TurkeyRegulation on Differentiated Services for Children and Age Verification by Social Network Providers
Social Network Provider Age Verification Regulation (Yönetmelik) Resmî Gazete No. 33396, , implementing Law No. 5651, Ek Madde 4(7), (20) and (25)
In force since .
A social media and minors rule binding private bodies.
As of .
What it requires
- Binds a social network provider, meaning a person that enables users to create, view or share content such as text, images, sound or location for social interaction, accessible from Turkey and based in Turkey or abroad (Articles 2 and 4(1)(e)). The Regulation sets no daily-access threshold.
- Do not provide the service to a child who has not completed fifteen years of age (Article 5(1)).
- Verify each user's age at account creation with an age verification token generated through the e-Devlet Kapısı, which states only whether the user has completed fifteen and, if so, eighteen years of age, and use the token for no other purpose (Articles 6(2) and 7(1)).
- Reject an account-opening request from a user found not to have completed fifteen years of age, and suspend an account on reasonable suspicion that it is used outside its verified age range until a new token verification is made (Article 6(3) and (4)(a)).
- For a user verified as having completed fifteen years of age, offer a differentiated service: high privacy settings by default, private accounts by default, no live broadcasting, no interface that serves visual content in automatic or swipe-driven sequence, and no profiling or personalized commercial advertising (Article 8(2) and (5)).
- Publish the measures taken for the differentiated service on your own website (Article 8(6)).
- Provide clear, understandable and easy-to-use parental control tools that include at least account and feature settings, parental approval of paid transactions with a spending limit, and monitoring and limiting of usage time and location sharing (Article 9(1) and (3)).
- Offer a free, accessible appeal mechanism in Turkish for age verification results, account suspensions and differentiated-service measures, with human review of each appeal (Article 10(1) and (3)).
- By , verify at least once with a token each account opened before the Regulation's start date that was not verified with one; close with notice an account found to belong to a child under fifteen, and place the account of a child found to have completed fifteen under the differentiated service (Transitional Article 1).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text, as of .
What it reaches
Covered services
A social network provider accessible from Turkey, whether based in Turkey or abroad: a person that enables users to create, view or share content such as text, images, sound or location for social interaction. The Regulation states no daily-access threshold.
Obligation class
Age verification, Prohibition, Design code
What this law does
The Regulation on the Provision of Differentiated Services Specific to Children and on Age Verification by Social Network Providers, issued by the Cybersecurity Presidency (Siber Güvenlik Başkanlığı) and published in Resmî Gazete No. 33396 of , implements paragraphs 7, 20 and 25 of Additional Article 4 of Law No. 5651.
It covers social network providers accessible from Turkey, whether based in Turkey or abroad, and sets no daily-access threshold for them, so it does not narrow the providers that paragraph 7 of Additional Article 4 reaches. A provider may not provide its service to a child who has not completed fifteen years of age, and must verify a user's age at account creation with an age verification token.
The token is generated through the e-Devlet Kapısı at the user's request and states only whether the user has completed fifteen and, if so, eighteen years of age. A user who is not resident in Turkey and is only temporarily present is exempt from the age verification controls.
For users verified as having completed fifteen years of age, the provider must offer a differentiated service with high privacy settings by default, private accounts by default, no live broadcasting, no interface that serves visual content in automatic or swipe-driven sequence, and no profiling or personalized commercial advertising, and must publish the measures taken on its own website.
The provider must also supply parental control tools and a free, accessible appeal mechanism in Turkish that includes human review. Breach of the Regulation's duties is sanctioned under the provisions of Additional Article 4 of Law No. 5651, after the provider is notified and given a reasonable period to remedy the breach.
By , a provider must verify with a token, at least once, each account opened before the Regulation's start date that was not verified with one, close with notice an account found to belong to a child under fifteen, and place the account of a child found to have completed fifteen under the differentiated service.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform.