Internet & Online Safety · Chile
Online safety & content laws in Chile (2026)
Chile shaded by its internet & online safety status
Online safety rules in Chile: partial, under No comprehensive online-safety act in force; existing rules derive from conditional intermediary-liability doctrine (Law 19.733 / civil-code jurisprudence), the Framework Cybersecurity Law (Ley 21.663, in force January 2025), and the new Data Protection Law (Ley 21.719, enacted December 2024). Multiple bills, including a broad digital-platforms bill (Boletín 14.561-19) and two minors-online-protection bills, are advancing through Congress as of mid-2026..
Chile is rated one of the world's freest online environments (Freedom House score 86/100, 2024) with no state censorship and no comprehensive platform-regulation law equivalent to the EU DSA or UK OSA. Existing platform liability is conditional: ISPs and platforms are shielded from liability for third-party content unless they fail to comply with a court removal order within the required timeframe. A cluster of proposed legislation working through Congress in 2025-2026 would create duties around content transparency, appeals, minors' access to social media, and algorithmic disclosure, but none has been enacted yet.
Key points
Freedom House's Freedom on the Net 2024 report rated Chile Free with a score of 86/100, tying with Canada as the third-freest online environment globally. Authorities do not block or filter political, social, or religious content, and infrastructure is open.
Under existing law, ISPs and digital platforms bear no liability for user-generated content unless they fail to comply with a binding court order to remove it within the specified deadline. There is no notice-and-takedown regime imposing proactive content-moderation duties.
Ley Marco de Ciberseguridad (Law 21.663) entered into force on 1 January 2025, establishing the autonomous National Cybersecurity Agency (ANCI) to regulate and supervise cybersecurity standards for operators of critical services, both public and private. This is the primary in-force digital-regulation milestone.
Law 21.719, published December 2024, modernises Chile's privacy framework along GDPR lines and introduces a children/adolescent distinction requiring parental consent for processing data of those aged 16 and under. Full compliance obligations take effect in December 2026.
Bill 14.561-19, introduced in 2021 and approved in general by the Senate in August 2025, would require large platforms operating in Chile to maintain a local legal representative, disclose content-moderation criteria, provide users an appeal mechanism against removals, and explain algorithmic curation. It remains in detailed committee debate as of mid-2026.
At least two parallel bills introduced in early-to-mid 2026 would restrict under-16 access to social networks, live-streaming platforms, AI chatbots, gambling sites, and adult-content services. The government's 'Entornos Digitales Seguros' bill and the cross-party 'Protección Digital Infantil' bill both impose platform obligations including age-verification duties, complaint channels, and time-limited investigations, but neither is yet law.
Timeline - major decisions & events
The operative provisions of Law 21.663 take effect, making ANCI (Agencia Nacional de Ciberseguridad) functional as Latin America's first dedicated national cybersecurity regulator, with authority to issue binding regulations, conduct audits, and sanction critical infrastructure operators in both public and private sectors.
Agencia Nacional de Ciberseguridad (ANCI) ↗Published in the Official Gazette, Law 21.719 comprehensively replaces the 1999 Law 19.628: it creates an independent Agencia de Protección de Datos Personales (APDP) with sanctioning powers up to 4% of annual turnover, mandates breach notification, expands data-subject rights (ARCO+), and sets a path for EU adequacy recognition. Enters into force December 1, 2026.
Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile ↗Law 21.459 repealed and replaced the outdated 1993 Law 19.223, criminalising unlawful access, interception, computer sabotage, malware trafficking, credential abuse, and computer fraud; it also extended corporate criminal liability and introduced aggravated penalties when victims are minors. The reform fulfilled Chile's commitments under the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime.
Agencia Nacional de Ciberseguridad (ANCI) ↗Law 21.096 amended Article 19 No. 4 of the Chilean Constitution to explicitly recognise personal data protection as a fundamental right, providing the constitutional foundation needed for the subsequent GDPR-equivalent legislative overhaul (Law 21.719) and European adequacy discussions.
Future of Privacy Forum ↗Law 20.526 amended Article 366 quáter of the Penal Code to criminalise grooming, exposing children aged 14 or under to sexual acts or pornographic material for the offender's or a third party's gratification, explicitly covering conduct carried out through digital and online means.
Council of Europe — Cyberviolence Country Wiki ↗Law 19.628 on the Protection of Private Life established the first general data-protection framework in Chile, creating data-subject rights and obligations for data controllers. Critically, it created no independent enforcement authority, a structural gap that persisted for 25 years until Law 21.719 in 2024.
DLA Piper Data Protection Laws of the World ↗Chile became a regional pioneer by enacting Law 19.223, which criminalised computer sabotage and computer espionage in four articles drafted before the mass-market internet era. Though groundbreaking for its time, the law remained unchanged for nearly three decades until it was superseded by Law 21.459 in 2022.
Agencia Nacional de Ciberseguridad (ANCI) — Normativa ↗Chile - other topics
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