Internet & Online Safety · Norway
Internet & Online Safety - Norway
Norway, an EEA (non-EU) state, does not yet have a comprehensive online-safety/platform-regulation regime in force; the EU Digital Services Act is being transposed via a proposed national Act on Digital Services that completed public consultation on 1 October 2025 and is expected to apply from summer 2026. A separate bill imposing a social-media age limit (access from 1 January of the year a child turns 16) with platform-side age-verification duties is heading to Parliament, though it is not expected to take effect before 2027. Until these enter into force, online activity is governed by partial rules: intermediary-liability provisions of the e-Commerce Act and the 2020 Media Liability Act.
The Ministry of Digitalisation circulated a draft Act on Digital Services for consultation (deadline 1 October 2025) incorporating the DSA largely as-is, with supplementary obligations such as a duty on hosting providers to report suspected criminal content to police; the Government aims for it to apply from summer 2026.
Nkom (Norwegian Communications Authority) is to be the national Digital Services Coordinator, with the Norwegian Media Authority (Medietilsynet), the Data Protection Authority (Datatilsynet) and the Consumer Council assigned competence in their respective fields.
The Government will present a bill setting an absolute age limit for social media, with access permitted from 1 January of the year a child turns 16; it follows a public-consultation proposal (originally age 15) and targets platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and Facebook.
Under the proposal, technology companies (not users) bear responsibility for verifying users' age at login; the Government is also raising the GDPR age of consent for information-society services to 15. EEA notification is planned before summer 2026 and rules are not expected to take effect before 2027.
The proposed Act on Digital Services adds mechanisms to make reporting illegal content easier, restrict manipulative 'dark pattern' design, and ban targeted advertising directed at children and young people, mirroring DSA obligations scaled to platform size (including VLOPs).
Pending the DSA Act, online intermediaries are subject to the limited-liability rules of Norway's e-Commerce Act (implementing the EU e-Commerce Directive), while editorial/publisher responsibility for online media is governed by the Media Liability Act (medieansvarsloven), in force since 1 July 2020.
Machine-assisted translation · verified 5/23/2026 · orientation, not legal advice. English version →