The Social Ministry of Lower Saxony plans to reform the Child Labor Protection Act to provide better safeguards for children and adolescents operating within social media platforms. Social Minister Andreas Philippi announced on Tuesday that he intends to launch a new proposal through the Bundesrat.
According to the SPD politician, the Child Labor Protection Act from 1976 is no longer adequate for the current, modern forms of labor, either in its terminology or its legal requirements. Children are increasingly featured on social media-often presented by their parents-and there is a growing number of online channels or accounts in Germany that employ children as public faces. These content creators often generate income by linking videos, which sometimes take a documentary style, with promotional sequences or by incorporating product placements. Philippi emphasized that significant money is earned from the portrayal of children online, and current provisions are insufficient to protect children’s rights.
The Minister stated that to ensure the protection of young people, supervisory authorities must be equipped to mandate and implement the necessary protective measures. He urged the federal government to amend the Child Labor Protection Act to ensure that responsible regulatory bodies can legally enforce required labor protection standards, even concerning activities conducted on social media.
Furthermore, there remains significant legal uncertainty regarding when parents can grant consent to share their children’s images, videos, or other information on the internet. This lack of clarity causes considerable distress. Philippi called for clearer and more easily applicable regulations concerning the effective consent of guardians for publishing their child’s personal data.
Addressing the industry itself, the Social Ministry also plans to address social media providers, pressing for the effective enforcement of deletion obligations concerning privacy violations, breaches of child labor protection standards, and failure to comply with impressum requirements. The federal government could implement these necessary legal obligations through the Digital Services Act. Minister Philippi concluded by reiterating that children and adolescents must be protected more thoroughly, and he expects the federal government to initiate changes to the Child Labor Protection Act without delay.
