LithuaniaLaw on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information, Arts. 4 and 7 (Content Classification and Age-Restricted Access)
In force since .
An adult content age verification (AV) rule binding public and private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- Applies to creators and disseminators of public information, including online media, video-on-demand and user-generated video; providers of public computer-network (internet) access; and producers or distributors of computer games.
- Do not disseminate information that harms minors (erotic content is one of the categories the Law lists, alongside violence, gambling promotion and self-harm) directly to minors; confine it to places minors cannot access or times they would not be using it.
- Alternatively, use technical measures that let the person responsible for a child's upbringing control the child's exposure, such as tools intended to verify a user's age, parental-control tools or content-filtering systems.
- Content that still reaches a general audience without such technical measures must carry an index and observe a broadcast-time band: 'S' 23:00 to 06:00, 'N-14' 21:00 to 06:00 (harmful to under-14s), and 'N-7' at any time (harmful to under-7s).
- Internet access providers: install and operate the content-filtering measures the Communications Regulatory Authority (Ryšių reguliavimo tarnyba, RRT) approves.
- Computer game producers and distributors: label each game by a user age threshold under the procedure the Government sets.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
Inspector (Žurnalistų etikos inspektorius, the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics) for the general regime, and the Communications Regulatory Authority (RRT) for the internet-access-provider filtering duty.
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Which technical means count under Article 7(1) of the Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information as means 'skirtas vartotojų amžiui patikrinti' (intended to verify users' age) for video-on-demand and user-generated video, when the article lists the means without a standard and offers tools for carers and content-filtering systems as alternatives?
What it reaches
Age threshold
18
Covered services
Creators and disseminators of public information, including online media, video-on-demand and user-generated video, subject to Lithuania's public-information law; providers of public computer-network (internet) access; and producers or distributors of computer games.
What it makes you log
Logging duty
Article 7 bars disseminating information harmful to minors directly to them unless access is restricted by place, time or technical means (including tools to verify a user's age), and requires indexes and broadcast-time bands for programmes, filtering by internet access providers and age labels for computer games. None of these requires a log or a record of age checks to be kept or produced. Article 7(4) leaves supervision of the filtering duty to the Communications Regulatory Authority. The Inspector's power in Article 9(3), point 6, to obtain information is outside Articles 4 and 7.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Article 4 classifies public information causing a negative effect on minors' mental or physical health or their physical, mental, spiritual or moral development. Content of an erotic nature is one of the categories the article lists, alongside violence, gambling promotion, self-harm, and other harmful subject matter.
A Constitutional Court ruling of held point 16 of Article 4(2), which covered information disparaging family values, contrary to the Constitution, and the Register of Legal Acts records the ruling as an amendment of that point dated . The restrictions, exceptions and prohibitions this Law sets apply to all public information, including advertising, commercial audiovisual messages, trailers, trademarks, user-generated video, and public events.
Article 7 bars disseminating such information directly to minors and confines it to places minors cannot access or times they would not be using it, unless the discloser instead uses technical measures that let a person responsible for a child's upbringing control the child's exposure, among them tools intended to verify a user's age, parental-control tools, or content-filtering systems.
Content still reaching a general audience without such technical measures must instead carry an index and observe a broadcast-time band.
Index 'S' runs from 23:00 to 06:00, index 'N-14' runs from 21:00 to 06:00 for content harmful to under-14s, and index 'N-7' applies at any time for content harmful to under-7s. A provider of public computer-network (internet) access must install and operate content-filtering measures the Communications Regulatory Authority (Ryšių reguliavimo tarnyba, RRT) approves, and RRT itself supervises that duty's implementation.
A computer game's producer or distributor must separately label the game by a user age threshold under Government-set procedure. Supervision of the Law's implementation generally rests with the Inspector (Žurnalistų etikos inspektorius, the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics). The Inspector may open administrative-offense proceedings under the Code of Administrative Offenses and impose an administrative penalty against a violator.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app publishes adult content.
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