legal protection for minors against inappropriate content

According to statistics, the average age at which Spanish children have their first mobile phone is 11 years, which exposes them to social networks; they first encounter sexual content around the age of 12, and 70% of adolescents consume this content regularly. This has a negative impact, as it normalizes the idea that certain practices may be acceptable within an intimate relationship.

This explains the government's efforts to address this worrying situation, such as the application called 'Digital Wallet Beta', announced in 2024 and relaunched in 2026, which consists of an age verification system based on an anonymous credential, meaning that to access this type of content, users must register in the application to verify that they are over 16 years old without having to share any data. This system began to be implemented in Australia in March 2026, which led to a massive increase in app downloads as users sought to bypass the ban.

As this system has been criticized for the risk of sharing data that could be hacked—a risk that the European Digital Identity Wallet aims to mitigate—privacy will be safeguarded through the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 April 2024, which amends Regulation (EU) No. 910/2014 regarding the establishment of the European Digital Identity Framework (eIDAS2), which will require certain platforms and services to accept these credentials starting in 2027.

At the same time, work is being done to approve legislation, particularly the Organic Law Project on the legal protection of minors in digital environments, which was admitted for processing in September 2025. Its key provisions are: raising the minimum age to register on social networks to 16 years; imposing the obligation to include free and effective parental controls on devices with internet access; and strengthening the obligations of platforms and content creators regarding accuracy, reporting mechanisms, and verification systems when the content may be harmful to a minor's development.

At the same time, work is being done on the enactment of regulations, particularly on the Organic Law Project on the legal protection of minors in digital environments.

Additionally, this law will also amend the Penal Code to introduce new crimes, such as the indiscriminate provision of pornographic material to minors, the creation and dissemination of sexual deepfakes, and the classification of 'grooming' (where an adult gains the trust of a minor for sexual purposes) as an aggravating factor in existing crimes against sexual freedom.

Regarding jurisprudence, the Judgment 271/2024, of 20 September, of the Provincial Court of Bizkaia resolved a case in which a minor created fake profiles on Instagram through which he disseminated intimate photographs of another minor and threatened to publish them further if he did not receive new images; and declared the accused and his mother responsible for civil damages (including moral damages and the costs of psychological treatment), based on evidence such as the IP address linked to the grandparents' home, the continued use of Wi-Fi, and the minor's refusal to hand over his phone.

However, not all digital exchanges between an adult and a minor are considered a 'sexting' offense (the creation and sending of sexually explicit content, such as photos or videos, through electronic devices or social networks), as ruled in Judgment 3/2024 of 5 January of the Provincial Court of Lleida, which acquitted a defendant who had asked a minor for an intimate photo, claiming that there was no express request for sexual material—a crucial requirement for the crime under Article 183-2 of the Penal Code, which requires deceptive acts to obtain pornographic images of the minor, regardless of whether the act is morally reprehensible.

Moreover, in November 2025, the Spanish Agency for Data Protection imposed the first fine in Europe for the creation and dissemination of sexual deepfakes of minors created using artificial intelligence (AI) to superimpose real children’s faces onto the naked bodies of others and disseminating the images on social networks and digital platforms without consent, in violation of Article 6.1 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, concerning the protection of natural persons regarding the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data (GDPR).

AI can also be used to engage in erotic conversations through chats, especially since December 2025, when OpenAI lifted restrictions on erotic content on ChatGPT for users with verified age, aiming to compete with rivals like Grok and Character. AI was charged with involuntary manslaughter in May 2025 by the mother of Sewell Setzer, a 14-year-old teenager who took his own life after having emotional and sexual conversations with a chatbot imitating a character from the series 'Game of Thrones.'

Therefore, the response cannot be limited to age checks or simple regulation—which are essential but insufficient—but emotional and sexual education, guidance and support within the family, digital literacy, and the responsibility of platforms and creators must be a priority, instead of repression that often serves to fan the flames of the forbidden.

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