Protection of minors

Article 6a (1) foresees that member states shall take appropriate measures to ensure that AVMS provided by media service providers under their jurisdiction which may impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors are only made available in such a way as to ensure that minors will not normally hear or see them (via, for instance, the use of specific broadcasting times or age verification tools). It adds that the most harmful content, such as gratuitous violence and pornography, shall be subject to the strictest measures.

Article 6a (2) provides that the personal data of minors, collected or generated by media service providers shall not be processed for commercial purposes, such as direct marketing, profiling and behaviourally targeted advertising.

Article 6a (3) encourages the use by member states of co-regulation to ensure that media service providers provide sufficient information to viewers about content which may impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors.

Article 6a (4) also tasks the European Commission with encouraging media service providers to exchange best practices on co-regulatory codes of conduct. Member States and the Commission may also foster self-regulation through codes of conduct.

But VSP-specific measures for the protection of minors were also introduced by Directive 2018/1808. Article 28b (1) establishes that EU member states shall ensure that VSP providers under their jurisdiction shall take appropriate measures to protect minors from programmes, user-generated videos and audiovisual commercial communications which may impair their physical, mental or moral development.

Article 28b (3) mentions principles and measures that can be put in place to achieve the objective of protecting minors on VSPs. They include age verification, parental control, and reporting and flagging mechanisms.

Article 28b (5) provides that EU member states shall establish mechanisms to assess the appropriateness of the measures referred to in Article 28b (3) and Article 28b (6) provides that they may also impose more detailed or stricter rules with regard to measures for the protection of minors and rules relative to audiovisual commercial communications.

Article 28b (7) establishes that EU member states shall ensure that out-of-court redress mechanisms are available for the settlement of disputes between users and VSP providers with regard to the application of Article 28b (1) and (3). Article 28b (8) also provides that users must be able to assert their rights before a court in relation to VSP providers with regard to the same provisions.

National transpositions of Articles 28a and 28b AVMSD, as well as national transpositions of all other articles in the AVMSD, can be found in our AVMSDatabase.