Safe Digital Environments Law

The Safe Digital Environments Law (in Spanish: Ley de Entornos Digitales Seguros) is a proposed legislation in Chile for restricting users under 14 to create social media accounts without parental consent, implementing age verification methods on social media platforms, and implementing algorithm and addictive regulations on them.

Many countries have implemented age verification systems to block adult content (like the UK Online Safety Act) and social media bans for minors, such as Malaysia with the Malaysia Online Safety Act 2025 (ONSA), Australia already having an enforced legislation for banning social media for under-16, and the European Union proposing to do similar restrictions under the EU KIDS Act. Following this, the Chilean government announced in April 2026 the Safe Digital Environments plan to implement age verification methods to prevent users under 14 to access social media and users over 14 and under 18 to have restricted access to them. Originally, the plan was to implement a social media ban for users under 16 ^[1][2]

For the process of making the legislation, the Chilean government is currently using as a reference the legislations that have been enacted or proposed in Brazil, Australia, France, Spain and the European Union. ^[3]

The first proposals from the ministry pointed to add mandatory age verification to sites and applications that are social media to prevent underage users to access them. The Social Development & Family Minister, María Jesús Wulf, mentioned there are plans of adding age verification systems implementing the national digital credential system, Clave Única, in order to access to social media. Proposals also include to add home and school capacitations to teach about the risks of the internet.^[4]

The project consists of a consolidated bill including 5 bills (18246, 18318, 18224, 18415). The Executive granted the Safe Digital Environments project the "high urgency" status on August 17th, 2026.^[5]

The bill 18246-19 (Boletín 18246-19) was introduced on October 5th, 2026, and it's currently in the process of first constitutional procedure in the Senate.

The bill has proposed the following for social media and digital platforms:

• Prohibiting minors under the age of 14 to create social media accounts without parental consent, and if parents have given their consent, include a verification method to confirm this consent (which hasn't been specified yet, so this might involve into submitting personal or sensitive data) and provide parental supervision tools to monitor the minor's activity.
• Mandate the implementation of age verification methods in social media to determine with certainity a user's age with privacy-preserving methods and the implementations to make the platforms safe-by-design.
• Age-gating users on three age brackets: Under 14, 14-18 and over 18.

"Social media or digital platform" are defined as following:

Every service that allows users to create profiles, publish content and engage with other users in a public or semi-public manner, including social media, video-exchanging platforms and analog services. Private messaging, e-mail services and platforms with exclusive purpose of being educative are excluded.

According to this quote, online games and forums might be considered under the social media or digital platform category because they allow to create profiles, publish content and engage with others in a public or semi-public manner.

"Age verification mechanisms" is defined as following:

Technical procedure that allows with reasonable certainity the user's age group, preserving proportionality, data minimizing and privacy principles.

There's currently no detailed information about how the age verification mechanism would work, so it is possible that platforms might be using controversial methods to verify users' age like submitting an ID, doing a face scan or implementing a system involving Clave Única, like it was mentioned in first proposals.

"Parental supervision" is defined as following:

Group of tools that the platform provides to the father, mother or legal representative to monitor and manage the minor's activity in the service.

^[6]

The Bill 18318-19 (Boletín 18318-19) proposes algorithmic regulations for social media. It was introduced on June 2nd, 2026, marked as "Simple Urgency" and in the process of first constitutional procedure in the Deputy Chamber.^[7]

The Bill 18224-18 (Boletín 18224-18) establishes the basis for child and teen protection on social media and digital platforms. It was introduced on April 27th, 2026, marked as "Simple Urgency" and in the process of first constitutional procedure in the Deputy Chamber.^[8]

The Bill 18415-18 (Boletín 18415-18) mandates to implement age brackets to social media. It was introduced on June 23rd, 2026, marked as "Simple Urgency" and in the process of first constitutional procedure in the Deputy Chamber.^[9]

If the bill follows the idea of applying any kind of restriction to access social media or to any site, it might be incompatible with the Chilean constitution and the Net Neutrality Law. If other privacy-invasive methods are used, age verification methods would conflict with the Personal Data Protection Law when enforced.

According to the Chapter III, Article 19, section 12 of the Chilean Politic Constitution of the Republic, that mentions constitutional rights and duties:^[10]

12°. The freedom to emit opinion and informing, without previous censorship, in any form and in any media, without the prejudice to respond to crimes and abuse that are commited in the excercise of these liberties in conformity to the law, that must be qualified quorum.

The law cannot in any case to establish a statal monopoly over social communication media.

If the restriction to access to social media is imposed with only using Clave Única for verifying age as the alternative to do so, this would result into something that might fit into a statal monopoly and as a form of censorship as well, because it blocks underage users, does not allow any adult that does not want to verify their age and controls who can and cannot access to social media, something that can be considered as social communication media.

With the Net Neutrality Law, there's a conflict with the first dictated core principle of this legislation, that states network services or applications that offer connectivity or communication between users cannot arbitrarily block, interfere, discriminate, hinder, nor restrict the right of any Internet user to use, send, receive or offer any legal content through Internet, including any legal activity or usage done trough the network.

The imposition of a restriction to access to social media or any other site without the user's petition is defined as arbitrary, and it does exactly what this law is prohibiting:

• Blocks and restricts the access of any user that is under a certain age or any adult that wants to access restricted websites but wants to keep their privacy and doesn't want to verify their age.
• It interferes and hinders the ability to access freely access the internet by applying a block that can be only removed by verifying age or by finding any workaround.
• It discriminates, prohibiting the access to underage users or any user who wants to keep their privacy. Age verification methods might provide difficulties to elder or disabled people. Clave Única already has caused difficulties for elder people to access statal benefits.^[11]

Experts claim the possibility to implement such age verification systems in the country is something difficult and pretty complex to be achieved, along with the implementation of Clave Única as the method of age verification raises privacy concerns as the statal system is tied with a person's identity.^[12][13]

Johannes Kaiser, representative of the National Libertarian Party (PNL), has manifested his opposition about the proposed plan, responding and claiming the addition of these restrictions are violating the rights of privacy and freedom of speech, and granting the State to mass surveil Chilean citizens on the network.^[14][15]

The legislation project has received mixed responses and generated a broad debate in media, with some users approving it and other rejecting and critizicing its effectiveness.

Several users in social media have manifested their concerns involving the possibility the system is used for surveillance and control, censorship, the risks of data breaches and credential theft, the erosion of consumer rights and the right of privacy, and the freedom to access to information on the net. Some users also have higlighted the parental controls exist, and parents should be responsible to control, educate and moderate what their children do online, instead of the State.

Groups of users on Reddit, specially in the r/chile subreddit, have manifested their opposition with the plan, along with concerns about privacy, risks of data breaches, censorship concerns and concerns about the potential expansion of the ban to more sites of the internet, as the project is looking to follow similar international legislations. Some users have also highlighted the incompatibility of the project with the Net Neutrality Law.^[16][17][18]

According to María Jesús Wulf, the bill has "no objective to limit or restrict childrens' own liberties and rights, but protecting them from harassment and harmful influences online". Also she claims the implementations of ClaveÚnica are only "to verify age and not identity".^[19][20]