A few months ago, a woman went to the police station to report that her 13-year-old daughter had contacted a boy a little older than her on social media, called Dani, 15, who had pressured her until she was will send you intimate photos and videos.
The Mossos investigation revealed that Dani was in reality a 38-year-old man, residing in Mollet del Vallès (Barcelona), who, using up to five fake virtual profiles, had managed to gain the trust of 153 miners to send him sexual images.
Even if this may seem an extreme case, the Police arrest around a hundred people each year for this type of practice (called grooming). 75% of its victims are girls, aged on average 13, according to a report prepared by the Ministry of the Interior.
This is just one of the risks minors face on social media. Also the excessive exposure of their private life, cyberbullying, access to pornography and contact with strangers which may require them to maintain a date with a sexual interest.
Currently, minors can open a profile on social networks from the age of 14 in Spain (this is the legal age set to give consent to the processing of personal data).
The Government wants to raise this minimum age to 16 years in 2026, as Australia has just done. In theory, this will force platforms to lay off 700,000 young people aged 14 and 15 in Spain.
According to a study coordinated this year by the University of Navarra, minors aged 13 to 18 regularly use more than five social networks on average.
WhatsApp chat (91%), TikTok (79%), Instagram (79%), YouTube (69%) and, in the case of boys, gaming platforms onlineare the most popular.
Far behind, Facebook (17%), which is no longer popular with young people, and X (12%), Elon Musk’s network.
In order to enforce the new restrictions, the government has commissioned the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) and the National Mint and Stamp Factory to design a new electronic age verification system, through which users will have to certify their identity to access certain Internet content.
This is the Beta Digital Walletwhich was ironically named Pajaport. This is a controversial measure whose success is not guaranteed.
On the one hand, Internet user associations denounce that the obligation to identify oneself to verify one’s age will allow the Administration to track sensitive content consulted by any user, which they consider to be a violation of the right to privacy.
On the other hand, there are systems, such as VPN programs, that allow hide device IP address to circumvent restrictions established at the national level (for example, by simulating that the connection is made from another country).
In Australia, where the new legal minimum age came into force on Wednesday, the main platforms have already warned that they do not intend to deactivate the accounts of nearly 400,000 adolescents under 16 who use their networks.
Announcing the new restrictions provided for in the bill on the protection of minors in digital environments, the minister Felix Bolanos He stressed the need to prevent minors from accessing pornography.
According to the survey that Red.es prepared for the government, in collaboration with Unicef and the University of Santiago de Compostela, 33% of children between 12 and 16 years old have accessed pornography on the Internet at some point (plus boys, 48.2%).
7.6% do it every week. And 5% say they have or have had an Onlyfans account (7%, for boys).
Last October, the new age verification system for accessing the Internet came into force in the United Kingdom. In the first few weeks, traffic to porn sites like Pornhub dropped by more than 30%. Something that suggests that the new user identification system hasn’t just scared off minors.
“For many adolescents, the cell phone will be the star gift of this Christmas. It opens the door to a world full of possibilities, but also of threats,” warns the director of the legal department of the ANAR Foundation, Sonsoles Bartolomé.
“Young people live on the Internet and social networks,” he emphasizes, “technology permeates their lives and they are often unaware of the risks they may incur.”
On the one hand, problems that can affect their cognitive development and mental health. From addiction, which can disrupt your health routines such as sleep, Bartolomé lists, to lack of tolerance for frustration, isolation, relationship difficulties or access to pornography, which can then condition your sexual health.
But there are bigger threats. They may fall for scams or experience identity theft. Access content that induces violent behavior or eating disorders.
Or come into contact with people who pressure or extort them to send them intimate images, or to arrange a meeting for sexual purposes (Sextortion).
A risk that increases, explains Sonsoles Bartolomé, because many young people expose their private lives in their network profiles (with personal photos, information about their family or the school where they study) which makes them vulnerable.
According to the aforementioned study by the University of Navarra, 26.8% of adolescents between 13 and 18 years old report having received sexual images from another user through social networks. And 8% admit to having sent them.
23% say they would be willing to meet a stranger they contacted online.
Sonsoles Bartolomé considers it necessary to establish an age verification system with guarantees, since the control established by the platforms themselves is much more lax.
Networks like Instagram or Facebook (but also dating apps Tinder and Grindr) simply ask the user for their year of birth when opening their profile. A system that allows you to easily falsify your real age.
The ANAR Foundation participated in the group of experts formed by the government in 2024 (with entities such as Save The Children or Unicef) to analyze the proposals that were integrated into the draft law on the protection of minors in digital environments.
Parental Control
In addition to raising the minimum age for accessing social networks, this rule provides for the obligation for all mobile phones sold in Spain to include a parental control system.
This tool allows parents to set guidelines on the device for block access to certain content (such as pornography, gambling sites or violent videos) and usage limitations.
The era of digital consent in major European countries.
For example, the minor cannot surf the Internet at night, nor access certain networks for more than one hour per day.
Currently, the minimum age to open a social media account is 13 in Portugal, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Estonia and Malta.
They can do so from the age of 14 in Austria, Bulgaria, Italy and Lithuania (as so far in Spain).
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