Portugal's New Plan to Protect Kids Online: What Parents Need to Know

If you have children in Portugal, a new partnership between the country's media regulator and a leading university means you'll soon have better tools to protect them online—just as tougher age restrictions come into force. On April 9, the Entidade Reguladora para a Comunicação Social (ERC) signed a two-year cooperation agreement with the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at NOVA University Lisbon (NOVA FCSH). The partnership centers on the CriA.On platform (Children and Adolescents Online), a Portuguese-language research and outreach project that translates complex academic studies into practical guidance for parents, teachers, and anyone who works with young people. The collaboration signals that Portugal's regulatory apparatus is preparing to enforce the Digital Services Act (DSA) at the local level—with real consequences for how platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube operate here.

Why This Matters

• Portugal's Parliament recently approved a bill requiring parental consent for 13–16 year-olds to access social networks, with full bans for under-13s, and companies that ignore the rules risk fines of up to 2% of global revenue or €2M, whichever is higher. This directly affects how your family manages online access.

• Parents and educators gain a one-stop resource hub in Portuguese, organized by age group and theme, covering everything from algorithmic exposure to grooming risks.

• ERC will act as Portugal's competent authority for digital child safety under the DSA, which became fully enforceable in early 2024 and grants national regulators oversight of platform content moderation.

• The deal runs for two years and renews automatically, meaning sustained institutional attention on youth digital welfare through at least 2028.

What the Partnership Actually Does

At its core, the ERC–NOVA FCSH protocol formalizes a working relationship that blends regulatory muscle with cutting-edge research. The CriA.On platform, run jointly by the Institute of Communication (ICNOVA) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Social Sciences (CICS.NOVA), will collaborate with the ERC on media literacy campaigns, empirical studies, and public events.

ERC President Helena Sousa emphasized that the agreement arrives at a pivotal moment. "This partnership gains even greater importance in light of the responsibilities that the regulator is expected to assume as the competent authority for implementing the Digital Services Regulation," she noted in the announcement. That language is significant: under Portugal's DSA implementation law, passed in early 2025 and refined this year, the ERC holds designated authority over media content, commercial communications, and child protection in the digital realm.

NOVA FCSH Director Alexandra Curvelo underlined the academic payoff: "This partnership represents an opportunity to reinforce knowledge transfer to society with an important contribution to promoting media literacy, while also revealing the quality and social impact of our applied research."

The practical output will include co-produced awareness campaigns, joint research projects examining how minors interact with digital platforms, and workshops or seminars open to the public. The protocol explicitly envisions multi-year continuity—after the initial two years, it renews automatically unless one party opts out.

CriA.On: A Research Engine That Speaks Portuguese

Launched in February 2023 and coordinated by Professor Cristina Ponte, the CriA.On initiative was built to bridge the gap between dense academic literature and the everyday questions families and educators face. The platform organizes materials by age bracket (3–8, 9–12, 13+) and by topic—competencies, rights, well-being, risks, and internet usage patterns.

Key features include a multimedia journal with videos, podcasts, and researcher essays; a resource repository offering classroom activities, reading recommendations, and training programs; and an event calendar that flags conferences, webinars, and public debates. The platform maintains an active presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn, plus a dedicated podcast series.

Recent Portuguese research profiled by CriA.On reveals the scale of the challenge: a national study found that 61.1% of young people aged 10–21 encountered violent or self-harm content without seeking it out, and 67.1% reported feeling disturbed by what they saw online. Nearly half witnessed hate speech, and more than a third stumbled on drug-related material, self-harm instructions, or content promoting eating disorders. Alarmingly, 14.9% were exposed to content describing methods of suicide.

These figures underscore that algorithmic curation—not deliberate searching—drives much of the harmful exposure, a reality that regulators and platforms must now address under the DSA's risk-mitigation framework.

The Bigger Picture: Portugal Toughens Its Digital Rulebook

The ERC–NOVA partnership does not exist in isolation. It slots into a broader regulatory overhaul that accelerated in early 2026, positioning Portugal alongside other nations taking action on teen digital access. Australia recently passed legislation requiring platforms to enforce a minimum age of 16 for social media access, and the European Commission is developing a pan-EU age-verification tool that member states can adapt locally.

On February 12, Portugal's Parliament approved in first reading a bill that sets a digital minimum age of 16 for autonomous social media access. Teens between 13 and 16 can still participate if a parent or guardian grants consent, verified through the public Chave Móvel Digital identity system or an equivalent. Children under 13 face an outright ban. Technology providers must implement compatible age-verification systems, and companies that ignore the rules risk fines of up to 2% of global turnover or €2M, whichever is higher. The bill now moves to specialized committee discussion, with enactment expected later this year.

What is Chave Móvel Digital? It's Portugal's state-backed digital identity system, linked to your NIF (tax number) and mobile phone. If you live in Portugal and have a residency status, you can activate it through the Autenticação.gov.pt portal—it's the same credential you'll use for tax filings, banking, and soon, verifying parental consent for teen social media accounts. Expat families who haven't yet activated it should prioritize doing so before the new age-verification rules take effect, as this will become essential for managing your children's online access.

That legislative push dovetails with Portugal's DSA implementation structure. The National Communications Authority (ANACOM) serves as the country's Digital Services Coordinator, acting as the single point of contact with Brussels and the European Digital Services Board. The ERC and the National Data Protection Commission (CNPD) function as competent authorities in their respective domains—media content and personal data—with formal cooperation protocols requiring information-sharing and joint oversight.

In March 2026, the ERC issued guidance urging Portuguese news organizations to file declarations with Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The move ensures that media outlets benefit from special safeguards under the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) against unjustified content removal, demonstrating how Portugal's digital rulebook now spans both platform accountability and press freedom.

What This Means for Residents

For parents and guardians, the partnership translates into a centralized, Portuguese-language repository of vetted advice, training modules, and age-appropriate activities. Instead of sifting through Anglo-centric parenting blogs or platform help pages written in legal jargon, families can access research-backed guidance tailored to the Portuguese context and grounded in local and EU data. With the new consent requirements coming into force, having access to this resource hub will help you make informed decisions about your children's digital access.

For educators and youth workers, the collaboration offers structured curricula and event programming that aligns with Portugal's National Strategy for Children's Rights (2025–2035), which prioritizes digital literacy and safe technology use. Teachers can integrate CriA.On materials into classroom discussions and request ERC-backed training sessions.

For platforms operating in Portugal, the message is unambiguous: the regulatory perimeter is tightening. The ERC now possesses both legal authority under the DSA and a direct research pipeline via NOVA FCSH. That combination means evidence-led enforcement, informed by real-time data on harmful content exposure and algorithmic behavior.

For expats and international residents, understanding this landscape is essential if you have school-age children. The Chave Móvel Digital requirement for age verification means that non-Portuguese families will need to engage with the national identity infrastructure or seek equivalent credential systems. The CriA.On platform, while in Portuguese, offers a valuable window into how local regulators and educators approach digital risk—context that may differ sharply from practices in North America, the UK, or elsewhere in Europe.

Next Steps

The immediate phase involves launching the first joint campaigns, defining research priorities for the coming academic year, and scheduling public events. Both institutions have committed to transparency: outputs from the partnership—studies, toolkits, and campaign materials—will be made publicly available through CriA.On and ERC channels.

For anyone raising or educating children in Portugal, this collaboration represents a tangible shift: digital child safety is no longer a peripheral concern handled by parents in isolation, but a coordinated national effort backed by regulatory authority, academic rigor, and European-level legal frameworks. The two-year timeline, with automatic renewal, ensures this won't be a one-off publicity exercise—it's infrastructure.