Internet & Online Safety · Spain
Internet & Online Safety - Spain
As an EU member state, Spain is bound by the directly-applicable Digital Services Act, a comprehensive content-moderation and online-safety regime that already imposes notice-and-action, transparency, illegal-content and minor-protection duties on platforms operating in Spain. However, Spain has not completed its national implementation: the CNMC was designated Digital Services Coordinator in January 2024 but Congress has repeatedly failed to pass the law granting it the inspection and sanctioning powers the DSA requires, prompting a European Commission infringement procedure. A pioneering Organic Law for the Protection of Minors in Digital Environments (raising the social-media age and mandating age verification) has been approved as a government bill but is still being debated in Congress and is not yet in force.
The Digital Services Act applies directly in Spain since 17 February 2024, setting comprehensive obligations on intermediaries and platforms (illegal-content notice-and-action, transparency reporting, risk mitigation for VLOPs, and protection of minors), enforced for the largest platforms directly by the European Commission.
The Ministry for Digital Transformation designated the Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC) as Spain's Digital Services Coordinator on 24 January 2024, responsible for supervising, investigating and sanctioning intermediary services established in Spain.
Spain has not enacted the legislation needed to grant the CNMC the full DSA enforcement powers; a PSOE-backed bill was defeated in Congress in April 2026, and the European Commission opened an infringement procedure (reasoned opinion December 2024) over Spain's failure to fully apply the DSA.
The Organic Law for the Protection of Minors in Digital Environments — raising the data-consent/social-media access age to 16, reforming the Criminal Code, and updating audiovisual rules — was approved by the Council of Ministers and sent to Congress as a Proyecto de Ley (25 March 2025); it remained in committee with amendments through late 2025 and is not yet enacted.
Spain has been a frontrunner on online age verification, publishing a technical specification for an age-assurance system and contributing its digital-wallet (Cartera Digital Beta) as a pilot for the EU's white-label age-verification app; mandatory age verification will become binding once the minors law passes, while privacy oversight rests with the AEPD.
Online audiovisual and video-sharing platforms are also covered by the General Audiovisual Communication Law (Ley 13/2022, transposing the EU AVMSD), supervised by the CNMC, while the AEPD handles data protection — creating a split competent-authority structure for online content and safety.
Machine-assisted translation · verified 5/25/2026 · orientation, not legal advice. English version →