Internet & Online Safety · Colombia
Online safety & content laws in Colombia (2026)
Colombia shaded by its internet & online safety status
Online safety rules in Colombia: partial, under Ley 2489 de 2025 (Digital Safe Environments for Children and Adolescents); Law 679 of 2001 (Internet Protection Law); MinTIC (Ministry of ICT) and CRC (Communications Regulatory Commission) as primary regulators.
Colombia has a partial online safety framework anchored by sector-specific legislation rather than a DSA-style comprehensive law. Ley 2489 de 2025, enacted July 2025, imposes age-verification, privacy-by-design, parental-control, and bi-annual-reporting obligations on digital platforms with respect to minors. No general intermediary liability statute exists, and the internet is rated 'Free' by Freedom House (2025) with no systemic government censorship or blocking.
Key points
Enacted July 2025, this law requires digital platforms, apps, video games, and AI services to implement privacy-by-design, age-verification mechanisms, and parental-control tools, and to file bi-annual compliance reports with MinTIC. It establishes a shared-responsibility (corresponsabilidad) model involving the State, families, and platforms.
Unlike Brazil (Marco Civil da Internet, 2014), Colombia lacks a comprehensive intermediary liability statute governing third-party content on platforms. Bills have been introduced in Congress but none enacted as of mid-2026, leaving platform liability legally unsettled.
In 2026 MinTIC published a draft implementing decree specifying technical standards for age verification and safe digital environments under Ley 2489; Colombia's technology sector publicly raised concerns about implementation risks and compliance burdens.
The Communications Regulatory Commission (CRC) oversees internet services and audiovisual content; in 2025 it issued Resolutions 7810 and 7811 to consolidate and simplify the regulatory framework for communications and content providers, reducing reporting obligations for smaller ISPs effective January 2026.
Freedom House rated Colombia 'Free' online in 2025. The government does not block websites systematically; the Constitutional Court ruled in January 2025 that blocking a journalist from an official social media account constitutes censorship, and in May 2025 banned zero-rating practices by ISPs.
Law 679 of 2001 (the Internet Protection Law) prohibits online sexual exploitation of minors and imposes obligations on ISPs and content providers to prevent such material; it predates Ley 2489 and remains in force as a foundational child-protection instrument.
Timeline - major decisions & events
Colombia enacted its first dedicated children's online safety law, imposing co-responsibility obligations on the State, families, civil society, and digital platforms — including app developers, AI systems, and social media — to prevent cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content, and online sexual exploitation. MinTIC published a draft implementing presidential decree in December 2025.
Gestor Normativo — Función Pública (Colombia) ↗Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that zero-rating — offering selective free internet access for certain platforms — violates net neutrality and equality principles, prohibiting the practice. The ruling reinforces equal online access and prevents ISPs from favoring content providers that can afford preferential deals.
Freedom House — Freedom on the Net 2025 ↗Colombia's MinTIC and National Police announced that a joint digital enforcement campaign had blocked 13,330 web pages linked to cybercriminal activity as of April 2024, demonstrating growing state capacity for proactive online content enforcement and signalling an escalation in operational cybersecurity response.
Freedom House — Freedom on the Net 2024 ↗The National Council for Economic and Social Policy approved Colombia's first comprehensive national cybersecurity strategy, setting out a 2020–2022 action plan to strengthen digital security capabilities of citizens, government, and the private sector, update the governance framework for cyber incidents, and adapt to Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies.
Departamento Nacional de Planeación (DNP) ↗Colombia formally approved the Council of Europe's Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, the principal international treaty on computer crime. Ratification aligned Colombia's legal framework with international standards on cybercrime definitions and enabled binding cross-border law enforcement cooperation for online offences.
Secretaría del Senado de Colombia ↗Colombia's first dedicated cybercrime statute amended the Penal Code to criminalise unauthorized computer access, malware deployment, phishing, computer fraud, interception of data, and unlawful personal data capture. Sentences reach up to 120 months' imprisonment, making this the backbone of criminal enforcement for online offences in Colombia.
Secretaría del Senado de Colombia ↗Colombia - other topics
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