Brazil pushes ahead on legislation for ‘reliable age and identity verification’

Lawmakers in Brazil have introduced a new bill to establish protections for children in digital environments, which includes provisions outlining age verification measures and design requirements for digital service providers.

A description of PL 3910/2025 explains that, under Article 24-A, “platforms not designed for minors must implement mechanisms to actively prevent underage access, ensuring children and adolescents cannot use unsuitable services.” These mechanisms can include biometric age assurance technologies.

Article 24-B requires providers “targeting or accessible to minors” to conduct risk assessments that evaluate potential impacts on youth safety and health. “They must ensure content aligns with appropriate age classifications and implement safeguards to block illegal or harmful material, including content that promotes inappropriate adultisation or sexualisation.”

Article 24-C “mandates that platforms hosting pornographic content enforce age barriers, prohibiting minors from accessing or creating accounts. To ensure compliance, statute 1 requires reliable age and identity verification mechanisms. Statute 2 restricts the use of collected verification data solely for age confirmation, prohibiting its processing for any other purpose.”

Fines for noncompliance can go up to 10 percent of an organization’s revenue or per-user fines capped at 50 million Brazilian Real (around 9.1 million dollars). Collected funds go to the National Fund for Children and Adolescents.

For some kids in Brazil, social media is a job

Meanwhile, Brazil’s National Congress is set to vote on a separate (older) bill, 2628/22, which demands the immediate removal of illegal content from platforms hosting it. The law would affect social media platforms, online games and other digital services, making Big Tech liable for violations, including content featuring sexual abuse, exploitation, violence, religious intolerance and racism. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva supports the approval of the bill, and has two more related pieces of legislation on deck.

The dangers young people face online are of major concern to Brazilians, where 95 percent of children and adolescents aged 9 to 17 are connected to the internet. Agência Brasil cites a survey from April 2025 showing that 90 percent of Brazilians over the age of 18 who have access to the internet believe adolescents “do not receive the emotional and social support they need to deal with the digital environment – especially social networks.”

A notable finding in the survey is that kids tend to be monitored, via parental guidance or apps, until around 12. Use falls off between 13 and 17.

According to an article in Rest of World, 83 percent of Brazilians aged nine to 17 have social media and WhatsApp accounts, and the country is seeing an uptick in aspiring “kidfluencers,” young creators who are cashing in – illegally, under child labor laws – through TikTok, Instagram and other platforms, which are increasingly engines for labor.

Brazil reportedly has the most social media influencers in the world. A report by DeepLab estimates that nearly 13 percent of Brazilians use Instagram for commercial purposes. The country recently raised the minimum age of Instagram users from 14 to 16 years, on the grounds that the Meta-owned platform frequently “exposes users to scenes of sex, nudity, violence, and drug use.”

Article Topics

age verification  |  biometrics  |  Brazil  |  digital identity  |  identity verification  |  legislation  |  social media