Mexico Introduces New Child Safety Obligations for Digital Platforms

Mexico's government published the Decree on Safe Digital Environments for Children and Adolescents in the Official Gazette of the Federation on October 14, 2026, introducing mandatory requirements for digital platforms aimed at protecting users under 18 from harmful online content.

This Holland & Knight alert summarizes the decree's key provisions and recommends steps to ensure compliance.

Scope of Application

The decree broadly defines digital platforms as intermediary services provided over the internet that enable users to interact, communicate, generate, distribute or share content. This includes services intended to offer, provide, sell or facilitate the provision of goods, services, applications, products or content. The definition encompasses social media, video games and app stores but is not limited to those services. Online marketplaces and other digital services incorporating user interaction or content-sharing functionalities may also fall within its scope.

The decree does not establish exemptions based on platform size, number of users or the extent to which user interaction is incidental to a service. However, whether a particular service qualifies as a digital platform requires consideration of its actual functionalities.

Although the decree provides that its provisions are mandatory throughout Mexico, it does not expressly establish the criteria for determining whether foreign platforms fall within its scope. Accordingly, the decree's application to foreign platforms actively serving Mexican users appears more readily supported than its application to services merely accessible from Mexico.

Key Obligations

Under the decree, digital platforms must:

• Restrict Harmful Content. This includes preventing minors from accessing, being exposed to or receiving recommendations for content promoting harassment, cyberbullying, sexual abuse or exploitation, hate speech, violent extremism or mass violence, violence or hatred (particularly in school environments), unlawful conduct or its glorification, pornography or sexually explicit material, suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.
• Verify Users' Ages. Implementing reliable and secure mechanisms to identify users' ages is crucial, as self-declaration of age alone is deemed insufficient.
• Identify and Remove Harmful Content. Platforms must establish and publish criteria for identifying and removing accounts or content that fall within the prohibited categories, including age-based content classification and moderation criteria. Following these criteria, platforms must implement the necessary technical mechanisms and immediately remove accounts or content that generate or promote such prohibited material.
• Implement Parental Controls and Safety Settings. Platforms are required to provide parental supervision tools, incorporate child safety into platform design and activate the strictest available privacy and security settings by default when new accounts are created to prevent minors from accessing prohibited content.
• Provide Reporting Mechanisms. The decree requires visible, accessible and continuously available tools allowing users to promptly report accounts or content falling within the prohibited categories.
• Conduct Risk Assessments and Submit Reports. Platforms must periodically assess risks associated with its design, functionalities, recommendation systems, user interactions and service characteristics that may affect minors and adopt reasonable measures to prevent or mitigate those risks. Platforms must also prepare and periodically share statistical reports on prohibited content patterns and trends with the competent authorities.
• Cooperate with Authorities. Platforms are asked to maintain a specialized point of contact available 24/7 to respond to information requests from competent judicial and prosecutorial authorities, with the technical capacity to act immediately in relation to user-generated content. Platforms must also preserve digital evidence for at least 90 business days following the removal of accounts or content and immediately alert competent national authorities to any accounts or content that threaten minors' lives, dignity, safety, integrity or privacy.

Implementation and Enforcement

The decree took effect on October 14, 2026. To ensure compliance, platforms must document and report their implementation of the decree's measures within 30 calendar days, making November 13, 2026, the initial reporting deadline.

Although the decree establishes mandatory obligations, it does not provide a specific administrative penalty regime for noncompliance. The decree also does not specify the authority to which the initial reports must be submitted or prescribe a reporting format.

How Does Mexico's Approach Compare with the European Union's?

The decree shares certain objectives with the European Union's (EU) Digital Services Act (DSA), particularly the objective of protecting minors from harmful online content. However, the two frameworks differ in their scope, territorial application and regulatory requirements.

Services Covered

The DSA distinguishes between different categories of intermediary services, including transmission, caching and hosting services. Online platforms constitute a specific category of hosting services that store and disseminate information to the public at the request of service recipients. This includes social networks and online marketplaces, but not necessarily services that primarily distribute their own content. The distinction is significant because the DSA imposes different obligations depending on the nature and size of the service. It also expressly excludes from the definition of online platforms certain services where public dissemination is merely a minor and ancillary functionality.

Mexico's decree does not adopt these distinctions. Its definition of digital platforms focuses more broadly on services enabling interaction, communication or content sharing among users, without expressly requiring the public dissemination of information supplied by service recipients or excluding incidental functionalities.

Territorial Application

The DSA applies to intermediary services offered in the EU, including by foreign providers, where there is a substantial connection to the EU. Mere technical accessibility is insufficient.

Mexico's decree does not establish comparable territorial criteria, leaving uncertainty regarding its application to foreign platforms that do not specifically target the Mexican market.

Regulatory Obligations

The DSA establishes differentiated requirements according to the service involved, with enhanced obligations for certain categories of platforms. Unlike Mexico's decree, it does not impose a general obligation on all online platforms to verify every user's age or immediately remove all categories of potentially harmful content. The DSA also expressly prohibits general monitoring obligations and provides procedural safeguards for content moderation decisions, including explanations and complaint mechanisms.

Although both frameworks seek to improve online safety, the DSA provides a more detailed classification of regulated services and corresponding obligations. Mexico's decree adopts a less differentiated approach, potentially extending comparable requirements to services with substantially different functions and risk profiles.

Recommendations

Digital platforms offering services in Mexico should review their existing procedures for age verification, content moderation, parental controls, data retention and cooperation with authorities. In addition, such platforms should assess whether technical or operational changes are required and prepare the documentation necessary to meet the 30-day reporting deadline.

For additional information or questions, please contact the author.

Information contained in this alert is for the general education and knowledge of our readers. It is not designed to be, and should not be used as, the sole source of information when analyzing and resolving a legal problem, and it should not be substituted for legal advice, which relies on a specific factual analysis. Moreover, the laws of each jurisdiction are different and are constantly changing. This information is not intended to create, and receipt of it does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. If you have specific questions regarding a particular fact situation, we urge you to consult the authors of this publication, your Holland & Knight representative or other competent legal counsel.